你2.0：斯多葛主义的智慧

这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。作为人类，活着就意味着会遭遇悲伤与苦难。几个世纪以来，艺术家、作家和思想家们一直在试图捕捉这种感受。作家威廉·斯泰伦曾说，抑郁症引发的巨大恐惧如细雨般绵密，最终呈现出肉体疼痛般的特质。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. To be human, to be alive, is to be vulnerable to sadness and suffering. For centuries, artists, writers, and thinkers have tried to capture what this feels like. The author William Styron once said, The great drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.

但这种痛苦不像断肢那样可以立即识别。或许更准确的说法是，绝望感就像被关在酷热难耐的房间里的那种煎熬。由于没有一丝清风搅动这口大锅，也找不到任何摆脱窒息束缚的出路，受害者自然会开始不断想到解脱。有时我们的痛苦与所见的世界相连。南北战争期间，本就容易抑郁的亚伯拉罕·林肯总统常被战争恐怖吞噬。

But it is not an immediately identifiable pain like that of a broken limb. It may be more accurate to say that despair comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because no breeze stirs this cauldron, because there is no escape from the smothering confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion. Sometimes our suffering is connected to what we see in the world. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, who was already prone to depression, was often consumed by the horrors of the war.

他的秘书约翰·海曾记录道，林肯会连续数小时茫然凝视窗外，脸上浮现着人类所能想象的最深重哀伤。

His secretary, John Hay, would note that he would sit for hours staring vacantly out the window, his face displaying the deepest sorrow imaginable.

但是

But

自人类开始承受苦难起，人类也一直在寻找解脱之路。哲学家、科学家和精神领袖们提出了许多关于如何获得满足生活的见解。本期节目我们将探讨一位生活在约19个世纪前的哲人王的智慧。他的生命沉思能穿越近2000年时光，必有其缘由。用古老智慧帮助我们找到走出现代忧郁的路径。

as long as humans have been suffering, humans have also been trying to find paths out of suffering. Philosophers, scientists, and spiritual leaders have offered many ideas on how to live a life of contentment. Today on the show, we explore the ideas of an unusual philosopher king who lived some 19 centuries ago. There's a reason his meditations about a life worth living have survived nearly 2,000. Ancient ideas to help us find a way out of modern despondencies.

本周《隐藏大脑》主题。我们多数人都经历过人生低谷——环顾四周时突然意识到必须做出改变的时刻。这些时刻的选择将决定未来是走向幸福还是沉沦。纽约市立学院的哲学家马西莫·佩柳奇对此有切身体会。

This week on Hidden Brain. Most of us have been there. Low points in our life when we look around and realize that something needs to change. What we do in these moments can spell the difference between a life of well-being or a life of despair. At the City College of New York, philosopher Massimo Pellucci has personal experience with such moments in his own life.

马西莫·佩柳奇，欢迎来到《隐藏大脑》。

Massimo Pellucci, welcome to Hidden Brain.

很荣幸受邀，谢谢邀请。

It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

马西莫，你四十岁时世界崩塌了。当时你住在哪里？

Massimo, your world fell apart when you turned 40. Where were you living at the time?

我当时住在田纳西州诺克斯维尔，人们称之为圣经地带的中心。

I was in Knoxville, Tennessee, the buckle of the bible belt as they as they called it.

你当时生活中发生了什么？

And what was going on in your life?

我刚开始在田纳西大学的学术生涯。那时我是生物学家，还不是哲学家。学校对我很好，但同时也存在几个问题。首先，当地的文化环境让我难以适应。

I had started my academic career at the University of Tennessee. You know, I had a I was a biologist at the time, not a philosopher. And I was being treated very well by the university there. But at the same time, there were a couple of things that were problematic. Number one, the local culture was difficult for me to live in.

我担任进化生物学教授时，有些学生甚至告诉我我可能会下地狱。这确实很有挑战性。但更重要的是，我和前伴侣有个女儿住在康涅狄格州的东海岸，我一直想搬回那个地区。

I was a professor of evolutionary biology. My students, some of them actually told me that I was probably gonna go to hell. So I was like, you know, that's challenging. But the more important bit was that I had a daughter from a previous relationship, and she was living on the East Coast in Connecticut. So I always wanted to move back into that area.

这对一个拥有终身教职的正教授来说很棘手，因为东海岸的职位空缺极少——毕竟人人都想去那里。而且大学通常招聘的是初级教职人员，而非资深专家。这成了个大问题。

And that is problematic for somebody who is a full professor with tenure because there are very few positions available, especially in in the East Coast because everybody wants to go there. And and, typically, universities hire junior faculty, not not senior professionals. So so that was a problem.

马西莫尝试通过申请东海岸的工作来解决问题。幸运的是，他在长岛的石溪大学获得了职位。但当一个挑战看似解决时，其他问题接踵而至——马西莫与妻子的婚姻出现危机，他们决定离婚而非共同搬往长岛。

Massimo tried to address the situation by applying for jobs on the East Coast. As luck would have it, he landed a position with Stony Brook University on Long Island. But even as it seemed like a solution was at hand for one challenge, others cropped up. Massimo and his wife started having problems in their marriage. Instead of moving together to Long Island, they decided to get a divorce.

紧接着，远在数千英里外的马西莫父亲被诊断出癌症。

And then Massimo's father, who lived thousands of miles away, was diagnosed with cancer.

我父亲当时身患多种癌症——他是个老烟枪。那时我母亲（他前妻）用意大利谚语开玩笑说'坏草难除'，但这玩笑实在...

So my father had been hit by multiple types of cancer. He was a big smoker. So at that point, my mother, his ex wife, made a comment. He said, which is Italian for the bad weeds never die. She meant it as a joke, but it was you know?

突然病情急转直下，几周内他就去世了。事实上一切发生得太快，我根本来不及做任何事——当时我正在去机场的路上准备飞罗马见他，哥哥突然来电告知父亲离世。我在高速公路上彻底崩溃了。

And then all of a sudden, things took a turn for the worse, and it killed him in a matter of weeks. In fact, it was so fast that I did not have the time to really do anything. You know, I was on my way, literally on my way to the airport to get on the plane, to get to Rome, and go see him. And my brother called me saying, you know, dad just died. I I literally broke down trying on on the highway.

不得不靠边停车。虽然赶上了葬礼，却没能见到最后一面。想象一下：短短几个月内，我接连遭遇离婚消息、父亲去世...

I had to pull over. So I was able to get to his funeral, but not but not being there in the last few moments. So at this point, picture this. In a in a span of a few months, I got hit with this news that apparently I'm gonna be divorced. My father dies.

与此同时我已接受石溪大学的职位，这意味着要跨州搬家、找新房子。任何心理学家都会告诉你，其中一两件事就够让人压力山大了，四五件同时发生简直难以承受。

And in the meantime, of course, I had accepted the position at Stony Brook, which meant that I had a new job. I had to move across the country, and I had to find a new house. Now any psychologist psychologist will will worth worth insult its salt would would tell tell you you that that one or two of those things is pretty stressful. Four or five of them simultaneously, that's a lot.

在你人生的这段动荡时期，你从一个意想不到的源泉找到了慰藉和指引。那是你多年前在大学时读过的一本书。这次重读时，你感觉它仿佛在直接对你说话。这本书是什么，马西莫？

So during this time of upheaval in your life, you found consolation and guidance in an unexpected source. It was a book you had encountered many years earlier in college. By rereading it this time, you felt like it was speaking directly to you. What was this book, Massimo?

这本书是马可·奥勒留的《沉思录》，一本斯多葛学派的著作。这本身就很有趣，因为我第一次接触马可·奥勒留时心想：斯多葛学派？拜托。谁想过那种苦行僧般的生活？这些人不是整天板着脸压抑情绪吗？对吧？

The book was The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which is a stoic book. And that's interesting in itself because the first time that I came across Marcus Aurelius, I thought, stoic is come on. Who wants to live a life like a stoic? I mean, aren't these the kind of people that go around with a stiff upper lip and suppressing emotions? Right?

