This is a list of rules for the elderly, the aim of which is to keep us elderly elderly, and not to see us go one step further. Staying alive in one’s later years is an art generally requiring the avoidance of wrong moves. The key word to a lot of one’s behavior is “don’t.” If more old people simply did not do certain things, especially on impulse, the world would be a safer place. Duller but safer.

这是一份给老年人的守则，其目的在于让我们这些老年人继续当老年人，而不是看着我们再往前多迈一步。人到暮年，活下去是一门艺术，通常要求避免走出错棋。你诸多行为的关键词只有一个：“别。”如果更多老年人能克制住自己，特别是克制住冲动，别去做某些事，这个世界会安全得多。乏味，但安全。

I should add that if you fail to follow these rules, I’m not saying that you are doing anything morally wrong. Only that you will suffer.

我还要补充一句：如果你没能遵守这些规矩，我并不是说你道德上有什么问题。我只想说，你会吃苦头。

1. Run when you hear “We must do this again.”

1. 听到“我们一定得再聚一次”时，赶紧跑。

This is often said at the end of some pointless social event in which you participated reluctantly. Inevitably someone will say cheerily, “We must do this again.” Nonsense. They don’t mean it. You don’t mean it. Nobody means it.

这话通常出现在某场你原本就不情不愿参加的、毫无意义的社交活动尾声。总会有人兴高采烈地说：“咱们一定得再聚！”胡扯。他们不是真心的。你也不是。没人是真心的。

2. Marry above your station.

2. 找个门第高些的对象结婚。

Usually you can’t help it. But you’ve probably found that out already.

这通常也由不得自己。不过你可能早就发现这一点了。

3. Don’t forget to bestow confidence.

3. 别忘了给予信任。

It’s the best thing you can give someone you love. Saying “You can do it” to a loved one in a situation in which that person has self-doubt — taking an exam, making a speech, writing a poem — means more than any sweet profession of affection. It means that you love that person so wholeheartedly that you wish him or her the inner satisfaction of self-realization. The pride of achieving themselves. What more can you say that so expresses your love?

这是你能送给挚爱之人最好的礼物。当所爱之人陷入自我怀疑时——比如面临考试、发表演讲或是写诗，对他说一句“你能行”胜过千言万语的甜言蜜语。这意味着你全心全意地爱着他，希望他能获得自我实现的由衷满足。那种通过自身成就获得的骄傲。还有什么比这更能表达你的爱意呢？

4. Observe the moth.

4. 观察飞蛾。

In her essay “The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf notices a moth in its death throes, batting about a small windowpane. The author watches the animal’s plight with pity and admiration — awe, really. Its struggles are beautiful. She imagines the moth saying death was too strong, even for it.

弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫在她的散文《飞蛾之死》中描写了一只濒临死亡的飞蛾，在小窗玻璃上扑腾。作者怀着怜悯与钦佩——确切地说是敬畏——注视着这个小动物的困境。它的挣扎是美丽的。她想象飞蛾在说：死亡太强大了，连它也抵挡不住。

Observe the moth in its monumental fight for life, and do likewise. We gain life’s powers by knowing that eventually they will be taken away. There is beauty in this struggle. Murmurations of starlings occur only in the evening.

观察飞蛾为生命进行的殊死搏斗，然后照做。我们正是通过知晓力量终将被剥夺，才获得了生命的力量。这挣扎中有美。椋鸟群飞只会在黄昏时分出现。

5. Don’t share despair.

5. 别吐露自己的绝望。

Not even with your friends. Not that they won’t sympathize. It’s just too much to ask of someone dear to you to bear your burdens.

哪怕是面对朋友也不行。倒不是说他们不会同情你。只是，要求你珍视的人背负你的重担，实在太过分了。

6. Don’t compromise, especially a little.

6. 绝不妥协，尤其是微小的妥协。

Unless you’re a professional negotiator, don’t compromise. Give in a little, you might as well give up the ship. During the McCarthy era, students were required to submit loyalty oaths to maintain their scholarships. At a meeting of the Harvard faculty, a professor who had escaped Mussolini’s Italy challenged the dean on this matter. The dean responded that signing and sending in the oaths was merely pro forma and had no more meaning than licking the stamps on the letters. The Italian professor stood and said something like, “Mr. Dean, I’m from fascist Italy, and in fascist Italy you learn one thing. First you lick the stamps. Then you lick something else.”

除非你是职业谈判专家，否则别妥协。退让一小步，你就干脆把整艘船都交出去算了。麦卡锡主义时期，学生必须提交忠诚宣誓书才能保住奖学金。在哈佛的一次教员会议上，一位逃离墨索里尼统治的意大利教授就此事质问院长。院长回应说，签字上交不过是走个形式，其意义还不如舔邮票上的胶水。那位意大利教授站起来说道：“院长先生，我来自法西斯治下的意大利，在那儿你只会学会一件事。先是舔邮票，然后你就得开始舔别的了。”

7. Screw it up royally.

7. 把事情搞砸，而且要搞得轰轰烈烈。

You’ve spent a long life telling yourself that mistakes are to be avoided, but that isn’t necessarily so. Playing jazz piano, whenever you make a mistake, which is inevitable, you make another mistake deliberately to make something right out of something wrong. Then you do it again. Theoretically, you could play an entire tune of mistakes, and it would sound just fine.

