如何变老

【英国】波特兰.罗素

        胡杨/译

题目尽管如此，这篇文章真正是要写如何不变老，这在我生命中是一个尤为重大的主题。我首先的忠告就是要细心筛选你的祖辈。虽然我父母年轻轻就死了，可是考虑到其它祖辈，我这方面遗传还不错。我外祖父诚然是在如花的六十七岁年纪就被刈割，可我其它的三个祖辈级人物都活过了八十。 至于其它更远一些的我只发现一个没活个大岁数，死于一种罕见病，叫“割脑袋”。

我有一个太祖母，是吉本【译者注：著名的《罗马帝国衰亡史》的作者。】的朋友，活到九十二，在她的晚年简直成了子孙的一个恐怖。我的外祖母在生了九个孩子，其中一个生的时候死了，之后，还经历了好多次流产。当她一当寡妇，就全身心投入了妇女高等教育。她是戈登学院的缔造人之一 ，致力于妇女行医。她常给我们讲在意大利碰到一位老绅士看上去很悲伤。问起原因那老绅士告她刚刚送走了两个孙子。“天哪，”她叫道，“我有七十二个孙子，要是每送走一个我都悲伤，还不神经错乱。”“冷血夫人，”他答。但是作为她的七十二个孙子之一的我，我赞成她的处理方法。在她到了八十岁的年纪，睡觉有点困难，所以养成了习惯从半夜开始读科普读物，读到第二天下午三点。我不认为她有时间注意到自己变老。我想，这是保持年轻的一个秘诀。如果你有广泛的敏感的兴趣和活动还能有效从事，你没有理由去仅仅注意活过的岁数，也会较少注意晚景。

至于说到健康我说不出什么有用的东西，因为我很少生病，想吃什么就吃什么，想喝什么就喝什么，只要不醒就接着睡。我从没有为保持健康做任何事情，虽然实际上我只是喜欢大多从宏观做事。　　

从心理上老年要提防两种危险。一是无休止地沉溺于过去。靠回忆度日可不好，老悔忆过去的好时光，老为死了的朋友悲伤。人的思想应该指向未来，看看还有什么能做的。这不容易：一个人的过去是慢慢增加的重量。容易陷入这样的思维定势：过去情感比现在活跃，心智更敏捷。即便这是真的，也应该把它忘了；如果能忘得了，就可能不是真的。

另一个危险就是攀附年轻人企图吸取他们的活力。当你的儿孙们长大，他们想过他们自己的生活；如果你还像他们小时候那样不放心，你很可能成为他们负担，除非他们心肠异乎寻常地麻木。我不是说对他们应该没兴趣。但你的兴趣应该深思熟虑，最好是，慈善性地，而不是不加节制的情感地。动物们只要后代能自己照顾自己，就会对它们麻木不仁。但人类由于哺乳期长，做到这点有困难。

我认为成功的老年对这样的人非常容易，有强烈的非个人化爱好并佐以适当活动。也正是在这一领域老年的经验分外有成果；也正是在这一领域由经验得来的智慧才不那么咄咄逼人。告诉成长的孩子别犯错没有用，因为犯错是教育的基本部分之一。但如果你在非情绪化的爱好方面无能，你也许会发现你的生活是空虚的除非投身于关注自己子孙。但即便就是那样，你也必须认识到只可提供一些实际帮助，比如给点钱花，织件套头毛衣什么的，可别指望他们与你为伴很高兴。

有些老人怕死。这在年轻的时候还说得过去。年轻人害怕在战斗中死去，一想到生活中最好的东西还没享受而痛苦这算理由。可一个老人生活的甜酸苦辣都尝过了，该有的也都有了，还怕死就有点令人生厌和不体面。征服它的最好办法----至少对我是这样----让你的兴趣不断扩大，直到顾影自怜的墙一点点剥蚀，你的生命融入整个宇宙生命大回环。个体的存在如同河流，起先很小，窄窄的被夹在河道里，激情澎湃地过岩石跃飞瀑。渐渐，河流会变宽，岸会隐退，水静流深；最终，悄无声此地，汇入了大海，毫无痛苦地消失了个人的影踪。老年人若要把生命如是看，就不会怕死。因为他所担心的事情会继续。如果随着活力衰退，疲惫增加，其它想法也不是不能接受。我希望我死的时候仍然在工作，而且知道我做不下去和不满意、还想再做的，别人会接过来，继续做下去。

HOW TO GROW OLD

By Bertrand Russell

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。

 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!” “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. 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.

 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

【注】罗素（1872-1970），一个活了99岁的哲学家。他最大的魅力不在哲学，而是文学。曾经获得诺贝尔文学奖——文学中最高奖项。他用朴实优美的语言风趣地讲述了怎样才能度过一个成功的晚年。小聪明和大智慧都是罗素的特色。读懂了罗素，就读懂了英文；读懂了罗素，就会发现英文原来也会如此优美！

2011年2月1日星期二，译毕于海南，三亚学院