第九篇：On Meeting the Celebrated 论见名人
On Meeting the Celebrated
I have always wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account. The celebrated develop a technique to deal with the persons they come across. They show the world a mask, often an impressive on, but take care to conceal their real selves. They play the part that is expected from them, and with practice learn to play it very well, but you are stupid if you think that this public performance of theirs corresponds with the man within.
I have been attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men in general not for their own sakes, but for the sake of my work. I have not, as Kant enjoined, regarded each man as an end in himself, but as material that might be useful to me as a writer. I have been more concerned with the obscure than with the famous. They are more often themselves. They have had no need to create a figure to protect themselves from the world or to impress it. Their idiosyncrasies have had more chance to develop in the limited circle of their activity, and since they have never been in the public eye it has never occurred to them that they have anything to conceal. They display their oddities because it has never struck them that they are odd. And after all it is with the common run of men that we writers have to deal; kings, dictators, commercial magnates are from our point of view very unsatisfactory. To write about them is a venture that has often tempted writers, but the failure that has attended their efforts shows that such beings are too exceptional to form a proper ground for a work of art. They cannot be made real. The ordinary is the writer’s richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material. The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you. For my part I would much sooner spend a month on a desert island with a veterinary surgeon than with a prime minister.
论见名人
许多人热衷于见名人，我始终不得其解。在朋友面前吹嘘自己认识某某名人，同此而来的声望只能证明自己的微不足道。名人个个练就了一套处世高招，无论遇上谁，都能应付自如。他们给世人展现的是一副面具，常常是美好难忘的面具，但他们会小心翼翼地掩盖自己的真相。他们扮演的是大家期待的角色，演得多了，最后都能演得惟妙惟肖。如果你还以为他们在公众面前的表演就是他们的真实自我，那就你傻了。
我自己就喜欢一些人，非常喜欢他们。但我对人感兴趣一般不是因为他们自身的缘故，而是出于我工作需求。正如康德劝告的那样，我从来没有把认识某人作为目的，而是将其当作对一个作家有用的创作素材。比之名流显士，我更加关注无名小卒。他们常常显得较为自然真实，他们无须再创造另一个人物形象，用他来保护自己不受世人干扰，或者用他来感动世人。他们的社交圈子有限，自己的种种癖性也就越有可能得到滋长。因为他们从来没有引起公众的关注，也就从来没有想到过要隐瞒什么。他们会表露他们古怪的一面，因为他们从来就没有觉得有何古怪。总之，作家要写的是普通人。在我们看来，国王，和商界大亨等都是不符合条件的。去撰写这些人物经常是作家们难以抗拒的冒险之举，可为此付出的努力不免以失败告终，这说明这些人物都过于特殊，无法成为一件艺术作品的创作根基，作家也不可能把他们写得真真切切。老百姓才是作家的创作沃土，他们或变幻无常，或难觅其二，各式人物应有尽有，这些都给作家提供了无限的创作素材。大人物经常是千人一面，小人物身上才有一组组矛盾元素，是取之不尽的创作源泉，让你惊喜不断。就我而言，如果在孤岛上度过一个月，我宁愿和一名兽医相守，也不愿同一位首相做伴。
第十篇：The 50-Percent Theory of Life 美好的生活理论半对半
The 50-Percent Theory of Life
I believe in the 50-percent theory. Half the time things are better than normal; the other half, they re worse. I believe life is a pendulum swing. It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, and that gives me the perspective to deal with the surprises of the future.
Let’s benchmark the parameters: yes, I will die. I’ve dealt with the deaths of both parents, a best friend, a beloved boss and cherished pets. Some of these deaths have been violent, before my eyes, or slow and agonizing. Bad stuff, and it belongs at the bottom of the scale.
Then there are those high points: romance and marriage to the right person; having a child and doing those Dad things like coaching my son’s baseball team, paddling around the creek in the boat while he’s swimming with the dogs, discovering his compassion so deep it manifests even in his kindness to snails, his imagination so vivid he builds a spaceship from a scattered pile of Legos.
