I know this feeling all too intimately. I know the sad longing to delay the end of another February 4. This sadness is one of the great trials of the human experiment. As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift—or curse, perhaps—of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we're just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day. How are you going to cope with this information? When I was nine, I couldn't do a thing with it except cry. Later, over the years, my hypersensitive awareness of time's speed led me to push myself to experience life at a maximum pace. If I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now. Hence all the traveling, all the romances, all the ambition, all the pasta. My sister had a friend who used to think that Catherine had two or three younger sisters, because she was always hearing stories about the sister who was in Africa, the sister who was working on a ranch in Wyoming, the sister who was the bartender in New York, the sister who was writing a book, the sister who was getting married—surely this could not all be the same person? Indeed, if I could have split myself into many Liz Gilberts, I would willingly have done so, in order to not miss a moment of life. What am I saying? I did split myself into many Liz Gilberts, all of whom simultaneously collapsed in exhaustion on a bathroom floor in the suburbs one night, somewhere around the age of thirty.

我太清楚这种感受了。我深知这种延后又一个二月四号的结束的悲哀渴望。这种悲伤，是人类的一个极不幸的试验。就我们所知，人类是地球上唯一有死亡意识的生物，这是一种天赋，或一种诅咒。地球上的一切终归死亡；我们只不过有幸天天想起这一事实。你该如何处理这个信息？九岁的我，除了哭泣之外，别无他法。此后许多年，超敏感的光阴意识使我不禁想以最快的步伐体验人生。如果我在地球上的时间如此之短，现在就得尽力体验。因此，我尽力旅行，尽力谈情说爱，野心勃勃，大吃面食。我姐姐凯瑟琳有个朋友，经常以为她有两三个妹妹，因为老是听说在非洲的妹妹、在怀俄明牧场工作的妹妹、在纽约干酒保的妹妹、写书的妹妹、即将出嫁的妹妹——这不可能是同一个人吧？是啊，假若能把自己分裂成好几个小莉?吉尔伯特，我很乐意，以免错失人生的任何时刻。我在说什么呀？我确实早已把自己分裂成许多个小莉·吉尔伯特，她们在三十岁左右的某个晚上，同时筋疲力尽地倒在市郊的浴室地板上。

I should say here that I'm aware not everyone goes through this kind of metaphysical crisis. Some of us are hardwired for anxiety about mortality, while some of us just seem more comfortable with the whole deal. You meet lots of apathetic people in this world, of course, but you also meet some people who seem to be able to gracefully accept the terms upon which the universe operates and who genuinely don't seem troubled by its paradoxes and in-justices. I have a friend whose grandmother used to tell her, "There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey and the Book of Common Prayer." For some people, that's truly enough. For others, more drastic measures are required.
应当在这提一下，我很清楚并非人人都经历过此种玄学危机。有些人注定对死亡感到焦虑，有些人则似乎能比较轻松看待这整件事情。你在世界上遇见许多麻木不仁的人，却也遇见某些人似乎能够潇洒地接受宇宙的运作方式，对宇宙的矛盾或不公似乎丝毫不感到忧虑。我有个朋友的祖母经常告诉她“世界上没有什么严重麻烦，不能靠洗个热水澡、喝杯威士忌、读祈祷书而痊愈。”对某些人而言，这确已足够。对其他人来说，则需要采取激烈措施。

And now I will mention my friend the dairy farmer from Ireland—on the surface, a most unlikely character to meet in an Indian Ashram. But Sean is one of those people like me who were born with the itch, the mad and relentless urge to understand the workings of existence. His little parish in County Cork didn't seem to have any of these answers, so he left the farm in the 1980s to go traveling through India, looking for inner peace through Yoga. A few years later, he returned home to the dairy farm in Ireland. He was sitting in the kitchen of the old stone house with his father—a lifelong farmer and a man of few words—and Sean was telling him all about his spiritual discoveries in the exotic East. Sean's father listened with mild interest, watching the fire in the hearth, smoking his pipe. He didn't speak at all until Sean said, "Da—this meditation stuff, it's crucial for teaching serenity. It can really save your life. It teaches you how to quiet your mind."
现在我要提提我的爱尔兰酪农朋友——表面上是最不可能在印度道场遇见的人物；西恩像我一样，生来有了解生存运作情况的渴望与冲动。库尔克郡（CountyCork）的小教区似乎未能提供他解答，他于是在20世纪80年代离开农场，周游印度，通过瑜伽寻找心灵的平安。几年后，他返回爱尔兰的乳酪农场。他和一生务农、沉默寡言的父亲坐在老石屋的厨房里，西恩说起在异国东方的种种心灵探索。他的父亲兴味索然地一边听他娓娓道来，一边看着壁炉的火，抽着烟斗。他一言不发，直到西恩说：“爹——禅修这个玩意儿，对平静的教导至关重要。真的能拯救人生，教你如何平静自己的心。”

His father turned to him and said kindly, "I have a quiet mind already, son," then resumed his gaze on the fire.
他父亲把脸转向他，慈祥地说：“儿子啊，我已经有安静的心。”而后继续盯着壁炉的火瞧。

But I don't. Nor does Sean. Many of us don't. Many of us look into the fire and see only inferno. I need to actively learn how to do what Sean's father, it seems, was born knowing—how to, as Walt Whitman once wrote, stand "apart from the pulling and hauling . . . amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary . . . both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it all." Instead of being amused, though, I'm only anxious. Instead of watching, I'm always probing and interfering. The other day in prayer I said to God, "Look—I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?"
可是我没有。西恩也没有。很多人都没有。我们许多人只看见火中的地狱。我必须主动学习如何做到西恩的老爸似乎生来就知道的——如惠特曼曾写道：“虽然受到拉扯，我仍作为我而站立……感到有趣、自满、怜悯、无所事事、单一……同时置身于局内与局外，观望着，猜测着。”然而我并不感到有趣，我只感到焦虑。我并未观望，而是永远在探寻、干涉。有一天在祷告时，我对神说：“嘿——我明白未经检验的人生不值得活，不过可不可能有天让我吃顿未经检验的午饭看看？”