Postmodern Journeys 07

Walk On  07

By Joseph Natoli

Translated by Springhero

     One asks if such a free-floating faculty existed would not it thread, however faint,  link paradigms, insure the commensurable within the seemingly incommensurable? And surely the thread is there—in the eyes of the modernist. At any point in time, one can go back and discern, with the necessary critical eye, the thread of continuity, of coherence, of unity.

        假如這種飄浮的能力存在，它的游絲儘管微弱，能連接典範嗎？能在表面上無法建立標準的情境下，確立標準嗎？在現代主義的眼光中，游絲確實存在。隨時，我們可以所需的批判性眼光，回顧並覺察到連續性的游絲、一貫性的游絲、一致性游絲。

       Whatever reason may be or has been, a postmodernist would observe, it must in the present lay claim to its reasonableness by tracing its path in the past and from the past to the present. It must sow itself working toward progress, however slowly, and overcoming obstacles to that progress. But what is the nature of this progress. We are becoming more reasonable, more civilized, more adept at controlling the irrationalities of nature outdoors and Human Nature within.

        無論可能或曾經是什麼理由，後現代主義者會觀察到：他必須立足於現在，託辭於理性，始能追蹤過去，從過去再回歸現在。他必須表現自己能慢慢朝向進步，並且克服進步途中的阻礙。於是我們變得更加理性。更加文明。更加擅長於控制外面自然界的非理性，及人性內在的非理性。

        We are succeeding to do so through the steady implementation and instrumentation of our logics, our knowledge, our expertise, our technology, our science. In this way every reason in every state of historical ‘ throwness” validates itself and renders, As Nietzsche says, an alibi by which it can perpetrate what in another more reasonable climate will stand forth as heinous, inhuman, irrational.

       不斷的憑藉邏輯。知識。專業技能。工業技術，以及科學，我們將理性發揚光大。以此方法，每次歷史過程的「拋棄」都振振有詞，並如尼采所言，粉飾太平，將更理性化視為可惡。非人性。非理性的，自圓其說。

      But the force of the paradox persists: If reason prevails in every state of throwness by securing its own reasonableness and tracing itself as a supracultural, supraparadigm faculty—otherwise it is replaced by a reasoning that can do so—then we are never free of an everydayness in which reason propounds the unreasonableness of paradigm—relative reasoning, of reason emerging from a lifeworld in motion. Thus, only the modernist staying behind In order to critique and question the journey the postmodernist has undertaken.

      但是矛盾的力量始終存在。雖然理性盛行於每個「拋棄」的狀態，以其振振有詞，並自許為超文化、超典範的能力，在其他地方，它不見得能通行無阻。因此我們永遠無法免除日常生活的紛紛擾擾，儘管理性宣稱跟典範違背的都是非理性。也無法免除自人生世界運作中產生的理性，反而成為非理性。因此，當現代主義停留在原地，批判並質疑後現代主義過於躁進之旅，只有後現代主義悍然躍進另一個思維的架構。

      The modernist also has a story of journeying, so in the present we wind up with conflicting stories of how we journey, which in turn tell different stories regarding the necessity of journeying, the effects of journeying on individuals, societies, and cultures, the stories we tell of past journeys—that is, our histories—and the journey into the future that we chart for ourselves, i.e. our notions of progress.

        現代主義也有自己的旅程，所以我們目前先擱置誰的旅程正確的爭議。讓彼此各說各話，有關旅行的需要，有關旅行對個人、社會、文化的影響。換言之，關於我們對過去歷史的詮釋及對未來的展望，以及對進步的觀念。

        But how do you choose what journey to take? I mean how do you take the postmodern journey—the journey that validates itself by saying that since we live in stories of reality we are bound to journey out of the limitations of our own stories by journeying into other stories—if you have no reason to do so? This story only becomes conceivable if we are already in a postmodern way of “ story making” or “ reality making.” Or, what I think is more the case, we have already been shifting along with our American culture from one way of story making to another. We have, in short, already been thrown into the journey.

