(单词翻译:单击)
There remain few expressions better able to capture the futility of a task than one which compares our efforts to ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.’
没有什么比把我们的努力比作“重新安排泰坦尼克号上的躺椅”更能体现一项工作的徒劳了。
The hull has been breached, the ship is sinking;
船体已经破损，船正在下沉；
to concern ourselves, at such a moment, with the position of the loungers would be the ultimate folly, the deepest possible failure to recognise the true hopelessness of the situation.
在这样的时刻关心躺椅的位置是最愚蠢的，这可能是最严重的未能认识到形势的真正绝望。
The point sems grimly apt because we are, many of us, a little like the passengers on a stricken liner.
这一点看起来非常恰当，因为我们中的许多人有点像遇难班轮上的乘客。
Our larger hopes in life have been fatally holed: we see now that our career won’t ever particularly flourish; our relationships will always be compromised;
我们在生活中的希望已经致命地破灭了：我们现在看到，我们的职业生涯不会特别兴旺；我们的人际关系总是会受到损害；
we’ve passed our peak in terms of looks; our bodies are going to fall prey to ever more humiliating illnesses;
我们在外表上已经过了巅峰；我们的身体将成为越来越耻辱疾病的牺牲品；
society isn’t going to cure itself; significant political progress looks deeply improbable.
社会不会自我治愈；重大的政治进步看起来非常不可能。
Our ship is going down.
我们的船要沉了。
It can feel as if trying to improve our condition, let alone find pleasure and distraction would be an insult to the facts.
它可能会让人感觉好像试图改善我们的状况，更不用说寻找快乐和消遣了，这将是对事实的侮辱。
Our instinct is to be as funereal and gloomy as our ultimate end.
我们的本能是像我们的最终目的一样悲观和阴郁。
But there’s one crucial element that differentiates our predicament from that of the passengers who lost their lives on the RMS Titanic in the early hours of the 15th of April 1912: time.
但是，我们的困境与1912年4月15日凌晨在泰坦尼克号上丧生的乘客的困境有一个关键的区别：时间。
They had little more than two hours between the moment when they felt the ominous shudder of the impact and the moment when the once-majestic vessel broke apart and sank into the north Atlantic.
从他们感受到撞击预感到不详害怕地发抖到这艘曾经雄伟的船只解体并沉入北大西洋的那一刻，他们只有两个多小时的时间。
We’re going down too, but far, far more slowly.
我们也在下降，但速度要慢得多。
It’s as if the captain had let it be known that the hull had been breached, that there were no lifeboats and that there was zero chance of ever reaching port
这就好像船长已经让人知道船体已经破裂，没有救生艇，到达港口的可能性为零，
but had added that it would, for that matter, probably be many decades before we would actually slip beneath the waves.
但他补充说，就这一点而言，我们可能需要几十年的时间才能真正滑入海浪中。
So though we can’t be saved, though the end will be grim, we still have options as to how to use our remaining time.
因此，虽然我们无法获救，尽管结局将是严峻的，但我们仍然可以选择如何利用我们剩余的时间。
We are involved in a catastrophe, but there are better and worse ways of filling the days.
我们卷入了一场灾难，但还有更好和更坏的方式来打发时间。
In the circumstances, expending thought and effort on ‘rearranging the deckchairs’ is no longer ridiculous at all, it’s an eminently logical step; there could be no higher calling.
在这种情况下，花费心思和精力在“重新安排躺椅”上已经不再荒谬，这是非常合乎逻辑的一步，没有比这更高的使命了。
When our large hopes for ourselves become impossible, we have to grow inventive around lesser, but still real, options for the time that remains.
当我们对自己抱有很大希望变得不可能时，我们必须在剩下的时间里围绕较小但仍然现实的选择变得有创造力。
Keeping cheerful and engaged, in spite of everything, becomes a major task.
不管发生什么事，保持愉快和投入成为一项主要任务。
If we were on a very gradually sinking luxury liner in the early 20th century,
如果我们在20世纪初乘坐一艘逐渐下沉的豪华邮轮，
we might every evening strive to put on a dinner jacket and go and dance the Foxtrot to the music of the string quintet, sing a cheerful song or settle into the Second-class Library on C-Deck
我们可能会每天晚上努力穿上晚礼服，随着弦乐五重奏的音乐跳狐步舞，跳唱歌，或者坐在C甲板的二等图书馆里
- as, all the while, bits of seaweed and debris lapped at our ankles.
