There is much that might be said about friendships. They open up new interests or deepen current ones. They offer us support during difficult periods in our lives. The aspect of friendship that I would like to focus on is its non-economic character. Although we benefit from our close friendships, these friendships are not a matter of calculable gain and loss. While we draw pleasure from them, they are not a matter solely of consuming pleasure. And while the time we spend with our friends and the favors we do for them are often 12)reciprocated in an informal way, we do not spend that time or offer those favors in view of the reciprocation that might 13)ensue.
论友谊,可以从方方面面谈起。友谊会激发新的兴趣,或是加深现有的兴趣。在我们生命的困难时期,友谊给予我们支持。对于友谊,我喜欢关注的方面在于其与利益无关的特点。虽然我们从亲密的友谊中获益,但这些友谊不能用“得失”来衡量。当我们从亲密的友谊中获得快乐,也不纯粹是在消费快乐。而我们和朋友们一块共度的时光,以及我们给予对方的帮助,常常以一种非正式的方式获得回报,但我们并非因为想到之后会获得回报才付出那些时间或是提供那些帮助的。
Friendships follow a rhythm that is distinct from that of either consumer or entrepreneurial relationships. Consumer pleasures are transient. They 14)engulf us for a short period and then they fade, like a drug. Entrepreneurship, when successful, leads to the victory of personal gain. We cultivate a colleague in the field or a contact outside of it in the hope that it will advance our career or enhance our status. When it does, we feel a sense of personal success. In both cases, there is the enjoyment of what comes to us through the medium of other human beings.
友谊的韵律明显不同于消费型关系或投资型关系。消费式的快乐是短暂的,那种快感一涌而上,只维持瞬间便消失,像毒品一般。投资要是成功,则会给我们带来个人收益。我们在业内培养同僚,或者是在业外拓展人脉,就是希望借此推进自己的事业,或是提升自己的地位。当目的达到时,我们获得了一种个人成功感。在这两种情况中,我们所获得的快乐都是藉由其他人作为媒介而获得的。
Friendships worthy of the name are different. Their rhythm lies not in what they bring to us, but rather in what we immerse ourselves in. To be a friend is to step into the stream of another’s life. It is, while not neglecting my own life, to take pleasure in another’s pleasure, and to share their pain as partly my own. Rather than the rhythm of pleasure followed by emptiness, or that of investment and then profit, friendships follow a rhythm that is 15)at once subtler and more persistent. It remains there, being part of the ground of our lives.
配得上“友谊”这名称的友谊则截然不同。其个中韵律不在于友谊能带给我们什么,而在于我们沉浸在什么当中。成为他人的朋友即踏入了他人生命的河流里。在没有忽略自己生活的同时,我们在真正的友谊中为别人的快乐感到快乐,并且在一定程度上把别人的痛苦视为自己的痛苦来分担。不同于空虚如影随形的那种快乐,也不同于先投资后收益的韵律,真正的友谊其韵律更微妙,也更持久。这韵律一直在那儿,是我们生活根基的一部分。
To be this ground, friendships have a relation to time that is16)foreign to an economic orientation. Consumer relationships are focused on the momentary present. It is what brings immediate pleasure that matters. Entrepreneurial relationships have more to do with the future. How I act toward others is determined by what they might do for me down the road. Friendships, although lived in the present and assumed to continue into the future, also have a deeper tie to the past than either of these. Past time is 17)sedimented in a friendship. It 18)accretes over the hours and days friends spend together, forming the foundation upon which the character of a relationship is built. This sedimentation need not be a happy one. Shared experience, not just common amusement or advancement, is the ground of friendship.
作为生活根基的一部分,友谊和时间之间有一种联系,而那些具有交易性的人际关系则与时间毫无关联。消费型关系聚焦于短暂的存在,看重的是能带来即时快乐的东西。投资型关系则与未来的联系更密切,我对他人的行为取决于他们将来可能会为我做些什么。友谊,尽管存在于当下,并且被假设为能延续到将来,但相比前面两种关系,它与过去的联系更为紧密。过去的时光在一段友谊里沉淀了下来。它存在于朋友们一起度过的时日,友谊的特性就是在这一日积月累的根基上建立起来的。这种沉淀并非必须是快乐的。不仅仅是一起嬉笑玩乐或并肩发展,共同经历人生才是友谊的基础。
We might say of friendships that they are a matter not of 19)diversion or of return but of meaning. They render us 20)vulnerable, and in doing so they add dimensions of significance to our lives that can only arise from being friends with this or that particular individual, a party to this or that particular life.
我们可以说友谊不是用来消遣或是获得回报的,而是有着深刻的含义。友谊让我们变得不能独善其身,而在此过程中又为我们的生活增添另一些层面的意义,而这只会在当你和这个或是那个特殊个体成为朋友,参与到这种或是那种特殊生活之时才会发生。
It is precisely this non-economic character that is threatened in a society in which each of us 21)is thrown upon his or her resources and offered only the22)bywords of ownership, shopping, competition, and growth. It is threatened when we are encouraged to look upon those around us as the stuff of our current enjoyment or our future advantage. It is threatened when we are led to believe that friendships without a recognizable gain are, in the economic sense, irrational. Friendships are not without why, perhaps, but they are certainly without that particular why.
在我们所处的社会里,人人都在自我拓展,换来的全是“拥有”、“购买”、“竞争”、“增长”这类概念的代名词,在这样的氛围下,备受威胁的正是友谊所包含的这种非交易性质。当我们被鼓励去把周围的人视作我们当下娱乐,或对将来有用处的东西时,友谊的这一特质受到了威胁;当我们被引导去相信看不见利益前景的友谊从经济学意义上来讲不理智时,友谊的非交易性也受到了威胁。也许,友谊并非没有目的性,但它们一定没有上述那些特殊目的。
In a world often ruled by the dollar and what it can buy, friendship, like love, opens other vistas. The critic 23)John Berger once said of one of his friendships, “We were not somewhere between success and failure; we were elsewhere.” To be able to sit by the bed of another, watching him sleep, waiting for nothing else, is to understand where else we might be.
在一个经常被金钱以及金钱的购买力所统治的世界里,友谊就像爱情一般,开启了一个个别样的境界。评论家约翰·伯格曾谈起他的一段友谊:“我们不在成功和失败之间的某处;我们在别处。”能坐在他人的床边,注视着他入眠,等待着却别无所求,就能理解我们还能在哪个“别处”。