        但是你認為你要選擇哪一樣旅行？我意思是說你如何來從事後現代之旅？這個旅程特殊的地方在於主張：既然我們生活在現實的故事裡，我們一定要旅行到這故事的限制之外，不管你有無理由這樣做。這個故事成為可以理解，只有我們已經身處後現代主義的「故事論述」跟「事實論述」的模式中。而且還不僅僅是如此，我認為我們的美國文化的「故事論述」方式，早已經是轉移了。總之，我們已經是被拋棄於旅行當中。

Postmodern journeys 06

Walk on  06

By Joseph Natoli

Translated by Springhero

      What is needed in the end is a jump from one paradigm to another, one social/cultural/personal lifeworld to another, one way of perceiving, knowing, and therefore producing the world to another. William Blake writes of such epistemological alterations that have ontological effects, of moving across paradigms, or what he calls ‘ visionary modes,” from one-fold to four-fold perceptions.

        最後我們還需要從一個典範跳躍到另一個典範，從一個社會、文化和個人的生存世界跳躍到另一個生存世界，從感覺、認知、創造世界的方法，到另一個方法。「維廉、布雷克」曾描述過，這種認知的轉換會有動搖本體的效用，越過不同的典範，或他所說的「視覺模式」，從一種感覺模式變成四種感覺模式。

       I have no trouble with this ; as a postmodernist I first want to know what “ reality frame” someone is in, or some society, or how many reality frames does this culture now express, and so on. What reality am I dealing with here at this time and in this place? What are the special circumstances of “ being” in this world at this time? Into what are we here thrown, and how does this produce a state of throwness which we mistake for stable being, for the ineluctable conditions of human nature and existence.

         這種跳躍對於我並不困難。作為後現代主義者，我首先要知道我們個人或社會在怎樣的「真理架構」裡，或是這種文化表現了多少的「真理架構」等等？以及我此時此地是在跟怎樣的真理架構打交道？此時存在於世界的特殊況是什麼？我們被拋棄到怎樣的世界，這種拋棄的狀態怎麼會被誤認為穩定的存在？是人類天性及存在理所當然的存在？

        But only a person who already has made the jump perceives the necessity of making the jump, or, perceives where one is jumping to and from where. If you already believe that reason and all its foundational artifacts are transpersonal ( it’s the faculty by which humans communicate and get to know themselves and the world, although they possess it to varying degrees), and transcultural ( it travels even to cultures “ steeped in superstitions” and irrationalities), then it certainly is transparadigm( it works within whatever theoretical frame you construct).

        但是只有曾經跳躍過的人，才能感覺到有跳躍的需要，或是才能感覺到跳躍到哪裡，及從哪裡跳躍。假如你已經相信，理性及以理性作為基礎的文化，都是人際之間（人纇的溝通，以及了解自己和世界都是在人際之間完成，雖然程度各有不同），以及文化之間（即使所到達的文化，其實是充滿迷信跟非理性），那麼它的確是旅行於典範之間（不管你建造怎樣的理論架構都說得通）。

       If you take Kuhn’s original notion that paradigms are not merely discursive, theoretical frames but cognitive/perceptual/affective frames that societies and cultures adopt at various times and then proceed to reality make and reality test within the parameters of those frames, and that, further, paradigms can follow each other in time but remain incommensurable, then the idea of a special faculty lying outside the influence of the paradigm becomes very moot.

        假如你接受「柯恩」原創性的觀念：典範不僅僅是論辯性的、理論性的架構，而是認知性、感覺性和情意性的架構，是社會和文化在不同時空所採用，然後成為這些架構下真理的品牌和檢驗。而且典範雖然能夠隨著時光互相推波助瀾，卻無法豎立同一評鑑標準。置身於典範影響之外的特異才能，就有自求多福的空間。

    

postmodern journeys 05

Walk On 05

By Joseph Natoli

Translated by Springhero

       If critical, discerning reason came out of the lifeworld and the lifeworld was in motion with a changeable everydayness, was a result of our throwness here and now and not there and then, then I could make a case which countered the Western Tradition of Rationality and Realism mindset which produced the questions. I could question the presence of a reason operating outside or independent of the life world.