就像《星际迷航》里的斯波克先生。所以当我再次遇到马可时，我有点怀疑。但当我翻开《沉思录》——这本书不需要从头到尾按顺序读，因为它其实是这位皇帝的个人哲学日记——我随机翻到后面某卷，看到的第一句话大意是：你不喜欢黄瓜因为它苦。

So kind of like mister Spock from Star Trek. So when I came across Marcus, again, I thought, I don't know about this thing. But then I opened the meditations, and one of the first phrases so the meditation is not the kind of book that you necessarily read cover to cover because it is it was a personal philosophical diary or journal of the emperor. So it was not in fact meant for publication. So when I opened it up at random, one of the first few sentences that I found is one in one of the later books, and it said some says something like, you don't like the cucumber because it's bitter.

那别吃就是了。何必还要抱怨世界上存在苦黄瓜呢？这句话让我感到极具力量与洞见。我们总在抱怨事与愿违、世界不如预期，但这些抱怨毫无实际意义。

Well, don't eat it. Why do you have to go on and complain about the fact that there are bitter cucumbers in the world? That struck me as very powerful and very insightful. We tend to complain all the time about the fact that things don't go our way, that the world is not the way we would like it to be. And those complaints don't do anything practical.

它们不具备可操作性。抱怨于是沦为沉溺自怜或助长不满的手段，反而让情况恶化——现在你不仅面临不喜欢的外部境况，还通过无谓抱怨让内心更加煎熬，形成恶性循环。所以我反复琢磨那句话：好吧。

They're not actionable. So complaining about it becomes, simping, a way to wallow in your self pity or to fuel your own dissatisfaction with the world, which makes the thing worse. So now you have both an external situation, some aspect of the world that you don't like, and you are making yourself inwardly worse by complaining about it in a way that it gets frustrating because you can't do anything about it. So I I went back to that phrase. It says, okay.

世界上存在苦黄瓜，这是事实。我没有消除世上所有苦黄瓜的能力，但我有权选择不吃它们。

There are bitter cucumbers in the world. That's a fact. Right? I do not have the power to eliminate bitter cucumbers from the world. I do have the power to refuse to eat them.

仅此而已。马可说得太对了。我根本不需要额外抱怨'世界多么不公竟存在苦黄瓜'这个事实。这是我的启蒙时刻之一——差不多同时我还从爱比克泰德（马可的思想导师之一）那里读到另一句震撼的话。

And that's it. Markus is absolutely right. I don't need the additional step of complaining and and all in this fact that the world is so unfair because there's bitter cucumbers. That was the beginning or one of the beginnings because I also got pretty much at the same time another stunning phrase from Epictetus, who was one of the inspirations to Marcus. So the two are very closely related.

爱比克泰德也是个传奇人物。马可是帝王，当时地中海世界最有权势的人；而爱比克泰德正相反——他生来是奴隶。

Epictetus was another interesting guy. You know, Marcus Aurelius was an emperor, so literally the most powerful person in the Mediterranean world at the time. Epictetus was at the opposite extreme. He was a slave. He he started out life as a slave.

后来他虽获自由，却成为公元二世纪初地中海地区最受尊崇的哲学家之一。两人人生轨迹截然不同，但斯多葛哲学却在他们身上产生强烈共鸣，并通过他们影响后世。爱比克泰德在《谈话录》开篇就质问朋友：

He was actually eventually freed, and and he became actually one of the most well known and respected teachers in the Mediterranean area at the beginning of the second century. So he was a very you know, had a completely different sort of life life trajectory. And yet the ideas, the Stoic ideas, resonated the pantry with both of these people, and both of them became major conduits for later generations. And one of the things that Epictetus says at the beginning of the discourses is, so you wanna make money? He's talking to some of his friends.

你们想赚钱？或指望我赚钱来帮你们？这都没问题。但钱本身不会告诉我该怎么花——能指导我的是我的判断力。

You wanna make money or you want me to make money so that I can help you? Well, that's all fine. But what am I gonna do with that money? The money itself isn't gonna tell me. What's gonna tell me is my faculty of judgment.

爱比克泰德借此阐述斯多葛学派的普遍观点：所谓外在之物，如金钱、健康乃至名誉，并非根本所在。它们之所以不关键，全在于你如何运用。对吧？你可以非常富有却造成巨大伤害，也可能极其贫穷却将资源用得极为明智。

And Epictetus uses this to make the general Stoic point that so called externals, things like money or health even or reputation, are not the fundamental thing. They're not crucial because it all depends on how you use them. Right? You can be very rich and do a lot of damage. Or you may be very poor and actually use your resources very wisely.

对爱比克泰德和马可·奥勒留而言，重要的不是名声、金钱或财富本身，而是你如何运用它们来产生差异。这让我意识到斯多葛主义的另一根本洞见：为何你现在专注于提升决策能力，却仍盲目追随社会主流观念？追求变得更富有、更出名等等。且慢——

To Epictetus and Marcus, it's not fame or money or wealth or whatever it is per se. It's how you use them that makes a difference. And that struck me as another fundamental insight from stoicism that why are you now focusing on improving your decision making ability, and you keep focusing instead on more or less mindlessly follow what society at large tells you? That you're trying to become more wealthy, more famous, and so on and so forth. Hold on.

当你拥有这一切之后，你打算用它做什么？

What are you gonna do with all that stuff once you have it?

稍后回来时，我们将探讨马可·奥勒留的思想如何帮助我们在现代生活的挑战中把握方向。您正在收听《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

When we come back, how the ideas of Marcus Aurelius can help us steer a course through the challenges of modern life. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

马西莫·皮里乌奇是纽约市立学院的哲学家。在他人生低谷时，他重新发现了罗马皇帝马可·奥勒留写于1900年前的个人沉思录。如今它以最简单的标题《沉思录》广为人知。马西莫，请描述马可·奥勒留其人及其所处的世界。

Massimo Piliucci is a philosopher at the City College of New York. At a low point in his life, he rediscovered a 1,900 year old set of personal reflections written by the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. It is widely known today by the simplest of titles, Meditations. Massimo, describe who Marcus Aurelius was and the kind of world in which he operated.

因此他是所谓的五贤帝之一。马可作为皇帝的日子并不好过。他本不想当皇帝，对此实在提不起兴趣。在《沉思录》某处他曾写道：人可以在任何地方过上好生活。

So he was one of the so called five good emperors. Marcus had a difficult time as an emperor. He did not want to be an emperor. He was really not that interested. In the meditations, at some point, he says, you can live a good life anywhere.

若不得不住在皇宫里，那么即便在皇宫里也能拥有美好生活——这句话就透露出他并不热衷权位。与其他帝王（尤其是其前任安东尼·庇护）不同，他的统治充满艰辛。马可执政期间接连发生多起事件：两场边境战争，东方有帕提亚人进犯帝国边境，北方则遭遇日耳曼部落（主要是马科曼尼人）侵袭，还要镇压一位自称皇帝的部将发动的内乱。

If you have to be in a palace, then you can have a good life even in a palace, which tells you that he wasn't exactly thrilled. And he did not have an easy reign, unlike the others, especially his predecessor, Antoninus Pius. Because during Marcus' reign, a number of things happened. Two frontier wars, there was an attack on the frontiers of the empire in the East by the Parthians and from the North from a number of German tribes, chiefly the Marcomanni. It had to deal with an internal rebellion by one of these lieutenants who declared himself emperor.

罗马遭遇台伯河特大洪灾，半座城池毁于一旦。一场大地震摧毁了现代土耳其西部的士麦那城，这些灾祸都需要皇帝亲自应对。可以说他终日焦头烂额。而他所做的，就是始终竭尽全力将斯多葛哲学应用于现实处境。这正是柏拉图所说的'哲人王'活生生的范例。

Rome was hit by a devastating flood of the Tiber River that destroyed half of the city. A huge earthquake demolished the city of Smyrna in modern Western Turkey, and the emperor also had to deal with that. So he had he had his hands full. And what he did throughout was to do his best in order to apply his stoic philosophy to the situation. So here's a case where we literally have an emperor philosopher or a philosopher king as Plato would put it.

