How to Grow Old

怎么变老

In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty.

尽管标题如此，但我真正要讲的却是如何阻止变老，对于活到我这个岁数的人来说，这是更重要的主题。首先，我建议你慎重地选择你的祖辈父辈。虽然我父母早逝，但在选择其他祖辈的时候，我很明智。这是真的！我外祖父67岁逝世，正值盛年，我其他三个祖父母都生活了80多个春秋。

Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women's higher education.

在远房的上辈中，我只发现一个人并不长寿，他死于一种现在很罕见的疾病，叫做“脑梗塞”。我的一个曾祖母，是吉朋的朋友。她活到了92岁，临终时所有的后辈都很敬重并爱戴她。我外祖母的孩子，九个存活下来，一个死于婴儿时期，还有许多流产了。此后，她成了寡妇，致力于女子高等教育。

She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grand-children.

她是格顿女子学院的创立人之一，并为实现女性从事医疗职业而尽心竭力。她曾说过在意大利遇到过一位神情忧伤的年老绅士。问他为什么伤心，老人回答说他刚跟他的两个孙孩儿告别。

"Good gracious," she exclaimed, "I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!" "Madre snaturale," he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a. m. in reading popular science.

“天呐！”我外祖母感叹道，“我有72个孙子孙女，要是每次我向其中一个告别都难掩忧伤的话，我该有一种多么凄凉可怕的生活啊！”“多么伟大的母亲啊！”他答道。但是作为72个孩子之一的我来说，我倒赞成她的想法。80岁之后，外祖母发现自己难以入睡，所以她习惯性地在午夜至三点阅读科普书籍。

I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of your future.

我相信她没有时间来注意她的衰老。我认为这就是保持年轻的适合之道。如果你有广泛的活动和浓厚的兴趣，并且你能从中受益，那么你去思考你已经活了多少年这种纯粹的统计数据是毫无意义的，去想你还有多少年可活就更荒谬了。

As regards health, I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

至于健康，我没有什么好说的，因为我很少生病。我吃喝随意，困了就睡。在做任何事之前，我从不考虑其是否有利于健康。事实上，我喜欢做的事大多是有益健康的。

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

在老年时期，心理上有两大威胁值得防范。其中之一就是对往事的过分关注。人不应该活在回忆里，不应该活在对过往的懊悔中，不应该活在对已故好友的悲痛中。相反，人应该向前看，其实还有很多事等着我们去做。但这并不容易，一个人过去的点点滴滴是逐渐累积的重担。我们很容易这么想：现在回首过去，感情不再清晰，思维不再敏锐。如果这是真的，我们应该忘记；如果我们忘记了，可能这未必是真的。

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous.

另外要避免的是寄希望于青春的生命力来获得活力。当你的孩子长大，想过他们自己的生活，而你却仍然对小时候的他们念念不忘时，你很可能成为他们的负担，除非他们异常麻木。

I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one's interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult. (to be continued)

我这里并不是说一个人对他们的孩子应该毫不在意，而这种关注应该是默默的，如果可能的话，博爱的，仁慈的，但不是过分感情用事的。动物幼崽只要能够自食其力，那么成年动物就放任不管了。但对人来说，由于婴儿期的漫长，这就很难实现了。

I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

我认为对那些有强烈的非个人兴趣并投身其中的人而言，过一个满意的老年生活是容易的。在这一方面，长期的人生阅历是富有成效的，并且在这一领域由经验而生的智慧可以在没有太大强制压迫的情形下经由实践活动得以检验。对成长中的孩子，去告诉他们不要犯错误是没有用的；不但是因为他们不相信你，并且是因为犯错误是教育的重要构成部分。但是如果你发现自己是一个没有非个人兴趣的人，你会发现你的生命变得空虚除非你去关心自己的孩子和孙子们。在这种情形下，你会发现不管你继续给他们提供物质帮助，譬如生活补贴还是给他们编制衣服，你不要期望他们很乐意陪伴你。

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it – so at least it seems to me – is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river – small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

有些老人对死亡感到害怕。年轻人有这种想法的话是正常的，他们会为可能在战争中阵亡感到痛苦，因为他们会感到被剥夺掉了生活会给予的美好的东西。但是对一个经历了生活的哀乐，和所有人生应当做的事情的老人而言，这种恐惧情绪是不幸的和没有必要的。对我而言，克服这种情绪的最好办法是：让自己的兴趣逐渐泛和非个人化，直到自我的障碍一点一点的消逝，个人的生命融入到大众的生活。个体生命的存在应当像一条河流——刚开始很小，狭隘的局限于自己堤岸，富有激情的冲过岩石和瀑布。慢慢的，河流开始变得宽阔，堤岸在消退，水流也变得平静（参见静水流深），最后，没有明显的征兆，河流汇入了大海，毫无痛苦的结束了自己个体的存在。老年人能用这种方式来看待自己的生活的话，将不会经历死亡的恐惧，因为他关心的东西会延续。并且随着活力的减退和疲倦感的增多，希望能够长眠的想法不是不受欢迎的。我希望能够在工作的时候死去，知道别人会继续我的未竟事业，并且知道自己已经做了自己所能做的一切，我会感到很欣慰。