如何变老

管季超0712

如何变老

【英】罗素



尽管题目写作如何变老，但本文真正要谈的却是如何不变老。这个问题对我这个年纪的人来说是相当重要的。我的第一条建议乃为小心选择你的先辈。虽然我的父母皆过早离世，但在这方面我依然做得不错，因为我还有其他先辈。我的外祖父六十七岁时去世，应说是正值华年，但我的外祖母和祖父母都活过了八十。在更远的祖辈中，我只发现一人未得长寿，他死于如今已十分少见的一种疾病——砍头。我的一位曾祖母曾与吉本（2）交好，她活到九十二岁。儿孙们对她一直都很畏惧，直到她弃世。而我的外祖母，除了夭亡的一个和几次流产，最后还剩下九个孩子。她寡居之后，就献身于妇女的高等教育事业。她是格顿学院（3）的创始人之一，曾极力推进医疗职业向妇女开放。她过去常说，她曾在意大利遇到过一个老头，显得十分忧伤。问他为何如此难过，他说是因为刚刚失去了两个孙辈。“天啊，”她说，“我有七十二个孙子辈的，要是每失去一个我都如此悲伤，那我的生活该多么凄惨。” “Madre snaturale（4）,”那老头说。但就我自己作为七十二孙辈之一来说，我倒觉得她的处方很不错。八十岁的时候她发现自己难以入睡，于是便养成了从午夜到凌晨三点阅读科普读物的习惯。我觉得她从来都没时间去注意自己在变老。而这在我看来正是保持年轻的最佳处方。如果你的兴趣广泛而热切，并乐于做些力所能及的事情，你就不会去想已经活了多少个年头，更不会去想还能活多久。



至于健康，我没有什么可说的，因为对于疾病我毫无经验。我爱吃什么吃什么，爱喝什么喝什么，困了就睡。我从来也不会因为说是对健康有利就照着去做，不过，我喜欢做的事情都基本于健康有利。



从心理上说，有两种危险老年人必须提防。其一是沉湎于过去。终日生活在回忆中，感慨过去的美好时光，或者因逝去的朋友而心生悲戚，这些都毫无益处。人的思想必须引向未来，思索可为之事。但这并非易事——一个人的过去总是会慢慢变得沉重。人总是暗自思量，觉得自己的情感失去了旧日的热烈，心智也不如从前那般灵敏。如果真是这样，那么应该将它遗忘。因为一旦将它忘于脑后，一切或许就不那么真切了。



其次需要规避的则是，同年轻人粘在一起，企望从他们的生气中汲取一丝活力。子女成人之后都希望过自己的生活。如果你仍旧像他们儿时那样给予关怀，你就可能成为他们的负担，除非他们对此异常冷漠。我不是说，对他们完全不关心，但你的关心必须是内敛的，且如果可能，应是博爱的，不能过分情绪化。动物的幼崽只要能照顾自己，父母就不会再管。但是，人类因为成长期过长却很难做到这一点。



在我看来，那些对自身以外的事情感兴趣并适当参加一些活动的人，最容易安享晚年。在这个世界上，丰富的经验可带来丰富的成果，而且源于经验的智慧可使人免于压抑。告诫已成年的子女不要犯错误，毫无用处，因为首先他们不会相信你，其次犯错误是教育最重要的一部分内容。不过，假如你就是那种找不到自身以外兴趣的人，你会发现若不去关心儿孙们，生活就将变得空洞。若果真如此，你必须明白，在你还能为他们提供一些实质性服务的时候，比如给他们一些零花钱或织个毛衣什么的，你就别期望他们会喜欢跟你呆在一起。



有些老人惧怕死亡，并因此心情沉郁。年轻人若有这种担心还有情可原，年轻人或许担心在战斗中丧生而不能享受生活给予的种种幸福，并因此感到痛苦，这是可以理解的。可是，一个已尝尽人间悲喜、历经人间沧桑的老人，惧怕死亡就多少有点可卑可鄙了。所以，最好的办法是——至少于我自己则是如此——一点一点地扩展你的兴趣，并使其更加无关于自身，直到自我的围城渐渐退后，你的生活渐渐融入周围人的生活。一个人的个体存在应像一条河——开始很小，窄窄地囿于两岸之间，激情澎湃地冲过岩石，飞跃瀑布。但慢慢地河流变得宽广，堤岸向两边退去，水流也越来越平静，最后波澜不惊地汇入大海，毫无痛苦地失去其个体存在。一个人若可以在老年如此看待生命，他就不会因担心死亡而痛苦，因为他担心失去的东西将会继续存在。而且，如果随着生命力的衰退，疲倦之感日益增强，想要长眠的念头也就成为很自然的事情。我宁愿在尚能工作时死去，因为我知道自己未竟的事业会由他人继续，同时，也会为此生所能做的一切业已完成而感到欣慰。



注释：

（1）罗素（Bertrand Russell，1872—1970）  英国著名学者、社会活动家、改良社会主义者、唯心主义哲学家。一生著述多达近50部，涉及哲学、社会学、政治学、教育学、文学及数学等众多领域。主要代表作有：《德国社会民主党》、《自由之路（社会主义、无政府主义和工团主义）》、《布尔什维主义的实践和理论》、《中国问题》、《哲学原理》、《心的分析》、《物的分析》、《西方哲学史》等。

（2）爱德华·吉本（Edward Gibbon，1737─1794），英国历史学家，著有《罗马帝国衰亡史》等。

（3）英国剑桥大学格顿学院，建立于1869年，为剑桥第一个女子学院。

（4）原文为意大利语，意为“真是位奇怪的母亲”。



附英文原文：



                                     HOW TO GROW OLD
                           Bertrand Russell
1. 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. 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。


2. 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 woman’s higher education. 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 grandchildren. “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!” “Madres naturale,” 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. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is 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 you future.


3. 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.


4. 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 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 keener. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.


5. The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor 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. 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.


6. 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 you 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.


7. 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.