How to live your life to the fullest?

简介

不是所有治愈的故事都读起来轻松诙谐，就像不是所有良药都能包上隔离苦味的糖衣。而这个故事带给读者的感觉就是确定无疑的入口苦涩。

全世界只有万分之零点一二的人会在36岁前患上肺癌，本书作者保罗·卡拉尼什就是其中之一。其实，当你读到这本书时，他早已不在人世。

在书中，保罗先是讲述了美好的往日时光，尤其是意气风发的年轻时代，记录了他像开挂一样的学霸人生。而后，命运突然露出獠牙——他被确诊癌症晚期，虽然他决定坦然面对，也重返了热爱的手术台，甚至开始满负荷工作；但很快，他的病情恶化，精力逐渐熬干，转而求助于文学：“我无法前行——我仍将前行”。

节选的这段中有他对初生爱女的深情告白，读来字字令人心碎。

保罗的遗孀露西的《后记》其实是对这部作品的解读。她写道：“保罗的遭遇令人悲伤，但他自己却不是一个悲剧”。保罗既是一名出色的医生，也是一个不幸的病人，还是一位出色的作家——这些独特的能力和经历成就了这本奇书。

孔子说“未知生，焉知死”，苏格拉底说“未经审视的人生不值得过”。人生最重要的基本情节设定是——它必定有终点，这个设定也是教会我们如何好好活着的人生必修课。关于这门课程的知识要点，不管保罗有没有明说，你还是可以从这本书中找到很多答案。

作者保罗·卡拉尼什( Paul Kalanithi, 1977-2015)，美国神经外科医生，作家。1977年生于亚利桑那州，获得斯坦福大学英语文学及人体生物学双料学位后，又于剑桥大学获得科学史与哲学研究硕士学位，并以优异成绩从耶鲁大学医学院毕业，即将获得斯坦福医学院外科教授职位并主持自己的研究室。保罗曾因其出色的研究成果，获得美国神经外科医生协会最高奖。2013年，即将抵达人生巅峰的保罗，忽然被诊断出患有第四期肺癌。2015年3月，37岁的保罗告别妻子和女儿，离开人世。

《当呼吸化为空气》节选

For Cady

You that seek what life is in death, 

Now find it air that once was breath. 

New names unknown, old names gone: 

Till time end bodies, but souls none. 

Reader! then make time, 

while you be, 

But steps to your eternity.

—Baron Brooke Fulke Greville, “Caelica 83”

你在死亡中探究生命的意义，

你见证生前的呼吸化作死后的空气。

新人尚不可知，故旧早已逝去：

躯体有尽时，灵魂无绝期。

读者啊，趁生之欢愉，快与时间同行，共赴永恒生命!

——福尔克·格莱维尔(布鲁克伯爵) 的十四行诗《卡伊利卡 83》

 “Can we put her on your skin, Papa?” the nurse asked me.

“能让她贴贴你的皮肤吗，爸爸？”护士问我。

 “No, I’m too c-c-cold,” I said, my teeth chattering. “But I would love to hold her.” 

“不，我太——太凉了，”我上牙和下牙直打架，“但我很想抱抱她。”

They wrapped her in blankets and handed her to me. Feeling her weight in one arm, and gripping Lucy’s hand with the other, the possibilities of life emanated before us. 

她们用毯子把她裹好，递给我。我一只手臂感受着这新生命的重量，另一只手与露西十指紧扣，生命的无限可能在我们面前铺展开来。

The cancer cells in my body would still be dying, or they’d start growing again. Looking out over the expanse ahead I saw not an empty wasteland but something simpler: a blank page on which I would go on. 

我体内的癌细胞在慢慢消亡，但也有可能重新生长。展望无限广阔的未来，我看到的不是寂静无人的空荡荒原，而是更简单纯粹的东西：一页我将继续书写的白纸。

Yet there is dynamism in our house.

但家中却依然有活力。

Day to day, week to week, Cady blossoms: a first grasp, a first smile, a first laugh. 

日子一天天过去，卡迪如小花般绽放：第一次抓握，第一次微笑，第一次大笑。

Her pediatrician regularly records her growth on charts, tick marks indicating her progress over time. 

她的儿科医生定期用图表记录她的成长，在那些表明她逐渐长大的指标前画勾。

A brightening newness surrounds her. As she sits in my lap smiling, enthralled by my tuneless singing, an incandescence lights the room.

她周身散发着一种崭新的光明。她坐在我膝上微笑，沉浸在我不成调的哼唱中，整个家似乎都被炽热的光照亮了。

Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence—and, eventually, death.

时间对于如今的我，就像一把双刃剑：每天，我都从上次复发中恢复一些，但又距离下次复发更近一些，当然，也离死亡更近一些。

Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. 

死亡可能来得晚于我预计的时间，但肯定早于我渴求的时间。

There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to “live life to its fullest,” to travel, to dine, to achieve a host of neglected ambitions. 

我想，意识到这一点，大概会做出两种反应。最明显直接的反应应该是立即行动的冲动，“最充分地享受生活”，去旅行，去大快朵颐，去实现那些曾经忽略的梦想。

Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day. It is a tired hare who now races. 

然而，癌症的一个残酷之处，就是这种病不仅限制了你的时间，还限制了你的精力，极大地减少了你一天里能赶完的事情，就像一只疲惫的兔子在赛跑。

And even if I had the energy, I prefer a more tortoiselike approach. I plod, I ponder. Some days, I simply persist. 

