The Eleventh Tuesday

第十一个星期二

We Talk About Our Culture

我们聊了聊我们的文化

I asked Morrie why he hadn't moved somewhere else when he was younger.

我问莫瑞为什么他年轻的时候没有搬到其他地方生活。

"Where?"

“搬去哪里？”

I don't know. South America. New Guinea. Someplace not as selfish as America.

我不知道。南美洲？新几内亚之类的。一些不像美国那么自私的国家。

"Every society has its own problems,” Morrie said, lifting his eyebrows, the closest he could come to a shrug.

“每个社会都有自己的问题，”莫瑞说着，抬起眉毛，他所能做出的最接近耸肩的动作。

"The way to do it, I think, isn't to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.”

“办法我认为，并不是去逃避。你得致力于去创造你自己的文化。”

"Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you're surrounded by people who say 'I want mine now,' you end up with a few people with every¬thing and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it."

“听着，不管你在哪里生活，我们人所共有的最大缺陷就是短视。我们看不到我们能成为什么样的人。我们应该关注自己的潜力，向着我们可能成为的一切去延伸自己。但是如果你身边都被那些总说‘现在我就要我那份’的人围绕，那结果就是少数人拥有一切以及一支防止穷人起义夺走他们这一切的军队。”

Morrie looked over my shoulder to the far window.

莫瑞越过我的肩膀看向远处的窗外。

Sometimes you could hear a passing truck or a whip of the wind.

有时你能听到经过的卡车和鞭打般的风声。

He gazed for a moment at his neighbors' houses, then continued.

他凝视着邻居的房子好一会儿，然后继续说。

"The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks. Catholics and Protestant, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.”

“问题就是，米契，我们不相信我们之间有多么相似。白人与黑人。天主教徒与新教教徒，男人与女人。如果我们能更加相似地去看待彼此，我们可能会非常热切的加入这个世界上的同一个人类大家庭，并且像我们在乎自己的小家一样去在乎这个人类大家庭。”

"But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning—birth—and we all have the same end——death. So how different can we be?”

“但是相信我，当你快要死的时候，你会看到确实是这样的。我们都有着相同的开始——出生——而且我们都有相同的结局——死亡。所以我们又会怎么不同呢？“

"Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you."

“投入到人类家庭当中去。投入到人群中去。为你爱和爱你的人建立一个小社区。“

He squeezed my hand gently.

他轻轻地捏了捏我的手。

I squeezed back harder.

我用力地的握了握他的手。

And like that carnival contest where you bang a hammer and watch the disk rise up the pole, I could almost see my body heat rise up Morrie's chest and neck into his cheeks and eyes.