译文及生词短语整理:朗读者小组
Translation
There's More to Life Than Being Happy
除了快乐之外,人生还有很多意义
Meaning comes fromthe pursuit ofmore complex things than happiness
人生的意义来自于追求比快乐更复杂(重要)的东西
By Emily Esfahani Smith
"It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness."
“正是由于过分追求快乐才得不到快乐”
In September 1942, Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, was arrested and transported to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, most of his family, including his pregnant wife, had perished-- but he, prisoner number 119104, had lived. In his best selling1946 book, Man's Search for Meaning, which he wrote in nine days about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning, an insight he came to early in life. When he was a high school student, one of his science teachers declared to the class, "Life is nothing more than a combustion process, a process of oxidation." Frankl jumped out ofhis chair and responded, "Sir, if this is so, then what can be the meaning of life?”
1942年9月,杰出的犹太裔心理学家、神经学家Viktor Frankl在维也纳被逮捕了,同他的妻子及父母一起被送往一个纳粹集中营。三年后,当他所在的集中营被解放的时候,他大部分的家人包括他之前已经怀孕的妻子已经被纳粹德国摧残死了,但是他自己活了下来,他在狱中的囚徒编号是119104。以他在集中营里的经历为蓝本,在他1946年花9天时间写就的畅销书《活出人生的意义》中,Frankl得出一个结论:那些已经活过的人与那些已经死亡的人之间的差别归根结底是因为一件事情——人生意义,而这个洞察他在年轻的时候就已经领悟到了。当他还是一个高中学生的时候,他的一个教授科学的老师对学生们说:“人生不过是一场燃烧过程,一个氧化的过程(估计中化学的毒太深)”。Frankl跳起来回应道:“老师,如果人生真如你所说的话,那么人生的意义到底是什么?”
As he saw in the camps, those who found meaning even in the most horrendous circumstances were far more resilient to suffering than those who did not. "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
他在集中营里看到,那些找到人生意义的人即使在最可怕的环境下,也比那些没有找到人生意义的人更能抵抗苦难的打击。Frankl在书中写到:“人所拥有的任何东西,都可以被剥夺,唯独人性最后的自由——也就是在任何境遇中选择一己态度和生活方式的自由——不能被剥夺。”
Frankl worked as a therapist in the camps, and in his book, he gives the example of two suicidal inmate she encountered there. Like many others in the camps, these two men were hopeless and thought that there was nothing more to expect from life, nothing to live for. "In both cases," Frankl writes, "it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them." For one man, it was his young child, who was then living in a foreign country. For the other, a scientist, it was a series of books that he needed to finish.
Frankl在狱中担任起了心理治疗师的角色,在书中他描述了遇到的两个企图自杀的狱友。就像很多其他在集中营中的人一样,这两个人也很绝望,他们觉得生活已经没有什么可期待的了,已经没有什么值得为之而活的了。Frankl写到:“在这两个案例中,解决问题的办法就是让他们意识到生活还有希望,未来还有事情需要他们去完成”。对其中一个人而言,希望(意义)就是他住在国外年幼的孩子;对另一个人而言,作为一个科学家他还有一系列的著作需要完成。
New words
1.thwart 英 [θwɔːt] 美 [θwɔrt]
vt. 挫败;反对
e.g. The security forces were doing all they could to thwart terrorists.
安全部队正尽其所能挫败恐怖分子。
2.prominent 英 ['prɒmɪnənt] 美 ['prɑmɪnənt]
adj. 显著的;杰出的
e.g. The newspapers gave prominent coverage to the news.
各报在显著位置上登载了这条消息。
3.neurologist 英 [,njʊə'rɒlədʒɪst] 美 [nʊ'rɑlədʒɪst]
n. 神经学家;神经科专门医师
e.g. The root of anything that can penetrate the human body triggers an ancestral fear, according to one neurologist.
一位神经学家说,任何能穿透人体的东西都能触发一种原始的恐惧。
4.Nazi ['nɑ:tsi, 'næ-]
n. 纳粹党人
e.g. What percentage of the audiences is Nazi?
观众中纳粹的百分率是多少?
5.perish 英 ['perɪʃ] 美 ['pɛrɪʃ]
vi. 死亡;毁灭;腐烂;枯萎
e.g. Most of the butterflies perish in the first frosts of autumn.
大多数蝴蝶在秋季初霜来临时死亡。
6.best selling
adj. 畅销的
e.g. Her bestselling novel is reprinting.
她的畅销小说正在重印中。
7.combustion 英 [kəm'bʌstʃ(ə)n] 美 [kəm'bʌstʃən]
n. 燃烧;氧化
e.g. This means it can use oxygen from the atmosphere for combustion instead of carrying it onboard.
这意味着它可以利用空气中的氧气进行燃烧,而不必随机携带氧气。
8.oxidation 英 [ɒksɪ'deɪʃ(ə)n] 美 [,ɑksə'deʃən]
n. [化学] 氧化
e.g. Gradually, his focus shifted to the more general damage that oxidation can do—and what might, in turn, be done about it.
逐渐地,他把注意力转移到氧化所造成的更普遍的伤害上,并琢磨怎样才能对付这一过程
9.horrendous 英 [hɒ'rendəs] 美 [hɔ'rendəs]
adj. 可怕的;惊人的
e.g. He described it as the most horrendous experience of his life.
他把那件事形容为他生活中最恐怖的经历。
10.suicidal 英 [s(j)uːɪ'saɪd(ə)l] 美 ['sʊə'saɪdl]
adj. 自杀的
e.g. I was suicidal and just couldn't stop crying.
我想自杀,并忍不住地哭泣。
11.inmate 英 ['ɪnmeɪt] 美 ['ɪnmet]
n. (尤指)同院病人;同狱犯人;
e.g. Here, a comely woman coach jogs alongside an inmate in the prison yard.
这儿,一个清秀的女子教练一起和犯人在监狱院子里慢跑。
Phrases
1.the pursuit of追求……
2.concentration camp集中营
3.came down to归根结底,可归结为;实质上是
4.nothing more than不过是;无非是
5.jumped out of跳出来
6.supplementary material:
文中Viktor Frankl的名句的翻译来源于笑来老师的《把时间当做朋友》,推荐大家阅读。
另外笑来老师也写了一篇专栏《你的生命中最终要的东西-希望》,专门讲了笑来老师对希望的解读,有兴趣的读者可以留言,我们把阅读连接发给你。
本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用,谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后,删除文章。