--因为在此期间，少量的海藻和碎片会拍打着我们的脚踝。
Or we might look out for the best spot for our collapsible recliner so that we could watch the sea-birds wheeling in the sky
或者，我们可能会为我们的可折叠躺椅寻找最好的位置，这样我们就可以观看海鸟在天空中旋转，
or gain some privacy for a long, soul-exploring conversation with a new friend - to the sound of crockery smashing somewhere in a galley down below.
或者获得一些私人空间，与新朋友进行一次漫长的灵魂探索对话-听到下面厨房里某个地方陶器打碎的声音。
We might try our first game of quoits on the slightly tilting deck or drop in - contrary to our habits up to this time - on a wild party in Steerage.
我们可以在微微倾斜的甲板上玩第一个套圈游戏，或者——与我们现在的习惯相反——在大舱里疯狂地开聚会。
Of course our lives would - from a larger perspective - remain a thorough disaster but we might find we were starting to enjoy ourselves.
当然，从更宏大的角度来看，我们的生活仍然是一场彻头彻尾的灾难，但我们可能会发现我们开始享受生活。
Such inventiveness is precisely what we need to learn to develop to cope with our state.
这种创造性正是我们需要学习发展的，以应对我们的状态。
How can we invest the coming period with meaning even though everything is, overall, entirely dark?
即使总体来说，一切都是黑暗的，我们怎么能在未来的一段时间里投资于有意义的事情呢？
It’s a question our culture hasn’t prepared us for.
我们的文化还没有为这个问题做好准备。
We’ve been taught to focus on our big hopes, on how we can aim for everything going right.
我们被教导要专注于我们的最大希望，关注我们如何才能把一切都朝着正确的方向发展。
We crave a loving marriage, deeply satisfying and richly rewarding work, a stellar reputation, an ideally fit body and positive social change.
我们渴望一段充满爱意的婚姻、令人非常满意且报酬丰厚的工作、卓越的声誉、完美的身体和积极的社会变革。
We’ve not been prepared - as yet - to ask ourselves, what remains when many of these are no longer available, when love will always be tricky, politics compromised or the crowd hostile.
到目前为止，我们还没有准备好问问自己，当这些东西中的许多不再存在时，当爱情总是棘手的时候，当政治妥协时，或者当人群充满敌意的时候，还剩下什么。
What are our viable versions of seeking the best spot for a deckchair on a listing liner?
我们有哪些可行的方案来寻找在游轮上放置甲板椅的最佳位置？
If marriage is far less blissful than we’d imagined, perhaps we can turn to friendship;
如果婚姻远没有我们想象的那么幸福，也许我们可以转向友谊；
if society won’t accord us the dignity we deserve, perhaps we can find a group of fellow outcasts;
如果社会不给我们应有的尊严，也许我们可以找到一群被遗弃的同胞；
if our careers have irretrievably faltered, perhaps we can turn to new interests;
如果我们的事业已经无可挽回地摇摇欲坠，也许我们可以转向新的兴趣；
if political progress turns out to be perennially blocked and the news is always sour, we might absorb ourselves in nature or history.
如果政治进程被长期阻挠，新闻总是酸溜溜的，我们可能会沉浸在自然或历史中。
We are turning to what our society might dismiss as Plan-Bs; what you do when you can’t do the things you really want to do.
我们正在转向我们的社会可能会不屑一顾的B计划；当你不能做你真正想做的事情时，你会怎么做。
But there’s a surprising catch - or, really, the opposite of a catch.
但这里有一个令人惊讶的陷阱--或者说，真的，与陷阱相反。
It may turn out that the secondary, lesser, lighter, reasons for living are, in fact, more substantial than we’d imagined.
事实可能会证明，次要的、不那么重要的、不那么沉重的生存理由，实际上比我们想象的要重要得多。
And once we get to know them, we might come to think that they are what we should have been focused on all along - only it has taken a seeming disaster to get us to realise how central they should always have been.
一旦我们了解了它们，我们可能会认为它们是我们一直以来应该关注的——只是似乎发生了一场灾难，才让我们意识到它们应该一直是这么重要。
