悠游度过一天的24小时：第四章 烦恼之源

CHAPTER IV The Cause Of The Troubles

第四章 烦恼之源

In order to come to grips at once with the question of time-expenditure in all its actuality, I must choose an individual case for examination. I can only deal with one case, and that case cannot be the average case, because there is no such case as the average case, just as there is no such man as the average man. Every man and every man's case is special.

为了能立即确切地把握时间消费这一问题，我必须作个案分析。我只能举一个例子，该例子不可能具有普遍性，因为不存在具有普遍性的例子，就像没有一个人能代表所有人。每个人和每个人的情况都有其特殊性。

But if I take the case of a Londoner who works in an office, whose office hours are from ten to six, and who spends fifty minutes morning and night in travelling between his house door and his office door, I shall have got as near to the average as facts permit. There are men who have to work longer for a living, but there are others who do not have to work so long.

但是如果我以伦敦某办公室职员为例，他上班朝十晚六，早晚各花50分钟往返于从家到办公室的路上，那么可以说这个例子已经很接近一般情形。有人为了生计工作得更久，但也有人不必工作这么久。

Fortunately the financial side of existence does not interest us here; for our present purpose the clerk at a pound a week is exactly as well off as the millionaire in Carlton House-terrace.

幸好经济状况不是我们的兴趣点；就我们当下的目的而言，周薪为一英镑的职员与卡尔顿官邸平台的百万富翁是一样的。

Now the great and profound mistake which my typical man makes in regard to his day is a mistake of general attitude, a mistake which vitiates and weakens two-thirds of his energies and interests. In the majority of instances he does not precisely feel a passion for his business; at best he does not dislike it. He begins his business functions with reluctance, as late as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as he can. And his engines while he is engaged in his business are seldom at their full "h.p.1" (I know that I shall be accused by angry readers of traducing the city worker; but I am pretty thoroughly acquainted with the City, and I stick to what I say.)

我说的这位典型人士在对待每天的时间问题时，最严重的错误在于总体态度不对，这种错误损耗和减弱了他三分之二的精力和兴趣。大多数情况下他对工作没有热情；充其量不过是不厌恶罢了。到实在不能推托的时候，他才勉勉强强开工，然后早早地结束工作，结束时他可是欢欢喜喜。工作时，他极少全力以赴（我知道愤怒的读者会指控我诋毁这个城市的工薪一族；但我确实相当熟悉这座城市，我仍然坚持这个观点）。

Yet in spite of all this he persists in looking upon those hours from ten to six as "the day," to which the ten hours preceding them and the six hours following them are nothing but a prologue and epilogue. Such an attitude, unconscious though it be, of course kills his interest in the odd sixteen hours, with the result that, even if he does not waste them, he does not count them; he regards them simply as margin.

尽管这样，他还是坚持把10点到6点这段时间看成“一天”，之前的十小时以及之后的六小时只不过是序曲和尾章而已。这种态度，或许他自己都没意识到，自然会磨灭他对这剩余16小时的兴趣。因此，即使他没有浪费这16小时，却也没加以重视，不过把那段时间当作余暇而已。

This general attitude is utterly illogical and unhealthy, since it formally gives the central prominence to a patch of time and a bunch of activities which the man's one idea is to "get through" and have "done with." If a man makes two-thirds of his existence subservient to onethird, for which admittedly he has no absolutely feverish zest, how can he hope to live fully and completely? He cannot.

这种态度完全缺乏逻辑，也不健康，因为这样一来生活重心就是那一段时间和那一连串的事情，当事人就一个想法，就是要“熬过去”和“完事”。如果一个人将时间的三分之二看成是另外三分之一的附庸，并且无可否认的是，在那三分之一的时间里他没有投入高度的热情，他又怎能指望过得充实美满？不可能。

If my typical man wishes to live fully and completely he must, in his mind, arrange a day within a day. And this inner day, a Chinese box2 in a larger Chinese box, must begin at 6 p.m. and end at 10 a.m. It is a day of sixteen hours; and during all these sixteen hours he has nothing whatever to do but cultivate his body and his soul and his fellow men. During those sixteen hours he is free; he is not a wage-earner; he is not preoccupied with monetary cares; he is just as good as a man with a private income. This must be his attitude. And his attitude is all important. His success in life (much more important than the amount of estate upon what his executors will have to pay estate duty) depends on it.

