孤独的对立面

Marina Keegan (翻译：白露为霜)

我们没有一个词来表达孤独的对立面，但如果有的话，可以说这就是我在人生中想要的。这就是我很感激地在耶鲁大学发现的，同时当我们明天醒来离开这个地方之后又是我担心失去的。

它并不完全是爱，也不完全是社团，它只是这种感觉：人，很多的人，为某件事情在一起。这些人是你的队友。当账单已付，可你还留在桌边。当已经是凌晨4点，却没人去睡觉。那个吉他当歌的晚上；那个我们记不清了的晚上；我们做了，我们去了，我们看了，我们笑了，我们感受到了的时候。

耶鲁到处是我们在自己身边围成的小圈子。无伴奏合唱队，运动队，寝室，社团，俱乐部。这些微小的群体使我们感受到爱，平安，是团体中的一员。即使在我们最孤独的夜晚，当我们蹒跚来到电脑跟前 - 没有同伴，疲倦不堪却脑袋清醒。我们明年将不会有这些。我们所有的朋友不会都住在一起。我们将不会发一堆群组短信。

这让我恐惧。相比起找到合适的工作或城市或配偶 - 我更怕失去这个网络，这个难以捉摸，难以言传的，孤独的对立面。我现在体验到的这种感觉。

但是我们得弄清一件事：我们生活中最好的年头不是在我们身后。他们是我们的一部分，他们将重复出现，当我们长大搬到纽约，或搬离纽约，以及希望我们住在或者没有住在纽约。我打算在我30岁时开派对，我打算在我老了的时候做有意思的事情。任何最好的年头的概念来自于陈词滥调“我应该做...”，“假如我做...”，“希望我做了...”。

当然，有些事情我们真的希望自己做了：读更多的书，大厅对面的那个男孩。我们是自己的最严厉的批评者，我们很容易让自己失望。睡觉睡过头，拖拖拉拉，偷工减料。我不止一次看着高中自我而想：我是怎么做的呢？我怎么会如此卖力？我们个人的不安全感跟随着我们，也将始终跟随我们。

但事实上我们都是这样的。没有人是在他想要醒来时就醒来。没有人会把他该阅读的书都读完（也许除了那些得奖的疯子之外...）我们有这些不可能的高标准，我们也许永远也不会实现有关我们自己未来的完美幻想。但我觉得也这没啥关系。

我们如此年轻，这样年轻。我们只有二十二岁。我们还有很多时间。有一种情绪，我有时会感觉到，匍匐在集体的潜意识中，当我们在舞会之后独自躺着或收拾起自己的书籍走出去：现在为时已晚。别人已经走到前头，更有成就，更加精专。在拯救世界的路上走的更远，正以某种方式创造，发明，改进。现在起始一个新的开端已经太晚了，我们只好选择延续而不是开始。

当我们初到耶鲁的时候，有一种一切皆是可能的感觉。这种巨大的不可名状的潜在能量 – 我们可以很容易地感受到它偷偷地溜走了。我们以前从未必须做出选择，突然间我们不得不这样。我们中有些人很专注。这些人知道他们想要什么，并且走在得到它的道路上; 已经考上了医学院，在做研究，在一个完美的非政府组织(NGO)工作。对他们我要说的是：祝贺你，同时，你真太糟糕了。

然而对于大多数人来说，我们迷失在博雅教育(liberal arts education)的海洋里。不太知道自己走在哪条路上，或是否应该走这条路。假如我是学生物学专业...假如我在新鲜人时就参与新闻采写...假如我想到申请这或申请那...

我们一定要记住的是：我们依然可以做任何事情。我们可以改变主意。我们可以从头来起。拿一个第二学位或第一次尝试写作。做某事情为时已晚的概念是滑稽的，太搞笑了。我们刚刚大学毕业，我们这么年轻。我们不能也决不应该失去这种无所不能的感觉，因为说到底，它就是我们所拥有的一切。

在我大一冬季的一个星期五的晚上，我在同朋友通话后感到茫然和困惑，去EST EST EST去找他们。茫然而困惑，我开始跋涉去SSS，大概算校园的最远点。奇怪的是，直到我差不多到了门口，才想起来怀疑为什么我的朋友们会在耶鲁的行政大楼里聚会。当然，他们没有。天很冷，我的ID卡不知何故可以使用，所以我走进SSS大楼并拿出我的电话来。楼很安静，木地板吱吱作响，隐约可以看见彩色玻璃外的雪。我坐了下来，再抬起头看。在这个巨大的房间里，在我之前有数以千记的人坐过的地方，独自一人，在纽黑文的风暴之夜，我感觉到的是奇特而难以置信的平安。

我们没有一个词来表达孤独的对立面，但如果有的话，我会说这就是我在耶鲁的感觉。这就是我现在所体验到的。在这里，与大家伙在一起。彼此相爱，留下印象，为之谦卑，为之恐惧。我们不应该失去这些。

我们因为这个而在一起，2012届的毕业生。让我们为世界做些事情。

The Opposite of Loneliness

    We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.

    It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt.

    Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.

    This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.

    But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”

    Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.

    But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.

    We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.

    When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.

    For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…

    What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.

    In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.

    We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.

    We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.