我为什么活着

What I Have Lived For
Bertrand Russell

 

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love ,the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it , next, because it relieves loneliness-- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world , into the cold

unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what -- at last -- I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much I have achieved.
Love and knowlidge , so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of lonelines, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

我为什么活着（罗素）

三股简单而非凡强烈的激情一直控制着我的一生：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求和对人类苦难不堪忍受的怜悯。这三股激情，象阵阵巨风，把我在痛苦的海洋的路途中吹得任意东西，变动无常，直吹到了绝望的边缘。

我寻求爱，首先是因为它带来了欣喜若狂之情——欣喜若狂使人如此心醉神迷，我常常愿意牺牲我的全部余生来换取几小时这样的欢乐。我寻求爱，其次是因为它能解除寂寞——那种可怕的寂寞，如同一个人毛发悚然地从这世界的边缘探望令人战栗的死气沉沉的无底深渊。我寻求爱，最后是因为在爱的结合中我看到了圣徒们和诗人们所想象的预言中的天堂景象的神秘雏型。这就是我所寻求的东西，虽然它也许似乎是人生所难以得到的美好事物，但这就是——最后——我终于找到的东西。

我怀着同样的激情寻求知识。我希望理解人们的心。我希望知道星星为什么发光。我力图领悟毕达哥拉斯的才能，他的才能使数字支配着不断变动的事物。在这方面，我只达到了一小部分，并不很多。
爱和知识，尽其可能，远远地把人引向九天之上。倡怜悯总是把我带回到地面上来。痛苦的呼号的回声在我心里回荡。受饥挨饿的儿童，在压迫者折磨下受苦受难的人们，无依无靠而成为自己子女嫌恶的负担的老人，以及整个孤苦寂寞的世界，穷困与痛苦都在嘲弄着人生，使人们不能过应有的美好生活。我渴望减轻灾难祸害，但是我力不从心，我自己也在受苦。

 
这就是我的一生。我觉得我的一生过得很值得。如果我还有机会的话，我将乐意再度过这样的一生。