不过，即便我有这个精力，我也更希望像一只乌龟那样活着。稳步前行，深思熟虑。在有些日子里，我只是咬牙坚持。

If time dilates when one moves at high speeds, does it contract when one moves barely at all? It must: the days have shortened considerably. 

如果一个人高速行动时，时间就会膨胀，那要是几乎一动不动，时间会收缩吗？一定会的吧：现在，每一天似乎都缩短了很多。

With little to distinguish one day from the next, time has begun to feel static. In English, we use the word time in different ways: “The time is two forty-five” versus “I’m going through a tough time.” 

一天天过得千篇一律，时间似乎也静止了。英语中，“time”这个词的意思多种多样：可以说“现在的时间是两点四十五”，也可以说“我这段时间过得不太好”。

These days, time feels less like the ticking clock and more like a state of being. Languor settles in. There’s a feeling of openness. 

对于现在的我，与其说时间是时钟的滴答作响，不如说是一种生存的状态。倦怠成为常态。有种空洞无物的感觉。

As a surgeon, focused on a patient in the OR, I might have found the position of the clock’s hands arbitrary, but I never thought them meaningless. Now the time of day means nothing, the day of the week scarcely more.

做医生的时候，在手术室全神贯注地治疗病人，对指针的走动也许的确没有感觉和概念，但从未觉得时间是毫无意义的。而现在，每天的一分一秒都变得毫无意义，每周的每个日子也好不到哪儿去。

Medical training is relentlessly future-oriented, all about delayed gratification; you’re always thinking about what you’ll be doing five years down the line.

医学院的培训非常残酷无情，完全是着眼于未来的，一切满足感都被延迟。你会一直思考，五年后的自己在做什么。

But now I don’t know what I’ll be doing five years down the line. I may be dead. I may not be. I may be healthy. I may be writing. I don’t know. 

然而，现在的我，完全看不到五年后的自己在做什么。也许已经去世，也许没有，也许健康了，也许在写作。我真的不知道。

And so it’s not all that useful to spend time thinking about the future—that is, beyond lunch. 

所以，花时间去思考什么未来没有用处，最远就想到午饭吃什么就好了。

Verb conjugation has become muddled, as well. Which is correct: “I am a neurosurgeon,” “I was a neurosurgeon,” or “I had been a neurosurgeon before and will be again”? 

我说话时的动词变化也混乱起来。怎么说才对呢：“我是一个神经外科医生医生”？“我曾经是一个神经外科医生”？“我过去一直是神经外科医生，将来也会继续做神经外科医生？”

Graham Greene once said that life was lived in the first twenty years and the remainder was just reflection.

格雷厄姆·格林曾经说过，人真正的生命是在头二十年，剩下的不过是对过去日子的反射。

[Graham Greene：英国传奇作家，一生曾获21次诺贝尔文学奖提名。]

So what tense am I living in now? Have I proceeded beyond the present tense and into the past perfect? The future tense seems vacant and, on others’ lips, jarring. 

那我现在究竟生活在什么时态之中？我是不是已经过完了现在时态，进入了过去完成时？将来时态似乎是一片空白，用别人的话来说，就是“说不准”。

A few months ago, I celebrated my fifteenth college reunion at Stanford and stood out on the quad, drinking a whiskey as a pink sun dipped below the horizon; when old friends called out parting promises—“We’ll see you at the twenty-fifth!”—it seemed rude to respond with “Well…probably not.”

几个月前，我在斯坦福参加了第十五次大学同学会，站在场地边，喝着一杯威士忌，看着一轮粉红的夕阳一点一点沉到地平线后面。老朋友们临别承诺：“第二十五次同学会再见！”——如果我回一句“呃……够呛了”，那就显得太不礼貌了。

Everyone succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. 

面对生命的界限，人人都无计可施。我想，进入这种过去完成时的人，应该不止我一个。大多数的梦想和抱负，要么被实现，要么被抛弃，无论如何，都属于过去。

The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. 

而我的未来已经不是一架天梯，指向人生的前方，而是平坦下来，铺陈为永恒的现在。

Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest:a chasing after wind, indeed. 

金钱、地位、一切的虚荣浮华，都像《圣经·传道书》的传道者轻描淡写的话：不过捕风而已。此言不虚。

Yet one thing cannot be robbed of her futurity: our daughter, Cady. I hope I’ll live long enough that she has some memory of me. 

然而，有个东西是有笃定未来的：我们的女儿，卡迪。但愿我能活到她记事，让她多少记得一点我。

Words have a longevity I do not. I had thought I could leave her a series of letters—but what would they say?

文字的不朽远长于我的寿命。我曾想过给她写一堆信——但是，信里说些什么呢？

I don’t know what this girl will be like when she is fifteen; I don’t even know if she’ll take to the nickname we’ve given her. 

我不知道这孩子十五岁时会出落成什么样子；我甚至无从知晓她会不会喜欢我们给她的昵称。

There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all but past. 

这个小婴儿完全代表着未来，而我的生命呢，除了特别微小的可能，很快将成为过去；她与我，只是短暂的交集。也许，我只有一件事想告诉她。

That message is simple: 

我要传达的信息非常简单：

When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

在往后的生命中，你会有很多时刻，要去回顾自己的过去，罗列出你去过的地方，做过的事，对这个世界的意义。我衷心希冀，遇到这样的时刻，你一定不要忘了，你曾经让一个将死之人的余生充满了欢乐。在你到来之前的岁月，我对这种欢乐一无所知。我不奢求这样的欢乐永无止境，只觉得平和喜乐，心满意足。此时此刻的当下，这是我生命中无与伦比的事。