对吧？我们看到的这位帝王不仅为哲学本身着迷，更决心将哲学作为生活方式，进而作为个人与政治决策的框架。这确实产生了深远影响，可以说正是这点成就了他伟大帝王的地位。

Right? We have one somebody who is not only interested in philosophy for its own sake, but he actually is determined to use philosophy as a way of life and, therefore, as a framework to make decisions both personal and political. And that really did make a difference. Arguably, that's one of the things that made him a great emperor.

那么斯多葛学派常提到一个日常修习环节——晚间冥想。马西莫，这具体是什么？如何进行？

So the the Stoics basically talk about a regular part of life, which is a practice known as evening meditation. What what is this, Massimo? How is it conducted?

你可以将整部《沉思录》视为一系列晚间冥想，但爱比克泰德对此练习也有简要描述，而塞内卡则论述得更为详尽。其基本内容如下：睡前抽出少许时间——无需太长，大约五到十分钟——在家中与心灵皆寻一处静谧角落，回顾当日重要事件，自问如何应对及处理这些事。比如塞内卡特别提到，你应当自问：今日我学到了什么？

You can think of the entire meditations as a series of evening meditations, but the exercise is also described briefly in Epictetus and and more length in, in Seneca. Basically, it consists in this. Before you go to bed, you take a little bit of time, not a lot, five, ten minutes maybe. You get into a quiet corner of both your house and your your mind, and then you go and reflect on salient events that happened during the day, asking yourself how you reacted, how you handled those things. Seneca specifically, for instance, says, you know, you should go over and say, what have I learned today?

我如何提升了自我？在哪些方面有所进步？爱比克泰德的指导更为具体，提出需自问三个问题：我做错了什么？

How am I improved myself? In in what way am I better? Epictetus is even more specific. It says that we need to ask ourselves three questions. What did I do wrong?

我做对了什么？下次遇到类似情况时，我能如何改进？现代科学为此提供了扎实的实证依据——这种方法确实有效，是一种自我剖析。

What did I do right? And what could I do better the next time that something like that happens? It has very good empirical backing from modern science. It really does work. It is a kind of self analysis.

不过自我剖析存在局限性，正如现代心理学家所揭示的：人类极擅长自我合理化。你可能会写下事件经过，却为某些行为或未作为编造各种借口。但斯多葛学派意识到这点，因此他们强调：自我剖析与反省固然必要，但仍需借助外力。

Now, there is a limitation in doing self analysis, which is, as especially modern psychologists have demonstrated, you know, human beings are very good at rationalizing. So you can write down things, and then you can you can make up all sorts of excuses about why you did certain things or or you didn't do other things. But the Stoics were aware of that, which is why they said, well, you need to do the self analysis. You need to do the the self examination. But you also need some help.

斯多葛学派认为主要有两种外力辅助：其一是想象一位榜样人物。设想你正与某人对话——若你留意，《沉思录》始终采用第二人称叙事，并非'我做了某事'而是'你做了某事'，仿佛马可·奥勒留正在向聆听的朋友提出建议。

And there are two major sources of help for the Stoics. One is to imagine a role model. So imagine that you're actually talking to somebody. If you notice, the meditation is written in the second person. It's not I did this, but you did this, as if Marcus were writing to a friend or to somebody else who was listening, and he was giving advice to that person.

尽管他实际上是在谈论自己。

Even though he was talking about himself.

确实如此。最近我读到心理学文献中的一篇论文，有力证据表明这种技巧能帮助人们与自身行为保持一定程度的情感抽离，从而更理性、更批判性地审视所为。另一种外力则是与朋友真实对话。

Even though he was talking about himself. And, again, that is very good. I was just reading an article the other day in psychological literature. There's pretty good evidence that this this technique helps achieving a emotional detachment to some extent from your own actions and therefore engaging more analytically, more critically with what you've done. And the other external help is talking to a friend, literally talking to a friend.

对吧？斯多葛学派认为真正的朋友应是'德行之友'——那种当你行为失当时敢于直言相谏的朋友。这样的朋友无需太多，但至少要有一位能与之把酒畅谈：'我遇到这个问题，你怎么看？'

Right? And the Stoics thought that friends, real friends, are so called friends of virtue, the kind of friends that are okay telling you that you're doing something wrong if they do think that you're doing something wrong. And you don't need a lot of them, but it's important to have at least one, to have that kind of person that you can go and have a drink and say, you know, I got this issue. What do you think?

那么马西莫，我理解这些晚间冥想已成为你生活的固定部分了？

So I understand that these evening meditations have now become a regular part of your life, Massimo?

是的，我已坚持多年。若你意识到存在反复出现的问题——比如愤怒或沮丧——不妨自问：五年前我如何处理此事？或当时困扰我的主题是什么？

Yeah. I've been doing it for years. And if you know that there is a recurring issue, let's say anger, for instance, or frustration or whatever it is, then you just say, okay. How was I doing five years ago with this? Or what kind of themes was I preoccupied with?

十年前困扰我的问题与现在有何不同？因此这也成为追踪进步的一种方式。我在这方面做得更好了吗？是否有些事情十年前让我非常烦恼，而现在不再困扰，因为我确实取得了进展？如果没有，那么这或许正是我过去未充分意识到、需要重点关注的事情。

What kind of issues were bothering me ten years ago as opposed to now? And so it becomes also a way to keep track of progress. Am I doing better on this thing? Are there is it something that ten years ago was bothering me a lot, and now it's not because I've actually made made progress? And if not, then perhaps that's one thing that I need to focus on that I was not sufficiently aware of.

马西莫，在你成为马可·奥勒留和斯多葛哲学的学生之前，你曾与对自己身体某个特征的感受作斗争。究竟是什么困扰着你？

So before you became a student of Marcus Aurelius and stoic philosophy, Massimo, you wrestled with your feelings about a particular aspect of your physique. What was it that bothered you?

哦，我从小就一直有点超重。事实上现在可能还是如此。我曾为此挣扎——最初是以不健康的方式，这很典型，因为你会受到同龄人甚至父母的压力。我父母在我初中时就带我去看营养师，这反应可能过度了，问题根本没那么严重。但当你从他人（包括爱你的人）那里接受了'这是个需要解决的问题'的观念后，它很容易变成执念，从而变得不健康。

Oh, I've always been a little bit overweight since I was a kid. In fact, arguably, still am. And so I struggle with that because and initially, I struggle with that in an unhealthy way, I would say, which is kinda typical because you have pressure from your peers, even my own parents. You know, my parents brought me to a dietitian when I was, you know, in middle school or something like that, which probably was way of an overreaction because the problem certainly was not was not that dramatic. But once you get into the you know, you absorb the notion from others, including the people who love you, that there is an issue, that there is a problem, that you need really to work on it, then it becomes it easily becomes an obsession and therefore not healthy.

我断断续续与之抗争。自我形象问题有时还会影响人际关系。由于身体形象问题，我常常不知道该如何处理或发展友谊和感情关系。

So I struggle with that on and off. Also, self image, sometimes it got me into trouble in terms of relationships. I just wouldn't know how to handle or wouldn't know how to pursue necessarily a friendship or a relationship because of my, you know, body image problem.

对此马可·奥勒留提出了深刻见解。他强调要尊重所谓的'控制二分法'。这个概念是什么，马西莫？

So Marcus Aurelius has some insight to contribute here. He says that it's important to respect what he calls the dichotomy of control. What is this idea, Massimo?

这是斯多葛学派的基本理念。'控制二分法'这个术语其实是现代的，古代哲人如爱比克泰德（马可·奥勒留的主要思想来源之一）称之为'根本法则'——光这个命名就说明其重要性。该法则指出：有些事取决于我们，有些则不然。它建议我们应专注于可控之事，因为那才是你真正能发挥能动性的领域。

This is a fundamental stoic idea. In fact, the the the phrase dichotomy of control is actually modern. The ancients themselves, Epictetus, was Marcus Aurelius' influence, one of the major influences on Marcus, He calls it the fundamental rule, which right there tells you, you know, it's important. So the fundamental rule says that some things are up to us and other things are not up to us. And then it gives you the advice of, look, if there is in fact this distinction, you need to focus on the stuff that is up to you because that's where your agency is actually efficacious.

