一輩子做女孩

CE又有好書推薦了！囊括2007年美國六大主流媒體圖書排行榜的銷售冠軍，紅透全球的女性心靈勵志小說——《Eat， Pray， Love》（《一輩子做女孩》）出場了！

小說是作者的親身實錄。作者Elizabeth Gilbert（伊麗莎白·吉爾伯特）是美國小說家和新聞記者，在經(jīng)過了一個慘痛的離婚歷程之后，思索到底女人的人生價值在哪里？她在三個不同國度之間尋找自己——（Eat）到意大利品嘗美食，在感官滿足中治療傷痛；（Pray）在印度與瑜伽士交流，洗滌混亂的身心；（Love）在印尼巴厘島上，她尋得了身心的平衡。

本選段出自“印度”篇，作者九歲時的心理危機在離婚后爆發(fā)，這歸根到底是對滿足感不斷追逐的空虛；終于，在印度，她學(xué)會了放手。而文中提到的“上帝”并不是狹義地指《圣經(jīng)》里的上帝，而是屬于每個人的、哲學(xué)上的生命創(chuàng)造者；“尋找上帝”即懂得敬畏、接受自然。

“愛”的最高境界是“不愛”。如果你在戀愛中從來沒有想過有“不愛”的可能；如果你完全不能面對“不愛”的現(xiàn)實，那你是沒有真正懂得愛了。懂得放棄和改變的女人，即使我們不再漂亮，不再年輕，仍然可以一輩子做女孩！

When I was 9 years old going on 10， I experienced a true 1)metaphysical crisis. Maybe this seems young for such a thing， but I was always a 2)precocious child. It all happened over the summer between 4th and 5th grade. I was going to be turning 10 years old in July and there was something about this 3)transition from 9 to 10， from single-digit to double-digit， that shocked me into a 4)genuine existential panic usually reserved for people turning 50. I remember that life was passing me by so fast. It seemed like only yesterday I was in kindergarten and here I was， about to turn 10. Soon I would be a teen-ager and then middle-aged and then elderly and then dead. And soon everybody else would be dead too. My parents would die， my friends would die， my cat would die.

My sense of helplessness was 5)overwhelming. What I wanted to do was pull some massive emergency brake on the universe， like the brakes I’d seen on the subways during our school trip to New York City. I wanted to call a timeout and demand that everything just stop until I could understand it. I suppose this urge to force the entire universe to stop in its tracks until I could get a grip on my thoughts might have been the beginning of what dear friends of mine have called my “control issues.” Of course my efforts and worry were 6)futile. The closer I watched time the faster it 7)spun， and that Summer went by so quickly that it made my head hurt， and at the end of every day I remember thinking， “another one gone” and bursting into tears.

This sadness is one of the great 8)trials of the human experiment. As far as we know we’re the only species on the planet who have been given the gift， or the curse perhaps， of awareness about our own 9)mortality. Everything here eventually dies. We’re the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day， and how are you going to cope with this information. When I was 9， I couldn’t do a thing about it except cry. Later over the years， my 10)hypersensitive awareness of time’s speed led me to push myself to experience life at 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 11)pasta.

When I told one friend of mine back in New York City that I was going to India to live in an 12)ashram and search for 13)divinity， he sighed and said， “Oh， there’s a part of me that so wishes that I wanted to do that， but I really have no desire for it whatsoever.”

And I don’t know that I have much choice though. I have searched 14)frantically for 15)contentment for so many years in so many ways and all these 16)acquisitions; they run you down in the end. Life， if you keep chasing it so hard， will drive you to death. You have to let go and sit still and allow contentment to approach you. Letting go， of course， is a scary 17)enterprise for those of us who believe that the world 18)revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it， which we ourselves personally turn， and that if we were to drop this handle for even one moment， well， that would be the end of the universe.

But try dropping it. This is the message I’m getting in India; sit quietly for now and cease your relentless 19)participation and watch what happens. The birds do not crash to head out of the sky after all in mid-flight， the trees do not 20)wither and die， the rivers do not run red with blood， life continues to go on， even the Italian Post Office will keep 21)limping along doing its own thing without you. Why are you so sure that your micro-management of every moment in this whole world is so 22)essential? Why don’t you let it be? I hear this argument and it appeals to me. I believe in it 23)intellectually. I really do. But then I wonder， with all my 24)restless 25)yearning， and with all my 26)hyped-up fervor and this stupidly hungry nature of mine， what should I do with my energy instead. That answer is arriving too; look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.

在我還是九歲快要十歲的時候，我經(jīng)歷了一場真正意義上的形而上學(xué)的危機。也許這樣的事情對九歲的小孩來說還是為時過早，但我一直都很早熟。“危機”發(fā)生在我即將升上五年級的那個夏天。那年七月，我就要滿十歲了。這九歲到十歲之間的過渡——從單位數(shù)成為雙位數(shù)——震蕩了我的心靈，讓我陷入一種真正的存在驚恐之中，而這種恐懼往往是邁入知命之年的人才有的。……