這又是挺有趣的一章內(nèi)容：閑情逸致，或者說工作之外的興趣愛好，這或許不為我們所重視，但這很重要，尤其是與老人相處的時刻。對此，我想說兩點，第一是興趣愛好；第二是格局。

一、興趣愛好

說真的，家里老人對我很好，我們相處得也很好，但老太太和老頭彼此間相處的卻不那么好，同時，老人和子女間也難免有生氣斗嘴的時候。

怪誰呢？都怪，也都不怪，人嘛，誰沒點牢騷，沒點脾氣？

我想說，有些老人確實心胸豁達(dá)，但很多老人的內(nèi)心世界其實很小，而且越老越小，小到只能容納三尺鍋臺和家長里短，小到時不時會有莫名其妙的脾氣。

原因是什么？可能肝火太旺，可能本就脾氣不好，可能心理疾病，可能真的老了，但好多時候就是內(nèi)心空虛，人閑是非多。

試想想，如果老人的內(nèi)心世界足夠豐富，或者每天有無數(shù)想要干的事情，人家可能根本就懶得理你。所以，想要跟老人處好，除了好好孝順之外，真的要在這里想辦法，讓老人有事可干，覺得自己還能行，也讓他們更少時間瞎想。

我家里老人手機(jī)里，都給他們安裝了戲劇、評書、老歌、老電影，以及社會新聞等等軟件，現(xiàn)在他們每天都有大量時間折騰在上面，我總覺得，他們的生活也因此充實了很多。

二、學(xué)習(xí)與格局

羅素在這本書中屢次提到人對外部世界的興趣及探索；屢次提到人與自然、人與宇宙的關(guān)系；屢次提到學(xué)習(xí)和思考的重要性。

我想說，對于外部世界旺盛的好奇心、探索欲就代表著對知識永不停歇的渴求，這真的會讓人心態(tài)年輕，會強(qiáng)化自我的認(rèn)可，也會幫助人建立起自己的格局——當(dāng)你專注知識和探索，當(dāng)你不斷充實自己，你真的不會太關(guān)注雞毛蒜皮的家庭瑣事，腹有詩書氣自華也不是瞎說的。

好，啰嗦話就到這里，下面進(jìn)入正文——

Chapter 15: Impersonal interests

第十五章 論閑情逸致

In this chapter I wish to consider not those major interests about which a man's life is built, but those minor interests which fill his leisure and afford relaxation from the tenseness of his more serious preoccupations. In the life of the average man his wife and children, his work and his financial position occupy the main part of his anxious and serious thought. Even if he has extra-matrimonial love affairs, they probably do not concern him as profoundly in themselves as in their possible effects upon his home life. The interests which are bound up with his work I am not for the present regarding as impersonal interests. A man of science, for example, must keep abreast of research in his own line. Towards such research his feelings have the warmth and vividness belonging to something intimately concerned with his career, but if he reads about research in some quite other science with which he is not professionally concerned he reads in quite a different spirit, not professionally, less critically, more disinterestedly. Even if he has to use his mind in order to follow what is said, his reading is nevertheless a relaxation, because it is not connected with his responsibilities: If the book interests him, his interest is impersonal in a sense which cannot be applied to the books upon his own subject. It is such interests lying outside the main activities of a man's life that I wish to speak about in the present chapter.

在本章內(nèi)，我想要考察的并非我們生活所依賴的那些主要的興趣，而是那些可以豐富我們休閑時光，讓我們從各種嚴(yán)肅事務(wù)的緊張中放松下來的次要的興趣。

在普通人的生活中，妻子和孩子、工作和經(jīng)濟(jì)地位等等會在他為之焦慮和嚴(yán)肅思考的事情中占據(jù)主要的部分。即使他在婚外有一大堆的風(fēng)流韻事，于他而言也不過浮云而已，而倘若婚外風(fēng)流影響到他的家庭生活，就會對他產(chǎn)生更為深刻的影響。

暫時來說，我并不將圍繞著工作的興趣視為閑情逸致。比如科學(xué)家，他必須時時關(guān)注自己研究領(lǐng)域的最新進(jìn)展，對于這個與他職業(yè)相關(guān)的、熟悉的領(lǐng)域，他有著溫暖而又明朗的情懷， 但如果他讀到一些自己并不專業(yè)的、完全不同領(lǐng)域的科學(xué)研究內(nèi)容，他就會換一種完全不同的心情來讀——不用專業(yè)的眼光、不隨便挑剔苛責(zé)、更加沒有偏見。即使他盡量跟隨著作者的思想和思路，但無論如何，他的閱讀依然是一種放松。這是因為一切與他的職責(zé)并不相關(guān)：如果這本書吸引了他，他的興趣在某種意義上也依然是一種閑情逸致，無法與他閱讀本領(lǐng)域的書籍相比。我想要講的正是這種人們生活中主要活動之外的興趣。