这才是你能有所作为之处。而对于不可控之事，你需要培养一种 mindful（觉知）、有意识的接纳与平静态度。这个概念也出现在其他文化中，比如古犹太教、佛教、现代基督教的'宁静祷文'——这个20世纪初用于匿名戒酒会等组织的祷文，本质上做了同样的事。

That's where you can make a difference. And you need to develop a mindful, purposeful attitude of acceptance and equanimity toward the kinds of things that are not up to you. This is a notion that that comes up in a number of other cultures. It's not just stoic. It comes out in Judaism, ancient Judaism, ancient Buddhism, modern Christianity, the serenity prayer, for instance, that it's early twentieth century Christian prayer used in meetings of 12 step organizations like Alcoholic Anonymous, essentially does the same thing.

祷文祈求上帝赐予你分辨可变与不可变事物的智慧，改变可变的勇气，以及接受不可变的宁静。爱比克泰德和马可认为，真正取决于我们的只有你对情境的判断、评估及应对方式——仅此而已。

It asks God, in this case, to give you the wisdom to to figure out what you what it is that you can change, what you cannot, the courage to change what you can, and the serenity to accept what you cannot. Now Epictetus and Marcus say that what is up to us are essentially your judgments, your assessment of a situation, and how to deal with it. That's that's all.

换句话说，是你对世界的回应方式。

Your response to the world, in other words.

听着：你对世界的回应。而不可控的几乎包括其他一切——这很反直觉对吧？你肯定会说：等等...

Look. Your response to the world. What is not up to us is pretty much everything else, which is counterintuitive. Right? Because you say, wait a minute.

爱比克泰德和马可·奥勒留都列举了一系列不由我们掌控的事物，他们首先提到的是健康。比如健康、财富、声誉、事业、人际关系等等。就像健康，什么叫健康不由我掌控？当然不是。

So Epictetus and Marcus both list a series of these things that are not up to to us, and they start with health. So say health, wealth, reputation, career, relationships, and all that. It's like, health. What do mean health is not up to me? Of course.

刚才我们讨论了我的身体形象问题。什么叫我的健康不由我掌控？当然由我掌控。我可以为健康做各种事情，对吧？

So now we were talking about my body image problems. What do you mean my health is not up to me? Of course it is. I can do all sorts of things about my health. Right?

我可以健康饮食，明白吗？我可以去锻炼身体，可以定期看医生进行预防性治疗。我是说，这些我都能做到。

I can eat a good diet. You know? I can I can go and exercise? I can go to the doctor on a regular basis and practice preventive medicine. I mean, I can do all those.

但仔细想想又会说，啊，等一下。那些都只是行动与否的判断或决定。我无法控制的、不由我掌控的是结果。没错，我可以吃得健康。

But then you think about it and say, ah, but wait a minute. Those are all judgments or decisions to act or not to act. What I don't control, what is not up to me is the outcomes. Sure. I can eat healthy.

我基本也这么做了，并且定期看医生。然而，影响最终实际健康状况的还有许多其他不受我控制的因素。我可以竭尽全力，但在某种程度上仍受限于自身基因和早年成长环境。我们知道基因和早期发育——甚至出生前的子宫内发育，尤其是最初几个月的成长——对长期应对某些事物至关重要。

I can go to which I do largely. And I go regularly to the doctor. Nevertheless, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to the outcome, to the actual health that are not under my control. I can make all the efforts I want, but to some extent, am limited by my own genetics and my own early upbringing. We know that both the genetics and early development, even intrauterine development before you're born, and certainly the first few months of development, those are crucial to determine how you're gonna respond long term certain things.

而这些我无法控制。我不能重组基因，我的基因也不是自己选择的，诸如此类。因此核心理念在于：一方面，你要从一开始就接受自己对任何外在事物都没有完全掌控权这个事实——任何外在事物都不例外。你必须坦然接受，因为还有其他选择吗？

And I had no control over those. I can't rearrange my genes. I didn't pick my genes and so on and so forth. So the general idea then becomes that, look, on the one hand, you accept from the get go the notion that you do not have full control over anything, anything that is external, none of those things. And you need to be okay with it because what are your choices?

只有两种选择：要么接受现实，要么大发脾气。发脾气无济于事，那是情感不成熟的孩子才会做的事。成年人不该如此。

There's only two choices. You're either okay with it or you throw a tantrum. Throwing a tantrum doesn't help. It's the kind of thing that children do because they're not emotionally mature. An adult is not supposed to do that sort of stuff.

此外，发脾气不仅没用，反而会适得其反——因为现在你给外部造成的实际伤害上，又叠加了自我施加的内在伤害：由于失控而产生的焦虑等负面情绪。所以你需要专注于力所能及之事，这反而赋予你力量。重点不是你对任何事都无能为力，而是能做的其实很多，只是必须明确界限，清楚知道哪些可为哪些不可为。一旦明确这点，你的干预就会更有效，从而感觉更好。

Also, throwing a tantrum not only doesn't help, but actually gets in the way because now you're adding the actual injury from the external to an internal imposed injury, the fact that now you feel bad because you've lost control, you are anxious, and so on and so forth. So you need to focus on what actually you can do, which is empowering because the idea is not that you can't do anything about anything. You can do quite a bit. It's just that you need to be very clear on the limits and what exactly it is that you can and cannot do. And once you are clear on that, your interventions become much more efficacious, and therefore, you feel better.

总体而言，你会获得更好的结果。

And broadly speaking, you get better outcomes.

那么马可本人是否遵循了这一建议？当可怕的瘟疫席卷他所在的地区时，罗马帝国当时发生了什么，马西莫？马可是如何应对的？

So Marcus himself followed this advice when, a terrible plague struck his part of the world. What happened during this time in the Roman Empire, Massimo? And how did Marcus respond to it?

确实。马库斯的统治因诸多问题而举步维艰。其中之一是安东尼瘟疫，那是古代最严重的瘟疫，夺走了近五百万人的生命，很可能是由帝国东部作战军团带回的麻疹引发的。他还不得不应对自然灾害——一场摧毁罗马的台伯河大洪水，以及一场将现代土耳其西部的士麦那夷为平地的大地震。

Yeah. Marcus' reign was made very difficult by a number of issues. One of them is the Antonine Plague, which was the worst plague that to hit antiquity. It killed close to five million people, and it was probably caused by measles brought back by the legions that were fighting in the on the East side of the empire. You also had to deal with natural disasters, a major flood of the Tiber that devastated Rome, a major earthquake that raised Smyrna in in modern Western Turkey.

因此他要处理的问题堆积如山。每当此时他就自问：哪些是我能掌控的？哪些不是？比如面对瘟疫时，帝国资源已被对抗帕提亚的战争消耗殆尽。要知道，即便罗马帝国再富庶，资源终究有限。

So he had a lot of issues to deal with. Every time he says to himself, okay. What here is up to me and what is not up to me? For instance, in the case of the plague, the the resources of the empire were already depleted by the war against the Parthians. So, you know, even though the Roman empire was rich, there there is a limit, obviously.

于是马库斯认为他能做的，就是变卖大量皇室财宝和珠宝。他举办了拍卖会，出售那些他认为'我不需要这些，它们无法改善我的生活，却可能助力赈灾'的物品。这正是他的应对之策。

And so what Marcus thought one of the things was that was up to him was to actually sell a lot of the imperial treasury and jewel jewels. So he he essentially did auctions where he sold out a bunch of stuff that he he thought, I don't need this. This is this is not this is not making my life better, but it has the potential to help with the relief effort. And so that's what he did. Right?

但他并不指望瘟疫会自行消失。他说：'我们连瘟疫本质都不了解，更不知其成因，只能咬牙熬过去。'

But he was not expecting the plague to just go away. Right? He said, you we don't understand what a plague is in the first place. We don't know what causes this thing. We just have to write it out.

