The Importance of Living

最近在读是林语堂老先生的 生活的艺术。原版是英文的，The Importance of Living,1938年初版。我在读翻译版，中文的，40年上海书局出版，因为这样才可以看到他引用的经典的原文。不过不得不感叹哎，上世纪初，我国那帮著名知识分子对西方文化的了解熟悉程度，实在是惊人！他们不论是用哪一种语言著述都是十分优雅而精炼，再次膜拜及向往那个年代的人事物。。。m(-_-)m

我心目中的好书标准，就是会让我不由自主的看一句点一下头，看一页必须放下来整理思绪，什么时候都想翻出来读，导致在在上课时强忍笑意直到有内伤的书。生活的艺术 都做到了。
这不是一本说教的书，按时髦的话说，这更像是一场清谈。林老头（绝对没有失敬的意思！）翘了腿坐在我身侧躺椅上吸着烟斗，感受着“其中一切古老，纯熟，熏黄，熟炼的事物所带来的愉悦”。他不时歪过头，针对某个现象狂侃一通，他的态度是风趣的，他的口吻是有些自嘲的，我们的心情都是相当悠闲的。

悠闲。According to可爱的林老头（当然，他写书的时候还不是老头），人生应该追求的最高境界就是悠闲。我们活在世界上的绝对目的，没有人可以知晓。但是我们应该追求的理想生活是可以被讨论和比较的。他反对精神和肉体的分家，反对理想主义和现实主义的对立，反对螺丝钉理论，反对一本正经，反对走极端。

他说，人类社会的进步，只是把我们每个人寻求食物的过程搞得越来越复杂。鞋匠给医生修鞋，医生给厨师看病，鞋匠去光顾厨师的小馆子。在乡下努力地积蓄，是为了搬到城市赚更多的钱，好回到乡下过悠闲的日子。这个故事不是新事，渔夫和富翁版本的估计无人不知晓，不过大家仍然日继一日地把对自己生活的控制度承包出去，产生了更多的惶恐不安，于是再紧紧地抓住自己手心仅有的一点点，对别样生活的可能性视而不见。

我现在也是这么想的，当所有人都对世界都怀着一种爷爷看孙子那样怜惜，宽容，宠爱，自知时日有限，只望过的每一天都能乐呵呵，离开的时候不要留下不可弥补的遗憾，这样天下也许就太平了。

 

The Chinese philosopher is one who dreams with one eye open, who views life with love and sweet irony, who mixes his cynicism with a kindly tolerance, and who alternately wakes up from lifes dream and then nods again, feeling more alive when he is dreaming than when he is awake, thereby investing his waking life with a dream-world quality.
He sees with one eye closed and with one eye opened the futility of much that goes on around him and of his own endeavors, but barely retains enough sense of reality to determine to go through with it.

He is seldom disillusioned because he has no illusions, and seldom disappointed because he never had extravagant hopes.

In this way his spirit is emancipated.

 

不需要nirvana的虚无飘渺，不需要salvation的高调激扬,让我们转向投入和蔼的emancipation吧。

On time and distance,咫尺天涯

面对电脑越来越多的时间是在出神，以前觉得是阿里巴巴宝库的地方现在只像一个庞大空洞，积满灰尘，书籍，细碎杂物的房间。是时候了，站起来，看清楚自己在什么地方，伸手抓住一些切实的东西，触摸一些真实的人。网络的终极目的还是要回到现实。

A question of timing, and spacing.
It's impossible to hate someone who sits next to you ferociously.
Anyways, not more than five minutes at a time.
It's also impossible to uphold unrealistic expectations.
No guessing.
Only a comforting feeling of familiarity, like navigating a darkened room with your eyes closed, without once bumping into any of the sharp corners.

Months and Years.

Me? I am October.
I have auburn hair and brown eyes, average height, average build, average dose of ambition and depression.
In other words, nothing special. Not someone who will catch your eyes.
Unlike what you might expect, I don't like autumn and its crisp golden leaves, I am not that sentimental. I like blue skies though. A sky so blue, so clear, you can stare at it for hours without seeing a trace of cloud.
As you can see, I am not a big fan of words. If I pay too much attention to the words I use, I lose my train of thought.

I have been seeing this girl, November, a fragile little thing. Sometimes, when she gets all nervous and worked up, she reminds me of a baby mouse, small whiskers, tiny paws, shivering all over. I guess she's not what you call pretty, but we get along fine, most of the time. When we cuddle I feel complete.

