雄伯手記970116
每天讀書寫作,日子過得平淡無奇,夜間夢境卻詭譎得出奇。有時不免賴床沉迷夢的語言,困惑,惘然,兼驚怖,但也無意自我解夢,畢竟是不足為外人道也的隱私。
早上起來讀紀傑克的Welcome to the Desert of the Real。正酣暢間,外面傳來隔壁興建工程的灌漿隆隆聲,只好收拾書籍準備到東華圖書館去看書。剛要開車,經旁邊卡車司機提醒前輪氣壓不足。這時才由到哪裡充氣,想到定期保養及驗車的問題。
熟識的修車廠老板娘問及近況,順口回答說:「每天在家讀書寫作。」她的立即反應是:「寫作?那一定有錢可賺!」我只好一臉尷尬地說:「人生不一定要老是想到賺錢,省吃儉用照常可以過日子。」話是如此說,但是一下子要生活習性全然還真歸樸,還真不是那麼容易。
紀傑克描述激進的基本教義派,為家國意識形態而奮不顧身時,有這麼一段話: It is thus a properly Nietzschean paradox that the greatest lose in this apparent assertion of Life against all transcendent Causes is actual life itself. What makes us ‘ worth living’ is the very excess of life: the awareness that there is something for which one is ready to risk one’s life ( we may call this excess ‘ freedom’, ‘honor’, ‘dignity’, ‘autonomy’, etc.). Only when we are ready to take this risk are we really alive. Chesterton makes this point apropos of the paradox of courage. 因此這是標準尼采式的矛盾:反對超越理想,主張生命至上的最大輸家,就是真實生命本身。生命之所以值得一活,就是生命力的煥發,知道有某些理想,我們準備為他冒生命危險(不論是自由、榮譽心、尊嚴、自主權等等。)只有當我們準備冒這個險時,我們才真實地活著。蔡德頓有段話表達對於勇氣的矛盾的看法。
A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
一位被敵人包圍的士兵,假如他想要突圍,需要強烈的生命的渴望,而又奇怪地罔顧死亡。他一定不要緊捉住生命,因為這樣他會成為懦夫,逃不出去。他一定不要等待死亡,因為這樣他將等於是自殺,也逃不出去。他必須以悍然不畏死亡的精神,尋求自己的生命;他必須渴望生命如口渴,然後飲下死亡如美酒。