我们只需尽力应对，终有一天它会自行消退。马库斯在日记中写道：'此刻你能做什么？哪里能有所作为？'同样重要的是，他不断提醒自己：对于无能为力之事，坦然接受即可。

We we just have to do our best in order to deal with it, and then it will go away at some point by itself. So this was a situation where Marcus, you know, wrote in his in his journal something along the lines of what what can you do here? Where can you make a difference? And just as importantly, he kept repeating to himself that in those areas where he couldn't do anything, it was okay. He had to accept that.

这不是值得失眠的事——因为首先无济于事，其次若为此失眠，反而会削弱你在可控事务上的行动力。

This was not something that you want to lose your sleep over because, a, it doesn't help. And, b, if you lose your sleep over it, then you're actually going to be less efficacious in the kind of things you you actually can do.

这改变了你对自己身材的看法吗，马西莫？

Has this changed the way that you think about your own body image, Massimo?

确实。如今我已不太为此困扰。我专注于可控之事：外出用餐时避开不健康的食物——我和妻子称之为'最小化伤害'。

It has. I am far less bothered by the issue these days. I focus on one on what is under my control. So when I when I go out for dinner, I try to stay away from things that I know are not good for me. Minimize the damage as as my wife and I call it.

在家时自然更能掌控饮食。如我所言，我定期锻炼、就医。但疫情期间某天，我突然瘫倒在地被送急诊，那一刻再次验证了爱比克泰德和马库斯的智慧——我的身体完全失控了。

And then when I'm home, you know, we are under we have more control, of course, over what we eat. As I said, I go and exercise on a regular basis, and I go to the doctor. And, you know, that's it. But, you know, during the pandemic, for instance, I was reminded one more time that Epictetus and Marcus are right. Because one day, I suddenly collapsed the floor and was brought to the emergency room.

结果只是轻微腰椎间盘突出，恢复很快，我还为此感谢止痛药。但这瞬间提醒我：即便多年坚持锻炼健康饮食，某天清晨你可能正欲出门，却突然倒地，强烈感受到对身体彻底失去掌控。

I had absolutely no control over my body. Nothing. Turns out to be a rather minor thing. It was a slipped disc, and I recovered very quickly and, you know, thanked Zeus for painkillers and stuff like that. But that was an instant reminder that, you know, although now it's been years that you exercise, you eat healthy, and all that sort of stuff, suddenly you wake up in the morning, you're about to go out, and you collapse on the floor with the very intense feeling that you have no control over your body.

就像，好吧。爱比克泰德或马可此刻会说什么呢？他们会说，好吧。你只是遇到了一个你无法控制的外部因素。你唯一能做的就是接受它，看看能做些什么来恢复、应对这种情况，等等。

It's like, okay. What would Epictetus or Marcus have said at this point? Well, they would have said, okay. You you just run into one of those externals that is not up to you. The only thing you can do is to accept it and see what you can do about it in order to recover, to to handle the situation, etcetera.

我理解马可·奥勒留详细讨论了把握当下的紧迫性，因为我们谁也不知道自己还剩下多少时间。马西莫，谈谈这个观点吧。

I understand that Marcus Aurelius talks at length about the urgency of embracing the present moment since none of us ever know how many of those moments we have left. Talk about this idea, Massimo.

没错。我年轻时和许多年轻人一样，总觉得自己会永生。这当然不是真的。对吧？我最近查了一下我的精算统计数据，结果发现，对于我这个年龄、我这个种族背景、生活在纽约的人来说，有一个特定的预期寿命。

That's right. When I was young, as a lot of young people, you kind of think that you're immortal. And that's, of course, not true. Right? I mean, I have looked up my actuarial statistics, so to speak, sometime recently, and turns out that for somebody my age and my ethnic background living in New York, you know, there is a certain life expectancy.

我查了一下，然后说，哦，好吧。从统计学上讲，我还有几十年时间。但这只是统计学上的说法。当然，我今天就可能死去。我可能过马路时被车撞到，那就结束了。

And I looked it up and said, oh, okay. So statistically speaking, have, you know, a couple more decades. But that's only statistically speaking. Of course, I could die today. I could cross the street and and a car could hit me, and that that would be that's the end of it.

或者，我可能染上致命的疾病，然后死去。所以，在人生的任何时候都可能发生各种各样的事情。对吧？无论你是年轻、中年还是晚年。斯多葛学派的做法是将这一点置于他们看待生活的最前沿。

Or, again, I I could contract a a lethal disease, and I could and I could die. So there is all sorts of stuff that can happen in any time in somebody's life. Right? Whether you're young, middle age, late, etcetera, etcetera. And what the Stoics do is they bring that to the forefront of their way of looking at life.

塞内加和马可不断对自己说，要像这是生命的最后一天那样行动。或者更积极地说，你早上醒来，意识到自己又多了一天。耶。庆祝这一天，因为你不知道是否还会有第二天，等等。这听起来可能有点压抑和病态。

Seneca and then Marcus constantly say to themselves, act as if this was the last day of your life. Or if you wanna put it more positively, you get up in the morning and you realize that you have one more day. Yay. Celebrate that day because you don't know if you're gonna have a second one and so on and so forth. Now this may sound kind of depressing and morbid and all that sort of stuff.

但实际上，他们在这里触及了一个根本问题。正是生命的有限性赋予了它意义。如果我们真的永生，如果你可以无限次地重复做同样的事情，一切都会失去意义，因为你总是可以倒带重来。现实是，通过提醒自己时间是有限的，而且你并不知道自己还剩下多少时间，你需要加倍努力，以有意义、快乐的方式度过你所拥有的时间，这才是你真正想要的生活方式。

But in fact, they're getting at something fundamental here. The notion that what makes our life meaningful is precisely the fact that it's finite. If we actually live forever, if you if you got to do the same things over and over and over ad infinitum, nothing will matter because you always have a remote control that you can rewind and redo it over. And so it will lose meaning. The reality is by focusing, by reminding yourself that time is in fact finite, and not only that, but that you don't know how much you have left, then you need to redouble your efforts to spend the time that you have in a way that it's meaningful, joyous, you know, that it's the way you really wanna spend your life.

这样想吧。假设你在西部国家公园附近旅行，你的车油表坏了。你不知道还有多少油。你可以估计。你可以说，三天前我加满了油，所以可能还剩一些。

Think about it this way. So you you go you're on a on a trip somewhere, let's say, in the national near the national parks out west, and you have a car where the the gauge for the for the gas is broken. You don't know how much gas you have. You can estimate. You can say, well, I I started out with a full tank, you know, three days ago, so perhaps it's around the year.

但你并不确定。这时，你需要非常谨慎地决定去哪里。你不能因为各种原因或毫无理由地绕道而行，因为你可能会被困在荒郊野外。对吧？你可能无法做你真正想做的事情。

But you don't know for sure. Now at that point, you need to make very careful decisions about where you're going. You can't just take all sorts of detours for all sorts of reasons or for no reason at all because you might get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Right? You might not get to do act what you actually want to do.

马西莫，马可·奥勒留的这个观点在你因脑雾发作住院时得到了深刻的印证。因为我们不仅需要考虑剩下的时间，还需要考虑剩下的高质量时间。

The this point that Marcus Aurelius is making was driven home for you, Massimo, when an episode of brain fog sent you to the hospital. Because it's not just the amount of time we have left, but also the amount of good time that we have left.

是的。那是一次非常令人不安的经历，所幸没有再次发生。当时我正在给学生写邮件，突然发现自己的手指虽然在敲键盘，但写出的内容却与我的意图完全不符——事实上我根本不知道自己在写什么。我立刻叫来妻子说：我觉得情况不对劲。

Yeah. It was a very disturbing episode, which thankfully has not repeated itself. Basically, I was there trying to write an email to my students, and all of a sudden, I realized that I my my fingers were hitting the keyboard, but I wasn't writing what I what I thought I was writing. I was in fact I did not know what I was writing. It's like, called my wife, and I said, you know, I think there's something wrong here.

