雙語·當呼吸化為空氣 這就是塞拉高山營的暑假

這就是塞拉高山營的暑假。這里也許和其他高山營地沒什么不同，但我每一天都覺得充實美好，生機勃勃。我和不同的人與事物建立聯(lián)系，賦予自己生命豐富的意義。某些夜晚，我們一堆人會圍坐在餐廳桌邊，和營地的助理主管同飲威士忌。他叫莫，是斯坦福校友，暫時休學的英文博士。我們暢談文學，暢談壯年人生各種沉甸甸的責任。第二年他回去讀博士，后來寄給我自己發(fā)表的第一部短篇，寫的就是我們共度的那段時光：
This was summer at Sierra camp, perhaps no different from any other camp, but every day felt full of life, and of the relationships that give life meaning. Other nights found a group of us on the dining room deck, sipping whiskey with the assistant director of the camp, Mo, a Stanford alum taking a break from his English PhD, and discussing literature and the weighty matters of postadolescent life. The next year he returned to his PhD, and later he sent me his first published short story, summing up our time together:

此時此刻，電光石火，我明白了自己想要什么。我希望這里的工作人員能堆起柴堆……讓我的骨灰在風中飄落，與沙塵混雜；讓我的尸骨隨浮木一起漂流；讓我的牙齒消隱在沙土之間……我不相信孩子或長者的智慧。當下便是風口浪尖，人生積累的經(jīng)驗，被生存的細節(jié)磨損消耗。我們智慧的高峰，便是生活的當下。
Suddenly, now, I know what I want. I want the counselors to build a pyre. . . and let my ashes drop and mingle with the sand. Lose my bones amongst the driftwood, my teeth amongst the sand. . . I don’t believe in the wisdom of children, nor in the wisdom of the old. There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.

回到校園以后，我也沒有過多思念山中的歲月。校園生活豐富充實，接下來的兩年我也一直堅持探索，致力于更深入地了解精神世界。我學習文學與哲學，探究生活的意義；我學習神經(jīng)科學，在一個功能磁共振成像（fMRI）實驗室工作，了解大腦的運行機制，比如如何賦予一個有機體探索世界深意的能力，如何讓我和一群親密的朋友通過惡作劇加深友情。我們打扮成蒙古人，突襲學校食堂；我們建立了一個完全虛假的兄弟會，找了間房子，開展了一系列裝模作樣的開學活動；我們裝扮成大猩猩，在白金漢宮門前搔首弄姿；我們午夜闖入大學紀念教堂，躺在地上，聽我們的聲音在拱頂之間回蕩……如此種種，不一而足。（不過，接著我就讀到弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫曾經(jīng)喬裝成阿比西亞皇室成員登上一艘軍艦的軼事，再加上旁人的斥責，也就停止大肆吹噓我們那些微不足道的小把戲了。）
Back on campus, I didn’t miss the monkeys. Life felt rich and full, and over the next two years I kept at it, seeking a deeper understanding of a life of the mind. I studied literature and philosophy to understand what makes life meaningful, studied neuroscience and worked in an fMRI lab to understand how the brain could give rise to an organism capable of finding meaning in the world, and enriched my relationships with a circle of dear friends through various escapades. We raided the school cafeteria dressed as Mongols; created a full fake fraternity, complete with fake rush-week events, in our co-op house; posed in front of the gates at Buckingham Palace in a gorilla suit; broke into Memorial Church at mid-night to lie on our backs and listen to our voices echo in the apse; and so on. (Then I learned that Virginia Woolf once boarded a battleship dressed as Abyssinian royalty, and, duly chastened, stopped boasting about our trivial pranks.)