如果这位典型人士想过得充实美满，他脑子里必须在一天之内还安排一天。这个内在的一天就像大中国盒子中的小中国盒子，从下午6点到第二天早上10点，共有16小时。在这16个小时中，他要全部用来加强身心健康，结交朋友；在这16个小时中，他自由自在，不是上班族，不必为生计发愁；他跟有额外收入的人一样。他必须抱持这样的态度，这是非常重要的。他一生成功与否（远比他的财产数目更重要，他的遗嘱执行人还要据此缴纳遗产税）就取决与此。

What? You say that full energy given to those sixteen hours will lessen the value of the business eight? Not so. On the contrary, it will assuredly increase the value of the business eight. One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change—not rest, except in sleep.

什么？你说把全副精力投入到那16小时会降低8小时的工作效率？不然，正相反，这样会提高那8小时的工作效率。这位典型人士需要了解的主要事情之一即人的大脑能持续繁忙地工作，不会像手臂或大腿那样感到疲倦。大脑唯一需要的是调节——而不是休息，睡眠过程除外。

I shall now examine the typical man's current method of employing the sixteen hours that are entirely his, beginning with his uprising. I will merely indicate things which he does and which I think he ought not to do, postponing my suggestions for "planting" the times which I shall have cleared—as a settler clears spaces in a forest.

现在我将探究这位代表人物是如何安排那完全属于他的16小时的，从他起床开始。我只想指出他所做的事情，以及我认为他不该有的举动，暂不建议如何“安置”我即将清理出来的时间——就像拓荒者在森林里开辟土地一样。

In justice to him I must say that he wastes very little time before he leaves the house in the morning at 9.10. In too many houses he gets up at nine, breakfasts between 9.7 and 9.9 1/2, and then bolts. But immediately he bangs the front door his mental faculties, which are tireless, become idle. He walks to the station in a condition of mental coma. Arrived there, he usually has to wait for the train. On hundreds of suburban stations every morning you see men calmly strolling up and down platforms while railway companies unblushingly rob them of time, which is more than money. Hundreds of thousands of hours are thus lost every day simply because my typical man thinks so little of time that it has never occurred to him to take quite easy precautions against the risk of its loss.

平心而论，我必须说他早上9点10分离开家之前，他几乎没有浪费一点时间。很多人都是9点起床，在9点零7分到9点零9分半钟之间吃完早餐，然后锁门。然而一旦他哐地一声关上前门，他不知疲倦的大脑就闲下来了。他步行至车站的路上，头脑一片空白。走进车站后，通常得等会儿。每天早上在数百个地铁站里，你会看见人们在月台上悠哉游哉地踱来踱去，铁路公司毫不歉疚地掠夺他们比金钱还宝贵的时间。每天不计其数的时间就这么浪费了，就因为这个典型人士对时间如此无动于衷，从未想过采取一些相当简单的预防措施阻止时间的流逝。

He has a solid coin of time to spend every day—call it a sovereign3. He must get change for it, and in getting change he is content to lose heavily.

每天都是一块坚硬的时间硬币，可供他花费——就称它为一枚沙弗林金币吧。他必须把金币换成零钱，换零的过程中，他甘愿折损，哪怕折损很大。

Supposing that in selling him a ticket the company said, "We will change you a sovereign, but we shall charge you three halfpence for doing so," what would my typical man exclaim? Yet that is the equivalent of what the company does when it robs him of five minutes twice a day.

试想公司卖给他一张票后说：“我们为你兑换这枚金币，但我们要收取1.5便士的手续费。”这位典型人士会作怎样的抗议？可这与铁路公司每天两次夺去他五分钟并无二致。

You say I am dealing with minutiae. I am. And later on I will justify myself.

你说我所说的都是些琐事，的确如此，然而过后我会给你一个交代。

Now will you kindly buy your paper and step into the train?

现在就请买张报纸，踏上列车吧？

(1)马力，此处为horsepower缩写形式。

(2)中国盒子，来源于中国古代的一种设计，即将形状相同，尺寸逐渐变小的盒子套在一起。后被世界各地采用，如俄罗斯的“套娃”。此处为隐喻的用法。

(3)沙弗林金币，英国旧时的一镑金币，又称作君主金币。