我们马上赶到急诊室，但医生查不出任何问题。无论是心脏科还是神经科医生都束手无策。但这件事确实发生了，它警醒我：就连你的心智也并非完全受你掌控，明白吗？

And we went immediately to the to the emergency room, and they couldn't find anything wrong. Neither neither cardiologist nor nor neurologist could find anything wrong. But, nevertheless, it had happened. And so that was a wake up call that there is also your mind that it's not up to you. Right?

正如我们所说，斯多葛学派强调你的决策能力、做出明智选择的本事确实由你掌控。但他们也明白这有个前提——你的大脑必须基本正常运转。而某天这个前提可能不复存在，对吧？

So one of the things that the Stoics insisted, as we said, was that your decision making, your ability to make sound decisions, that's up to you. But even they understood that that's only provisional on the fact that your mind works more or less normally. At some point, it might not. Right?

请详细说说你去医院检查脑雾症状时的情形。在医院发生了什么？你是什么时候、如何开始联想到斯多葛哲学的？当时你处于什么状态？

So take me back to the hospital when you went there with this thing of brain fog. What what happened in the hospital, hospital, and and when when and how did you start to think about the Stoics, and what was happening to you at that time?

他们把我安置在拥挤的急诊室，毫无隐私可言。好在带着iPad和充电器。我第一时间打开《沉思录》《论说集》和塞涅卡书信集，重温这些哲人的教诲——在这个对自身几乎失去掌控的危机时刻，他们那些对我意义重大的智慧。

So they put me in an emergency room, which means it was somewhat crowded. You know, there was no privacy on it. But I did have my iPad, and I did have a charger. And the first thing I did was to open meditations and discourses and the letters of Seneca and and remind myself of, you know, what is it that these people are telling me that is so important to me, that is so meaningful to me. Right now, I'm going through a crisis that where I clearly have that little control.

我束手无策。身处急诊室，既受制于身体的异常状况，又得听凭医护人员的处置。未知带来的焦虑挥之不去——说不定当天或一周后就会有医生告诉我：'你得了脑瘤之类'，这完全可能成真。

I don't there's not much I can do here. Right? I'm in an emergency room at the mercy of both whatever is happening to my body and, you know, whatever the doctors and the nurses decide. There was the anxiety of course of not knowing what had happened, and maybe a doctor might show up either the same day or a week later and tell me, you know what, you got a, I don't know, brain tumor or something like that. Was certainly a live possibility.

但我决定做两件事：首先搁置这些猜测，毕竟在确诊前杞忧无益；其次不时打开平板里的日记本，开始实践斯多葛派称为'预想'（拉丁文意为预想未来厄运）的修行——像马可·奥勒留写《沉思录》那样，用第二人称冷静分析。

But I decided to do two things about it. Number one, mostly cast that thought aside because, well, I don't know. And until I know, there's nothing I can do about it. And secondly, from time to time, I, again, pick up my my tablet and open my journal, and I started doing what the Stoics referred to as a, which means it's Latin for thinking about bad stuff happening in the future. The notion is to do it in the way in which Marcus was doing the meditations analytically, detaching yourself, writing to yourself in the second person.

于是我以第二人称写道：'听着，你的心脏或大脑可能真出了问题。你准备如何应对？假设面临最坏情况，你能否承受？首先要尽可能准确诊断，认真听取医生的专业意见。'

And so I wrote to myself in the second person, okay. So there is a chance that there is something wrong here either with your heart or your or your brain. So what are you gonna do about it? How are you gonna deal with this situation? Right?

然后合理预估近期可能的发展轨迹与时间跨度，据此重新规划人生，尽可能善用这段时光。

If the situation assuming that the situation is, you know, one of the worst case scenarios, are you ready to handle it? And what you're gonna do in terms of handling it. Right? Well, one of the first things you're gonna do is to figure out as patch as possible what in fact it is. So listen to your doctors and what they're saying.

（注：此处原文为段落延续，为保持元素对应，完整呈现末段译文）

Then get a good reasonable estimate of what might happen in the near future, how long that future might be, and then you redirect. You reorganize your life accordingly. You make the best use possible of that time.

稍后回来，我们将继续探讨关于美好生活意义的更多见解。您正在收听的是《隐藏的大脑》。我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

When we come back, more ideas about what it means to live a good life. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

您对斯多葛主义还有后续疑问吗？您是否曾有过在人生中成功调动内心斯多葛精神的时刻，或是力不能及的时刻？若您愿意将所思所感、评论与问题分享给《隐藏的大脑》听众，请用手机录制语音备忘录并发送至ideas@hiddenbrain.org，邮件主题注明“斯多葛主义”。罗马领袖马可·奥勒留曾历经动荡时代。

Do you have follow-up questions about stoicism? Have you had moments in your life when you were able to muster your inner stoic and moments you could not? If you'd be comfortable sharing your thoughts, comments, and questions with the Hidden Brain audience, please record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at ideas@hiddenbrain.org. Use the subject line stoicism. The Roman leader Marcus Aurelius lived through turbulent times.

尽管如此，他仍找到了关注内心世界的方法。事实上，他认为唯有通过关注内在，外在世界才能逐渐明晰。马西莫·皮柳奇是纽约市立学院的哲学家，著有《如何成为斯多葛主义者：用古代哲学过现代生活》，并与格雷戈里·洛佩兹、梅雷迪思·亚历山大·昆兹合著《超越斯多葛主义：与斯多葛派、怀疑论者、伊壁鸠鲁派等古代哲学家共寻美好生活指南》。

Still, he found ways to attend to his inner world. Indeed, he argued that it is only by attending to our inner worlds that our outer worlds can begin to make sense. Massimo Pellucci is a philosopher at the City College of New York. He is the author of How to Be a Stoic, Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. He's also the coauthor with Gregory Lopez and Meredith Alexander Kunz of Beyond Stoicism, a guide to the good life with stoics, skeptics, Epicureans, and other ancient philosophers.

马西莫，在你开始研究斯多葛主义前，你常感到情绪失控。我了解到你最反感的事情之一就是有人在电影或演出中途掏出手机？

Massimo, before you started studying stoicism, you often found your emotions spinning out of control. I understand a pet peeve of yours was the issue of people pulling out their phones in the middle of a movie or a show?

没错。你无法想象我为此恼火过多少次。因为在我看来这简直不可理喻。我会暗自嘀咕：这家伙怎么可能没意识到自己在电影放映中途举起手机，导致后排观众全都在看他的手机而非银幕？这太失礼了。

Yes. You have no idea how many times I got upset about that. Because to me, this was inconceivable. Like, I I would say to myself, how is this guy possibly not aware of the fact that in the middle of the movie, he's raising his phone, and now everybody behind him is looking at at his phone instead of the movie? It's it's getting it's how rude.

你怎么能对这种事如此不顾及他人？这当然会毁掉我的观影体验——毕竟你能怎么办？有时我确实会去交涉，通常还算客气。得到的回应五花八门：偶尔有人礼貌道歉'不好意思没注意'，也有些滑稽的家伙会直接怼回来，甚至暴跳如雷。

How could you be so inconsiderate about that sort of stuff? And and then that would, of course, ruin my old experience at the movies because, you know, what are you gonna do about it? I mean, sometimes I did go and confront the person, usually fairly nicely. And I got all sorts of responses from the occasional polite, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it, to some funny people, you know, telling me off and and reacting in a very angry fashion.

他们声称'我有权做任何想做的事'——不，你没有。这里不是你家，你没这个权利。

I have a right to, you know, do whatever they want with my friends. Like, no, you don't. You're not you're not at home. You're not in your home. You don't have a right.

有时事态会升级，虽不至于肢体冲突，但难免提高嗓门或愤然离场找影院经理——而经理总是莫名其妙地难觅踪影。这种情况发生过好几次。当然这是小事，有人会说'老兄，值得生气的事多了去了'。

So sometimes those things will escalate not to the point of, you know, physical violence, but certainly of raised voices or, you know, storming off and calling the manager of the movie theater who usually is impossible to find for whatever reason. And so so there was a number of times when this happened. And of course, this is a minor thing. Right? I mean, you you you could reasonably argue, look, man, there's a lot more important things to get upset about.