    假如批評、區辨的理性來自人生世界，而人生世界卻每天都在變化當中，而且是此時此刻，而非當時當地的拋棄，那麼我自然可以堂而皇之反駁西方理性傳統跟寫實主義，因為這些問題是他們提出的。我能夠質疑理性是否存在，因為它置身在人生世界之外，並獨立運作。 

       I could not, however, at the same time summon that sort of reason in order to negate the validity of the questions themselves. In fact, these questions that I call “ modernist” are a greater part of that everydayness we are in and out of which we construe scenarios of being-in-the-world than are my postmodernist answer.

         可是，為了否定這些問題的合理性，我無法同時也引用理性作為依據。事實上，我所謂「現代主義」的這些問題，大部分是我們日常生活所發生的，我們引用來詮釋我們存在於世界的腳本，比我後現代主義所能回答的還複雜。 

       I, as a postmodernist, am in a dilemma that the modernist is not in. I face a paradox that the modernist has no trouble resolving. My seeing where the reasoning behind the questioning comes from does not enable me to discount that reasoning; it is in fact a reasoning I too am thrown into, although I resist the way a supposedly a detached reason ‘ self-reasons’ itself out of any such throwness.

        身為後現代主義者，我的困境是現代主義者所未曾經歷。我所面臨的矛盾，現代主義者輕易就化解了。我雖然明白，問題背後理性的由來，卻仍然無法貶低理性的價值。事實上我自己也被拋棄在這種理性當中，儘管我萬般不願承受在拋棄狀態下所謂超越理性的「自我理性」。 

      I want to trace the semiotics of this reasoning, trace it to its social and cultural lifeworlds, to the horizon of a certain time and place, but I can’t sever it from this web of interconnections. What I can do is deny its foundationalism, its Kantian transcendent credentials, but not its operating force within an everydayness we experience in ways this transcendent reason has produced for us.

       我要追蹤這種理性的語意學，追蹤它社會和文化的生存世界，以及在某個時間和空間的地平線，但是我無法將它自互動的網絡中分割出來。我充其量只能否定它有不可動搖的基礎，或「康德哲學」的超驗不可質疑，但是我無法否定它的運作力量，因為我們日常所經驗的，也是這種超越理性所賦予的。        In other words, when I reason, I reason this way too; I am, like you, if you are reading during my lifetime ,thrown into a world in which we have sculpted reason in this way. But as this world is already shifting into another way “ making” itself—a postmodern way—I am also trying to “ reason” in a postmodern way.        換言之，當我推理時，我是以理性方式推理。我像芸芸眾生一樣，被拋棄到這以理性方式運轉的世界。只是這世界尚以現代主義的方式自行運轉，我也以後現代主義的方式來推理而已。 

Postmodern Journeys 04

Walk On ! 04

By Joseph Natoli

Trnaslated by Springhero

     Let me put the paradox on a less abstract level, in fact, on an everyday level: In order to test my theory that we journey in a different way as postmodernists than as modernists, that the postmodern take on the encounter between identity and difference necessitates a whole new way of “ studying other cultures and peoples, “ I proposed to do a series of “ study abroad” programs, specifically rail and hostel tours of Europe.

         讓我以較具體，事實上是日常用語的方式來說明這個矛盾。為了要驗證後現代主義跟現代主義旅行的理論不相同，以及後現代主義所遭遇到認同與差異，勢必需要以完全嶄新的方式，來研究其他文化和民族，我建議一連串到外國研究的計劃，很明確指定歐洲的火車及青年自助旅館。 

       While I proposed that our journey include stays in several European countries, I announced that mastery of the different languages, histories, politics, arts, literatures, folkways, and so on was not claimed by me, nor was it a goal of the program, although I didn’t set the program up to discourage interest in any of these. Here’s my argument in one long sentence:

         當我建議我們的旅行包括逗留在好幾個歐洲國家，我宣稱說，我並有精通好幾種語言、歷史、政治、藝術、文學、民間習俗等等。也不是我們旅行的目的，雖然我的研究計劃並非澆他們興致的冷水。我的論點敘述如下： 

      If the world is configured differently in different states of “ throwness,” different latitudes and longitudes of mediation, within each of which we “ make” the world differently by encouncing different stories about it, and we have neither an unimpeachable rod by which to measure the value of each nor a foundation of prior absolute and universal judgment upon which to stand, then no one’s mastery can stand unimpeached and each of us is compelled to ‘ walk on!” both geographically and ontologically.