你花了一辈子告诫自己要避免犯错，但这未必是对的。弹爵士钢琴时，当你弹错了一个音符（这是难免的），你要故意再弹错一个，把错的变成对的。然后你再来一次。理论上，你可以整首曲子全是错的，听起来却依然美妙。

You may think it would be better not to make the mistake in the first place. But a creative mistake may be truer to life, as you’ve no doubt discovered. You took a job you didn’t want, soon to discover it’s the ideal job for you. You were born to do that job. When you think of it, life is an assembly of creative mistakes. Even when you don’t think of it.

你或许觉得一开始不错才是最好的。但你无疑已经发现，创造性的错误往往更接近生活的真相。你接了一份你不想要的工作，很快却发现这正是为你量身定做的理想工作。你生来就该干这一行。仔细想想，生活就是一连串创造性的错误堆砌而成的。即便你不去想，它也是如此。

8. Don’t question everything you don’t understand.

8. 别去质疑每一个你不明白的事物。

The older you get, the more wonderful the world appears. Wonderful meaning full of wonders. The sudden appearance of something beautiful in the midst of heartbreak, for instance.

年纪越大，世界就显得越奇妙。比如，在心碎欲绝之时，突然出现了美好的事物。

You are at a low point, and you think you’re going to stay there, there’s no relief, when out of the blue, something by Mahler or Beethoven comes into your air, and all at once the sorrow dissipates. You don’t question or analyze the moment. You’re simply grateful for it.

你跌入了谷底，以为自己会永远待在那里，以为解脱无望，这时，马勒或贝多芬的某个乐章忽然飘进了你的空气里，悲伤瞬间消散。你不去质疑，也不去分析那一刻。你只是心怀感激。

Where heartbreak is, beauty intrudes. Wondrously.

哪里有心碎，哪里就有美的闯入。神奇得很。

9. Grab the chicken leg.

9. 抢过那只鸡腿。

So there we were, in our 20s, Ginny and I and a bunch of friends, having a picnic by the Charles River in Cambridge, when I picked up a chicken leg with the intention of eating it and held it aloft. A little boy walked by and took it from my hand and kept walking. My friends and I laughed — the boy was so casual. Ginny said, “He must think that life is a chicken leg, waiting to be snatched.” In fact it is, even when you’re no longer a spring chicken.

那是在我们二十多岁的时候，我和金妮还有一群朋友，在坎布里奇的查尔斯河畔野餐。我拿了一只鸡腿，高高举起打算吃。一个小男孩走过，一把抄走我手上的鸡腿继续往前走。我和朋友们大笑——那孩子太淡定了。金妮说：“他肯定觉得生活就是一根鸡腿，等着你去抢。”事实确实如此，哪怕你早已不再是童子鸡。

10. Look only at the rim.

10. 只看篮筐。

When I was playing intramural basketball in college, I was 5-foot-11, a mite in the land of giants, and my all-around game was so-so at best. Yet most of the time I managed to score in the double digits by paying no attention to the defense. I simply pretended it wasn’t there. I looked only at the rim of the basket. And sure enough, most of the time the defense didn’t touch me.

大学时我打校内篮球赛，身高1米8，在巨人们的世界里是个小不点，我的综合球技充其量也就是一般般。然而大多数时候，我都能得分上双，因为我根本不去理会防守队员。我假装他们不存在。我只盯着篮筐的框沿。果然，大多数时候，防守队员根本碰不到我。

Other games in life offer similar opportunities, at any age. Disregard the impediments to your well-being — a noisy neighbor, a treacherous colleague — and concentrate instead on where you are headed. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how easily you get there. Nothing but net.

生活中的其他比赛也提供类似的机会，不分年龄。无视那些阻碍你幸福的绊脚石——比如吵闹的邻居、阴险的同事——把注意力集中在你要去的地方。你会惊喜地发现，抵达终点竟是如此轻松。空心入网。

11. Do not seek immortality.

11. 别追求不朽。

It won’t come to you anyway, certainly not through your works and achievements. But the good feeling you have for others, and they for you, that goes on forever. I’m fond of quoting the poet Philip Larkin: “What will survive of us is love.” That should do it.

反正永生是不可能的，尤其别指望通过作品和成就来实现了。但是你对他人、他人对你的那份美好情愫是会永存的。我喜欢引用诗人菲利普·拉金的话：“我们身后能留下的，唯有爱。”这就够了。