One of the sources of unhappiness, fatigue, and nervous strain is inability to be interested in anything that is not of practical importance in one's own life. The result of this is that the conscious mind gets no rest from a certain small number of matters, each of which probably involves some anxiety and some element of worry. Except in sleep the conscious mind is never allowed to lie fallow while subconscious thought matures its gradual wisdom. The result is excitability, lack of sagacity, irritability, and a loss of sense of proportion. All these are both causes and effects of fatigue. As a man gets more tired, his external interests fade, and as they fade he loses the relief which they afford him and becomes still more tired. This vicious circle is only too apt to end in a breakdown. What is restful about external interests is the fact that they do not call for any action. Making decisions and exercising volition are very fatiguing, especially if they have to be done hurriedly and without the help of the subconscious. Men who feel that they must “sleep on it” before coming to an important decision are profoundly right. But it is not only in sleep that the subconscious mental processes can work. They can work also while a man's conscious mind is occupied elsewhere. The man who can forget his work when it is over and not remember it until it begins again next day is likely to do his work far better than the man who worries about it throughout the intervening hours. And it is very much easier to forget work at the times when it ought to be forgotten if a man has many interests other than his work than it is if he has not. It is, however, essential that these interests should not exercise those very faculties which have been exhausted by his day's work. They should not involve will and quick decision, they should not, like gambling, involve any financial element, and they should as a rule not be so exciting as to produce emotional fatigue and preoccupy the subconscious as well as the conscious mind.

人們之所以感到苦惱、疲憊、精神壓力，其中一種原因就在于他無法對與自己生活沒什么重要關(guān)聯(lián)的東西產(chǎn)生興趣。結(jié)果就是，大腦無法從一些亂七八糟的事情中脫身出來休息一下，而這些事情中的每一種都可能帶給人焦慮或擔(dān)憂。除非入睡，大腦永不停歇下來，無法讓潛意識的想法自然而然地孕育其智慧，而結(jié)果就是容易興奮、缺乏智慧、敏感易怒、缺乏判斷輕重緩急的能力。

所有這一切既是疲勞的原因，也是疲勞的結(jié)果：一個人越是覺得疲憊，他對于外界的興趣就越是漸漸喪失，導(dǎo)致他無法獲得放松和寬慰，而這又使得他更加疲憊，這一惡性循環(huán)很容易以人的精神崩潰而告終。

之所以說對外部的興趣令人放松，這是基于這樣一個事實，那就是他不需要任何的回應(yīng)動作。做出決斷和運用人的意志力都是很容易讓人疲憊的，特別是需要倉促間做出決定，且沒有潛意識幫忙的情況下更是如此。

那些認(rèn)為在做出重大決定前必須先“睡上一覺”的人是非常明智的，但并非只有在睡眠中潛意識的心理過程才會起作用。當(dāng)人們頭腦清醒，卻被別的事情占用的時候，潛意識一樣能發(fā)揮作用。那些在工作完成后就將其忘到腦后，直到第二天重新開始工作才再次想起的人，比起那些一晚上都在輾轉(zhuǎn)反側(cè)想著工作的人，他們更加可能更出色地完成工作。比起那些沒有愛好的人，那些除了工作之外還有很多興趣愛好的人更容易在該忘記的時候忘記工作。然而，需要注意的是，這些興趣絕不應(yīng)運用那些已經(jīng)被整天的工作耗盡的官能，也不應(yīng)讓意志和決斷力摻和，更不應(yīng)該涉及賭博等跟經(jīng)濟(jì)因素相關(guān)的活動，而且它們通常不應(yīng)該讓人太過興奮，導(dǎo)致精神疲憊，讓潛意識和意識領(lǐng)域都勞累不堪。

A great many amusements fulfil all these conditions. Watching games, going to the theatre, playing golf, are all irreproachable from this point of view. For a man of a bookish turn of mind, reading unconnected with his professional activities is very satisfactory. However important a worry may be, it should not be thought about throughout the whole of the waking hours.

許多娛樂活動都符合以上這些條件，從這個角度來說，觀賞比賽、去劇院、打高爾夫等等活動都是無可厚非的。對一個嗜書如命的人來說，讀一些與自己的職業(yè)無關(guān)的書是非常令人滿足的。不管這煩惱有多重要，都不該讓它占據(jù)你所有的清醒時間。

In this respect there is a great difference between men and women. Men on the whole find it very much easier to forget their work than women do. In the case of women whose work is in the home this is natural, since they do not have the change of place that a man has when he leaves the office to help them to acquire a new mood. But if I am not mistaken, women whose work is outside the home differ from men in this respect almost as much as those who work at home. They find it, that is to say, very difficult to be interested in anything that has for them no practical importance. Their purposes govern their thoughts and their activities, and they seldom become absorbed in some wholly irresponsible interest. I do not of course deny that exceptions exist, but I am speaking of what seems to me to be the usual rule. In a women's college, for example, the women teachers, if no man is present, talk shop in the evening, while in a men's college the men do not. This characteristic appears to women as a higher degree of conscientiousness than that of men, but I do not think that in the long run it improves the quality of their work. And it tends to produce a certain narrowness of outlook leading not infrequently to a kind of fanaticism.