          假如世界的組合是由不同「拋棄」的狀態，不同的媒介經緯度，因而我們各自有不同的故事，而形成我們的世界，那麼我們既沒有絕對不可置疑的標竿，來衡量各人的價值，也沒有絕對的先驗基礎和放諸四海而皆準的判斷作為根據，所以沒有一個人可以精通到絕對權威，我們每個人注定繼續前進，不管是地理型態上，或個人本體論方面。 

        Indeed, what I hoped to reach through these journeys was a perception of what comprises our being-in-the-world as humans as well as, through a continual clash of identity and difference, what is shackled or rejected by the particular circumstances of our own societal and cultural throwness.

         的確，經由這些旅行，我所希望得到的是，生而為人，在人生過程中所所見所聞的感想，以及透過認同和差異的不斷衝突，了解到我們自己社會和文化的狀態，所被束縛及拒絕的東西。 

       In short, the journey was toward making conceivable what previously had no existence in the mind of the traveler and thus toward extending the panorama of human awareness, imagination, empathy, sympathy, understanding. We were traveling along the hermeneutic circle of contrastive, differently situated, and contextualized cultural interpretations.

          總之，旅行是要把旅行者以前從未經驗過的東西挖掘出來，因而擴展了認知、想像、同理心、同情心、理解力等宏觀視野。我們在旅行當中，不斷地在透過不同地方的對比，以及文化解釋的內涵，來詮釋人生。 

        My intent here was countered by a series of questions. While I had answers to all of these questions, my answers emerged from a postmodern way of knowing the world and that way produced the reasoning that made my “ answers” answers. The questions, on the other hand, emerged from a modernist way of knowing the world and that way produced the reasoning that asked the questions and could not at the same time find my answers to be reasonable, or “ good answers.”

         我的意圖遭遇到一連串的問題。雖然所有這些問題我都有答案，但我的答案來自我後現代的思維方式，這個方式所做的推理，使我的答案得以成立。在另一方面，我的答案也來自現代主義的認知世界的方式，它的推理方式也提出問題，卻無法使我的答案合理化，或言之成理。 

      I was inferring that “ reason” came out of the lifeworld and did not exist outside it or prior to it, although stories of what is reasonable vary according to time and place. So we were back to the lifeworld, to the notion of everything, being sculpted or worded or sounded from within a personal, social, and cultural framing of the world, including our entire “ critical reasoning” enterprise.

         我推測那種推理方式來自「副屬人生」，並未脫離它，或先於它而存在，雖然合理化與否的故事，會因時因地而截然不同。所以我們回到「附屬人生」，回到一切都是個人、社會、以及文化的架構所塑造、杜撰、表達出來的東西。甚至連作為「批判性推理」的本身都是。

Postmodern Journeys 03

Walk On  03

By Joseph Natoli

Translated by Springhero

       But I say I am suited to journey in a postmodern way and I am not in any of these categories. Where am I then? I am “ adjunct”: Quite literally academic title is “ Adjunct Lecturer.” But is there an ontological connection here, one that connects me to postmodern journeying? I want to describe what I will call an “ adjunct Lebenswelt” or life world in which one’s connection with the center is marginal, and with the social order, subordinate and temporary.

        但是我說我適合以後現代的方式旅行，所以不隸屬於以上幾種。那我算老幾呢？我是個「副屬品」。名副其實，因為我的學術頭銜正是「副教授」。但是我跟後現代之旅，難道還有本體論的關聯嗎？姑且讓我描述一下我所謂的「副屬人生」，也就是跟中央的關係是邊緣的，跟社會倫理的關係，也是隸屬而權宜。 

       Firstly, we have to consider that the life world becomes important only because a separation between world and self cannot be maintained; in other words, we drift into certain connections with self and world that shape or sculpt future interactions. The lifeworld is a product of being thrown into the world, the site of our “ throwness,” by which I mean it is an accidental, “ at this time and in this place, “ interfacer of the ‘ everyday” out of which we can concoct and even hook up with grand, transcending ‘ everydayness” stories.