但让我介怀的不只是行为本身，而是难以置信竟有人如此迟钝或自私，居然做出这种事。而且——

But it was not just the fact in itself. It was the inconceivability that somebody would be so clueless or so inconsiderate to to actually do that kind of thing. And

或者...或者地铁上有人外放音乐也是另一个例子

Or or someone playing music loudly on the subway was another

哦，是的。你知道，显然有些人还没意识到我们发明了这些叫耳机的好东西。你可以把它们塞进耳朵里，不打扰任何人。我经常在想，以前每当我对地铁里的遭遇感到恼火时，就会想也许哪天该带着超大音响上地铁。只要听到有人外放，我就把音量调到最大让他尝尝滋味——不是出于报复，而是作为一堂教学课。

Oh, yeah. You know, there are there there are some people apparently who have not realized that the we invented these wonderful things called earbuds. You can put them in your your ear and not bother anybody. And I I thought often, you know, when I get when I used to get upset about the the subway experience, I thought maybe one of these days, just have to coming to the subway with a very large boombox. And as soon as I hear somebody doing that, turn my own at the highest possible volume to show him what it's gonna happen, you know, as a teaching lesson, not as not as a in a vindictive way, but as a teaching lesson.

你想想如果人人都这样会怎样？我从未真这么做，但这个念头在我脑海里盘旋很久了。马库斯说：'你凭什么期待人们会改变本性？这太荒谬了，简直疯狂。'

You see what hap what would happen if everybody were doing that? I never I never actually did it, but it it's been in the back of my mind for for a while. Markus says, why do you expect people to be different from what they are? That's insane. That's that's just crazy.

你要明白人性本就如此。冥想中有段话这样说：'清晨出门前提醒自己，今天会遇到各种不顾及他人感受的家伙，他们会做出各种令你反感的事。这就是生活常态。'你可以应对这种情况，有时还能纠正他们。

You know that people are in a certain way. There's a there's a place in the meditation when he says, you know, remember, when you get up in the morning and you get out of the door, remind yourself that you will encounter all sorts of inconsiderate people who will do all sorts of things that you don't like. This is just a fact of life. Now you can deal with the situation. In some cases, you can correct them.

我不想给人留下斯多葛主义就是逆来顺受的印象，这叫做'门垫主义'的危险——把自己变成任人践踏的门垫。迈克尔明确说过，当有人行为失当时，你有两种选择。

I don't I don't want to give the impression that, you know, that stoicism is about just laid back and taking it. Right? This is called the the danger of doormatism, of of turning yourself into a doormat so that everybody walks all over you. That's not the the point. The Michael says explicitly, there are two things you can do when somebody's behaving in a way that you disapprove of.

一是教育他们：'看，这样做有问题因为...'如果行不通，那就忍耐。运用你的耐心和承受力，因为除此之外你还能怎样？

One is to teach them, to explain to them, you know, look. This is problematic because and then failing that, you can bear with them. You use your ability to your patience, your ability to withstand things as a result. Because what else are you going to do? Right?

基本就这两个选项。两者并不矛盾——你当然要据理力争改善局面。但如果失败，就必须接受现实这次没按你的意愿发展。

Those are pretty much your two options. So you just have to It's not that the two are incompatible. Of course, you're going to argue and you're to try to do things in order to improve the situation. But if that fails, then you have to accept that, okay, this time reality didn't go my way. Too bad.

他在某段文字中说：'黄瓜苦，扔掉它。路上有荆棘，绕道走。这就够了。'

So he says in one of the passages, the cucumber is bitter. Toss it away. There are briars in the path. Turn aside. That is enough.

不必追问'世上为何存在这些东西？'否则你会被自然研究者嘲笑，就像质问木匠和鞋匠店里为何有木屑和边角料那样可笑。

You don't need to add, why are such things found in the world? For you would be a laughing stock to any student of nature, just as you would be laughed at by a carpenter and a cobbler if you took them to task because in their shops are seen sawdust and pairings from what they are making.

没错。他的意思是某些事物必然伴随特定结果。做木工活自然会产生木屑。

Yep. Exactly. So he's saying, look, there are certain things that inevitably have certain consequences. Right? If you are in the business of working wood, well, there's there's gonna be sawdust.

这有什么好抱怨的呢？你可以抱怨，但抱怨工坊里的木屑是不合理的——因为那正是加工木材必然产生的副产品。

Does it you know? So you cannot complain. You cannot reasonably complain. You could complain. But it's not reasonable to complain about all the dust in the shop because that's an inevitable byproduct of the fact that you're working wood.

同样地，抱怨某些人在特定情况下表现得无理、不顾他人感受或粗鲁等行为，就像在说，什么？你难道从未接触过人类吗？你不知道事情就是这样运作的吗？顺便说一句，这并不意味着人们总是那样做。对吧？

And so similarly, to complain about the fact that some people behave irrationally or inconsiderately or rudely or whatever it is under certain circumstances, it's like, what? Have you never met human beings before? Don't you know that this is the way it works? Which incidentally doesn't mean that people always do that. Right?

那并不意味着他们无可救药。所以马库斯说，你要走出去教导他们。和他们交谈。对吧？如果某些事情困扰你，与其生气抱怨这个世界，不如采取行动去改变它。

That's or that they're incorrigible. So that's why Marcus says, you go out and teach them. Talk to them. Right? If something bothers you, instead of getting upset and complaining about the world, just do something about it.

对吧？在《沉思录》的另一部分，他还说，记住，不公正地行事或不试图纠正不公正，实际上是不虔诚的。所以这不是关于不作为，而是关于对现实采取更实际、更少自我中心的看法。因为从某种意义上说，如果你抱怨黄瓜和荆棘之类的事情，这是对现实非常自我中心的看法。

Right? In in another bit of the meditations, he also says, you know, remember that it's it's really impious to not to do not to act on behalf, you know, justly and try to correct injustice. So this isn't about not doing anything. It's about a more realistic approach to reality and a less self centered approach. Because in a sense, right, if you complain about the the cucumbers and the briars and all that sort of stuff, this is a very self centered view of reality.

你希望世界总是迎合你的愿望和偏好。但那太疯狂了。那是一种极端的自恋，是不健康的。对吧？

You want the world to always accommodate to your wishes and to your preferences. But that's insane. That's that's an extreme degree of narcissism, which is not healthy. Right?

所以你最近有机会实践马库斯·奥勒留面对逆境时的教诲。讲讲你在罗马准备乘地铁时发生的故事吧。

So you recently had an occasion to practice what Marcus Aurelius preached in the face of an adverse event. Tell the story of what happened when you were headed to a subway train in Rome.

哦，是的。情况是这样的，我本应在罗马与我兄弟会面。你知道，罗马是我长大的城市，所以我对包括地铁系统在内的一切都非常熟悉。我上了地铁，突然感觉到入口附近有个家伙在我前面用力往后推，好像地铁非常拥挤一样。但事实上并不拥挤。

Oh, yeah. So the situation was I was supposed to meet my brother in in Rome. And, you know, Rome is the city where I grew up, so I'm I'm very comfortable navigating everything including the subway system. So I got on the subway, and suddenly, I I feel this guy right in front of me at the near the entrance is kinda pushing back very, very hard as if the subway were overcrowded. And, you know, it was like but it wasn't overcrowded.

我是说，人是有点多，但不足以证明那种行为是合理的。所以我第一个念头是，这家伙在干什么？在我意识到他实际上在做什么之前，事情已经发生了。这家伙有个同伙在我身后，当我被前面那个人推挤分心时，他偷走了我的钱包。对吧？

I mean, there was a little bit of of, you know, people, but not it wasn't to justify not enough to justify that kind of behavior. So the first thought was, what is what is this guy doing? And before I realized what in fact he was doing, it had already happened. This this guy had a a friend, an associate behind me who, while I was distracted with the physical pressure of the other one pushing back on me, just picked my pocket. Right?