在這方面，男人和女人有很大的差異，男性總體上比女性更容易忘卻自己的工作。對于在家里工作的女性來說，這是很自然的，因為她們的工作地點是不變的，她們不像男性那樣，有機(jī)會在離開辦公室的時候換換情緒。

但如果我沒弄錯的話，在這方面，在外工作的女性與男性的差別幾乎與在家工作的女性沒什么差別。她們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己很難對那些沒什么實用價值的東西感興趣。她們的目的控制著她們的思想和行動，同時，她們也很少專注于那些完全不用費什么心思的興趣。當(dāng)然，我并不否認(rèn)例外的存在，但我所說的對我來說似乎是普遍的規(guī)律。

例如，在一所女子學(xué)院，如果沒有男性出現(xiàn)的話，她們會三句話離不開本行；而在男子學(xué)院，一切截然不同。這一特性說明女性比男性更認(rèn)真盡責(zé)，但我并不認(rèn)為從長遠(yuǎn)來看這可以改進(jìn)她們的工作質(zhì)量，恰恰相反，它會讓人的視野變得狹隘，并導(dǎo)致一種偏執(zhí)，而這種情況并不罕見。

All impersonal interests, apart from their importance as relaxation, have various other uses. To begin with, they help a man to retain his sense of proportion. It is very easy to become so absorbed in our own pursuits, our own circle, our own type of work, that we forget how small a part this is of the total of human activity and how many things in the world are entirely unaffected by what we do. Why should one remember this? You may ask. There are several answers. In the first place, it is good to have as true a picture of the world as is compatible with necessary activities. Each of us is in the world for no very long time, and within the few years of his life has to acquire whatever he is to know of this strange planet and its place in the universe. To ignore our opportunities for knowledge, imperfect as they are, is like going to the theatre and not listening to the play. The world is full of things that are tragic or comic, heroic or bizarre or surprising, and those who fail to be interested in the spectacle that it offers are forgoing one of the privileges that life has to offer.

除了諸如放松這樣的重要性之外，所有這些閑情逸致都有著各種各樣的其它用途。

首先，它有助于人們保持自己判斷輕重緩急的能力。我們很容易專注于自己的追求、圈子或者工作之中，而忘記了這對于整個人類行為來說是多么渺小的一部分；忘記了這個世界上有多少事情完全不受我們所做的這一切的影響。

你也許會問，為什么人們要記得這些？有好幾種不同的回答：首先，我們應(yīng)該擁有一幅與自己的（工作、生活等）必要活動相匹配、相融合的、這個世界的真實圖景。在這個世界，我們中的每一個人都不會活太久時間，而在生命這有限的若干年里，我們應(yīng)該了解這個陌生的星球，了解它在宇宙中的位置，獲得我們想要知道的無論什么東西。無視我們獲取知識的機(jī)會，不管這知識有多么不完美，都猶如進(jìn)入了劇院卻不曾欣賞戲劇。世界充滿了悲喜劇，到處是英雄豪杰或奇人異事，那些對世界所給予的壯麗景象不感興趣的人，無疑是放棄了生活所賦予的特權(quán)。

Then again a sense of proportion is very valuable and at times very consoling. We are all inclined to get unduly excited, unduly strained, unduly impressed with the importance of the little corner of the world in which we live, and of the little moment of time comprised between our birth and death. In this excitement and over-estimation of our own importance there is nothing desirable. True, it may make us work harder, but it will not make us work better. A little work directed to a good end is better than a great deal of work directed to a bad end, though the apostles of the strenuous life seem to think otherwise. Those who care much for their work are always in danger of falling into fanaticism, which consists essentially in remembering one or two desirable things while forgetting all the rest, and in supposing that in the pursuit of these one or two any incidental harm of other sorts is of little account. Against this fanatical temper there is no better prophylactic than a large conception of the life of man and his place in the universe. This may seem a very big thing to invoke in such a connection; but apart from this particular use it is in itself a thing of great value.

其次，分寸感或者說主次觀念是很有價值的，有時也能起到很大的安慰作用。

我們都傾向于過度的興奮、過度的緊張，也過分地銘記著我們所生活的這個世界的某個小小的角落、我們從生到死之間某個短短的時刻，而過度的興奮和對自身重要性的過高估量其實是不可取的。的確，它可能會令我們工作更加努力，但它不會令我們工作得更加出色。雖然那些過著艱苦生活的信徒們不這樣想，但如果你做了一大堆工作，卻換來了一個糟糕的結(jié)果，那就還不如只做了一丁點工作，卻收獲了好的結(jié)局。

那些過分關(guān)注自己工作的人總是面臨著陷入狂熱的危險，這種狂熱本質(zhì)上就是只記得一兩件可取的事情，但卻忘記了所有其它的事情，并且假設(shè)在追求這一兩件事情的過程中，對其它事物附帶的傷害都是無足輕重的。

想要對付這種狂熱的傾向，最好的辦法莫過于建立起對于人類生活及其在宇宙中的位置的概念。將這些聯(lián)系起來似乎是一件很大的事情，但除了這特殊的作用之外，它本身就具有很大的價值。