We live on a street bordering the industrial park. The closest factories have run out of business for quite sometime, so we don't mind it too much. Our next-door neighbour is an old man with outdated manners. Mr. January. He wears this ancient hat and takes it off to salute everyone he passes. He has a dog that he calls Sergeant. Maybe it's just me, but this odd pair always seems to be in the middle of a heated argument whenever I came across them.

The janitor/manager of our building is a plump woman, Madame August. She's an immigrant from one of those southern countries and she still dresses in the same way as she did twenty years ago. I meant that in a good way. Now in her late-forties, she is never seen without her chunky jewellery and bold-coloured skirts. She smells like the South too. Warm and fruity. One day I saw her dancing to some rich-toned music, alone, in her office opening on the lobby.

I work in one of the more modern buildings downtown. I spend more than two hours commuting everyday. Believe me, those two hours are the most interesting two hours of my waking day. By logic, you would conclude that people are at their most defensive in public space. Wrong. On the trains, people are true to themselves. Maybe they don't think that someone is watching them. Maybe they don't care.

From my experience, people with the best clothes, which often imply the most important social functions, have the nastiest facial expressions when they doze off on the train, like they've just received a brutal slap in the face or something. I am not an essential worker to the society. I repair printers, photocopiers and other machines. An auxiliary worker, a technical assistant. Without me, the greater work of humanity would go on, maybe not as smoothly, but it would go on as soon as they fix that printer on floor B3.

Back to the trains. Every Tuesday and Thursday, a young girl, eleven or twelve, gets on two stations after me. The reason that I noticed her is simple: she is unnaturally beautiful. Beautiful in the way that only a cruel girl of eleven or twelve can be. Why I think she's cruel? It's a question of aura. Of course, by cruel I don't mean anything evil. The cruelty of a girl of eleven or twelve never extends to anything beyond herself. Is this weird to you, being cruel to oneself? A blind, secrete hatred fueled by inner explosions. She is not seeing herself for who she is. It will pass away with aging. Time cures cruelty, oh yes, it does. April will grow out of herself and see that she is beautiful.

My direct supervisor at work, September, is a determined man. Clean-cut, appropriate, responsible, a man of honour. If you talked with him, you would have believed that, under the sun, there's nothing more important than a well-functioning printing unit. I can totally picture him as a samurai, running in the fields with his sword held high, charging towards the unseen enemy. He battles the disorder of the Universe. I think highly of him. The world could use more men like him. He should have gone to law school or med school, a born professional.

My lunch break friend is May. May the godmother of all gossips, May the queen of happy hours. I don't know why she picked me to be her friend, out of all people. November says it's because I am a good listener. True enough, May never talked about anything other than herself. Her newly renovated bathroom, that fabulous dress that she absolutely adores, her plans for vacation, her nights out, her most recent hook-up, her insights in yoga and skin care, her relationship with her ailing mother, her anorexic and bulimic crisis, her fear that she is going to die alone. I smile and listen, sometimes I nod, sometimes I frown. That's what a good friend does. I wouldn't mind lending her my shoulder to cry on.

This weekend I am attending a family reunion chez Matante Decembre. Ah...all the christmassy memories...wet, loud kisses on the cheek and the best petits fours this side of the ocean. Uncle died six months ago, cancer. It`s the first time that we get together after that. These days, diseases previously unheard of are multiplying like crazy, mutating this, evolving that, fancy Latin names everywhere. But, I know, we all know, more die of heartbreak.

Mother and Father will be there as well. It's been ages. I've never lived up to their expectations. The story is too story-like to be true. June and July, the golden couple. They have flamboyant personalities and lead glamorous lives, I'd say far more interesting than the generic version that Hollywood boasts. They met when they were both on spiritual journeys in the Himalayas. They never married officially (that makes me illegitimate, I guess) and lived on different continents for months at a time, if not years. They have a solid reputation in the humanitarian circle and the academic world, known for their charitable works in Eastern Africa and Southern Asia, and for their numerous canonical publications in anthropology. Now, they are enjoying a quiet life of artistic creations, somewhere in the Caribbean.

With parents like that, but a son like me.
Salted butter that gave birth to bland margarine, the cheap kind of margarine.

"As long as you are happy, son," Father used to say to me, with an indulging look in his eyes. Mother would glance at him, her lips tightened, a sign of disapproval, but it quickly faded away.

Someone that I cannot wait to see is my little nephew Marchy. He drools and burps and steps on your toes. We all love him.
They grow up too fast.

Tonight, as I left the empty office building. I saw a man stepping out of an expensive car. He was a hunter, the type of men who never wear colours. Their world is black, white and shades of gray. He walked in a hurry and disappeared around the corner. The mysterious February.