所以钱包不见了。等我意识到会发生什么时，虽然只过了几秒钟，但已经太迟了。那两个人已经下了地铁，车门正在关闭，就这样，我突然没了钱包。

So the the wallet was gone. And by the time I realized that that's what was gonna happen, it took a fraction of a second, but it was too late. Already, the two were out of the subway. The doors were closing, and that's it. I was all of a sudden without a wallet.

如果这是几年前发生的，我可能会非常沮丧。我会生气，会自责自己怎么这么蠢。我在这座城市长大，知道这种事情会发生。

Now had this happened years ago, I would have been really upset. I would have been, you know, angry. I would both have myself for being so stupid. It's like, you know, I grew up in this city. I know that these things happen.

我当时在罗马一个特别旅游化的区域，所以这种事情当然会发生。你知道，又是荆棘和黄瓜的问题。对吧？你凭什么认为这种事不会发生？我对自己很生气。

This is I was in a particularly touristy area of Rome, so, of course, these things happen. You know, what again, briars and cucumbers. Right? Why would you expect not not that not to happen? I was angry at myself.

我当时对那两个人非常愤怒。心想，他们怎么敢侵犯我的人身和财产等等。这本该是正常反应——感到沮丧、愤怒，在意识到后果和后续影响后陷入消沉。但出乎意料的是，我脑海中首先浮现的是：哪些是你能掌控的，哪些不是？我顿时醒悟：啊，谢谢你，马可。

I was angry at those two people. It's like, how dare they violate my person and my property and so on and so forth. So it would have been a normal reaction, be upset, to be angry, to be dejected afterwards once you realize what, you know, the consequences, the then action, etcetera, etcetera. And to my surprise, instead, the first thing that came up to my mind was, what here is up to you and what is not up to you? I was like, ah, thank you, Marcus.

事情是这样的：我坐下来掏出手机。幸运的是他们没偷走我的智能手机，而且罗马地铁所有区域包括隧道里都有WiFi覆盖。

So here's here's the thing. I sat down. I put out my phone. Fortunately, they did not get my my phone, my smartphone. And, fortunately, the Rome subway has Wi Fi everywhere, including in tunnels.

手机信号很好，于是我立刻行动。稍作思考后决定：好，现在我们来列个清单。

So the phone was working perfectly. So what did I do? I thought about it for a second. It's like, okay. Make let's make a list here.

我立即通过应用程序联系信用卡公司冻结卡片，同时联系车管所申请补办驾照——顺带一提，他们处理极快，几天后就寄到，还允许我立即下载临时电子版驾照。美国人总爱抱怨车管所，认为它是官僚主义的典型代表，但我的体验完全相反。

I immediately contacted via app the credit card companies, blocked the credit cards. I contacted the DMV and immediately asked for a replacement driver license, which, by the way, they they sent immediately. Like, a few days later, it was in the mail, and they they immediately allow me to download a PDF that functioned as a as a temporary driver license. I I'm saying this because Americans often complain so much about the DMV. It's like it's the it's usually the the, quintessential example of everything that is wrong with bureaucracy.

不知道他们为何抱怨，我觉得服务很棒。接着盘点现金损失：不到100美元。

I don't know what they're talking about. It was very good. So I did that. Then I thought, okay, how much cash did I have there? Own less than 100 Okay.

所幸这笔损失对我影响不大。确认没有其他待办事项后，我切换了手机应用。

Fortunately for me, I can absorb that kind of loss without really much of an impact. Is there anything else that is left to be done? No. So I sat down. I opened I switched to a different app.

开始阅读电子书。几站后下车与兄弟碰面，告知此事。他惊讶地说：看你这么平静，我反而觉得难过，怎么回事？

I started reading a book. And a few stops later, I got off, and I met my brother. Now I told him what happened, and my brother, of course, said, well, I'm sad. I don't see you upset. What what what's going on here?

你似乎完全没被这件事困扰。我反问：焦虑有用吗？能解决的我都处理好了。然后告诉他：猜怎么着？

You don't you don't seem to be particularly, you know, bothered by this thing. And I said, would it help? I solved what I could. I took care immediately of what I could. And I and I told him, guess what?

今晚你请客，因为我身无分文了。这招很管用。

Now dinner is on you because I have no money. It worked.

哲学家让-保罗·萨特曾说：他人即地狱。在本期节目的配套故事《U2.0：如何与他人共存》中（仅限Hidden Brain Plus订阅用户），我们探讨了马可·奥勒留等斯多葛学派关于人际关系的智慧。订阅请访问support.hiddenbrain.org，苹果用户可前往apple.co/hiddenbrain。

The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once said, hell is other people. In our companion story to this episode, available exclusively to subscribers to Hidden Brain Plus, we explore ideas from Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics about how we can best manage our relationships with others. It's titled U two point zero, How to Survive Other People. If you're not yet a subscriber, please visit support.hiddenbrain.org. If you're using an Apple device, you can go to apple.co/hiddenbrain.

您可以在两个地方获得七天免费试用。您将立即访问我们所有仅限订阅者的内容。再次提醒，网址是support.hiddenbrain.org或apple.co/hiddenbrain。马西莫·皮柳奇是纽约市立学院的哲学家，著有《如何成为斯多葛派：用古代哲学过现代生活》。

You can get a free seven day trial in both places. You'll instantly have access to all our subscriber only content. Again, that's support.hiddenbrain.org or apple.co/hiddenbrain. Massimo Piliucci is a philosopher at City College of New York. He is the author of How to Be a Stoic Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life.

他还与格雷戈里·洛佩兹和梅雷迪思·亚历山大·昆兹合著了《超越斯多葛主义》，这是一本与斯多葛学派、怀疑论者、伊壁鸠鲁派及其他古代哲学家共度美好生活的指南。马西莫，非常感谢你今天加入《隐藏大脑》节目。

He's also the coauthor with Gregory Lopez and Meredith Alexander Kunz of Beyond Stoicism, a guide to the good life with stoics, skeptics, Epicureans, and other ancient philosophers. Massimo, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

非常荣幸。谢谢邀请我。

It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

您对斯多葛主义有后续问题或想法吗？如果您愿意与《隐藏大脑》的听众分享您的想法、评论和问题，请用手机录制语音备忘录并发送至ideashiddenbrain.org，邮件主题请注明“斯多葛主义”。再次提醒邮箱是ideashiddenbrain.org。《隐藏大脑》由Hidden Brain Media制作。

Do you have follow-up questions and ideas about stoicism? If you'd be comfortable sharing your thoughts, comments, and questions with the Hidden Brain audience, please record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at ideashiddenbrain dot org. Use the subject line stoicism. That email address again is ideashiddenbrain dot org. Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media.

我们的音频制作团队包括安妮·墨菲·保罗、克里斯汀·黄、劳拉·奎瑞尔、瑞安·卡茨、奥顿·巴恩斯、安德鲁·查德威克和尼克·伍德伯里。塔拉·博伊尔是我们的执行制片人。我是《隐藏大脑》的执行编辑。本周的无名英雄是Haas Optimization公司的洛根·斯奈德，该公司从事网页设计、开发、维护以及数字营销。我们最近开始与洛根及Haas Optimization团队合作，他们让维护hiddenbrain.org的工作变得轻松许多。

Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Quirrell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. Our unsung hero this week is Logan Snyder of Haas Optimization, a firm that does web design, development, and maintenance as well as digital marketing. We recently started working with Logan and the Haas Optimization team, They've made the work of maintaining hiddenbrain.org so much easier.

如果您需要网站运营帮助，请访问hazopt.com。谢谢你，洛根。如果您喜欢我们的《You 2.0》系列节目，请与生活中两三位朋友分享。您可以在您喜欢的播客平台或hiddenbrain.org上找到该系列所有节目。我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

If you need help running your website, check them out at hazopt.com. Thank you Logan. If you're enjoying the episodes in our You two point zero series, please share them with two or three people in your life. You can find all the episodes in the series on your preferred podcast platform or at hiddenbrain.org. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

下次见。

See you soon.