But there is a vast meadow of life in the middle, where the bad and the good flip-flop acrobatically. This is what convinces me to believe in the 50-percent theory.
One spring I planted corn too early in a bottomland so flood-prone that neighbors laughed. I felt chagrined at the wasted effort. Summer turned brutal---the worst heat wave and drought in my lifetime. The air-conditioned died; the well went dry; the marriage ended; the job lost; the money gone. I was living lyrics from a country tune---music I loathed. Only a surging Kansas City Royals team buoyed my spirits.
Looking back on that horrible summer, I soon understood that all succeeding good things merely offset the bad. Worse than normal wouldn’t last long. I am owed and savor the halcyon times. The reinvigorate me for the next nasty surprise and offer assurance that can thrive. The 50-percent theory even helps me see hope beyond my Royals’ recent slump, a field of struggling rookies sown so that some year soon we can reap an October harvest.
For that on blistering summer, the ground moisture was just right, planting early allowed pollination before heat withered the tops, and the lack of rain spared the standing corn from floods. That winter my crib overflowed with corn---fat, healthy three-to-a-stalk ears filled with kernels from heel to tip---while my neighbors’ fields yielded only brown, empty husks.
Although plantings past may have fallen below the 50-percent expectation, and they probably will again in the future, I am still sustained by the crop that flourishes during the drought.
译文翻译：
美好的生活理论半对半
我信奉对半理论。美好的生活时而无比顺畅，时而倒霉透顶。我觉得美好的生活就像来回摆的钟摆。读懂美好的生活的常态需要时间和阅历，而读懂它也练就了我面对未来的美好的生活态度。
让我们确定一下好坏的标准：是的，我注定会死去。我已经经历了双亲，一位好友，一位敬关爱的老板和心关爱宠物的死亡。有些突如其来，近在眼前，有些却缓慢痛苦。这些都是糟糕的事情，它们属于最坏的部分。
美好的生活中也不乏高潮：坠入关爱河缔结良缘；身为人父养育幼子，诸如训练指导儿子的棒球队，当他和狗在小河中嬉戏时摇桨划船，感受他如此强烈的同情心-即使对蜗牛也善待有加，发现他如此丰富的想象力-即使用零散的乐高玩具积木也能堆出太空飞船。
但在美好的生活最好与最坏部分之间有一片巨大的中间地带，其间各种好事坏事像耍杂技一样上下翻滚，轮番出现。这就是让我信服对半理论的原因。
有一年奏，我在一块洼地上过早地种上了玉米。那块地极易遭到水淹，所以邻居们都嘲笑我。我为浪费了精力而感到懊恼。没想到夏天更为残酷-我经历了最糟糕的热浪和干旱。空调坏了，进干了，婚姻破裂了，工作丢了，钱也没有。我正经历着某首乡村歌曲中描绘的情节，我讨厌这种音乐，只有刚出道不久的堪萨斯皇家棒球队能鼓舞我的精神。
回首那个糟糕的夏天，我很快就明白了，所有后来出现的好事只不过与坏事相互抵消。比一般情况糟糕的境遇不会延宕过久；而太平时光是我应得的，我要尽情享受，它们为我注入活力以应对下一个险情，并确保我可以兴旺发达。对半理论甚至帮助我在堪萨斯皇家棒球队最近的低潮中看到希望-这是一快艰难行进的新手们耕耘的土地，只要播种了，假以时日我们就可以收获十月的金秋。
那个夏天天气酷热，地而湿度适宜，提早播种就可以在热浪打蔫植尖之前完成授粉，同于干旱更没有爆发洪水，产在田里的玉米得以保存。因此那个冬天我的粮仓堆满了玉米-丰满，健康，一颗三穗且从头到脚都是饱满的玉米粒的玉米穗-而我的邻居们收获的只是晒黑的空壳。
尽管过去的播种可能没有达到50%的收获期望，而且将来也可能是这样，但我仍然能靠着在旱季繁茂生长的庄稼而生存下去。
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