        首先我們必須考慮到，副屬人生之所以那麼重要，只因為世界跟自我無法維持分開，換言之，我們漂流到自我與世界的關係當中，塑造並形成未來的互動關係。副屬人生因此是我們先被拋棄到這個世界，也就是「拋棄」的位置。我稱之為「拋棄」，因為純屬意外，此時此地就成為我們日常活動的介面，我們在這裡可以虛構，甚至陶醉於一些精采堂皇，超越庸碌的故事。 

      Paradoxically, these grand stories tell us that we are not accompaniments to the “ flux of the everyday” but can transcend that flux. We live in the myth that we can remove the lens of the lebenswelt from our gaze and encounter our being severed from where it has its being ( its state of throwness). We live in the myth that we can apprehend from “ the outside “ world as it is severed from it being always already caught in its own everydayness.

       很矛盾的，這些精采堂皇的故事告訴我，我們不是「庸碌人生」的伴奏，而是能夠超越這種庸庸碌碌。我們生活在神話中，以為自己可以移除眼光上的透視鏡片，而親身體驗到迴異於被拋棄狀態的實質存在。我們也生活在另一種神話中，以為我們超越日常庸碌，進入外面的世界，就可以理解。 

        This is not a “war” that can be brought to closure through either peace or extermination; this is a true paradox. Either we are inevitably questioning what we are and what the world is from within lifeworlds, already complicit with the everydayness out of which our questions arise, or we have already separated ourselves from both the lifeworld and the world’s everydayness and are asking questions and getting answers that bring both the flux of being and the worldly flux to a stop. Baldly put: We can either tell a story of being “ inside” things or are able to get “ outside” things.

        這個戰爭不是和平或消滅就可以結束的。真正的矛盾就在此。我們要不就無可避免地從問題起源的副屬人生的共犯結構裡，質疑我們自身和世界的意義。要不然，就是已經脫離副屬人生的庸碌，置身在自我與世界之外，質疑而得到解答，卻發現存在的世界隨庸碌以俱滅。容我坦率以道：我們要就說一些此生此世的故事，要不就是魂飛界外，存而不言。 

        As soon as you say something that pretends to be outside the contingencies of self and world, outside the force of the everyday, you can say that only those contingencies at that time and the everydayness you are in at that time engender such a story of detachment. But in the modern world, we have been striving strenuously to transcend the stories of “ always already” worldly attachment. We have been placing our bets on “ methods of detachment” that winnow “ storymaking” from “ reality.”

      當你誇誇而談，假裝你超越了自我與世界的因緣，脫離了日常庸碌的引力，你固然可以誇言，彼時的因緣，彼時的際會，使你可以超越立場，虛構故事。但是在現代的世界，我們都曾經努力奮鬥，就是要超越已然存在的超越立場而不可得。我們對於「超越的方法」，以為可以分別「虛構與真理」，曾經信之不疑。 

       Being “ thrown into” the modern world means that we are thrown into a world in which such stories of detachment flourish—and since the Enlightenment and the “ rise of of Science,’ they do. Such stories are employed to transcend the stories of no detachment, of “ always already-ness,” the stories of being inseparable from the world and world accessible only in its perplexing, changeable ‘ everydayness.”

        被拋棄進入現代世界意味著，我們被拋入的世界，這種超越的故事大為盛行的時代，自從啟蒙運動及科學興起以來，莫不如此。這些故事被用來超越那些陷身今生今世，世俗庸碌的娑婆世界。    

Postmodern Journeys 02

Walk On  02

By Joseph Natoli

Translated  by Springhero

       Unfortunately, we spend most of our lives at rest; call it grounded, call it centered; call it home base, call it the still point, the contemplative heart of your being from where, like the Buddha, you sit in the lotus position, eyes half closed, and integrate the fury, solitary at the very center of the garden to which all paths ultimately lead..

       不幸地，我們一生大都在靜止中度過，美其名為安定基礎、為中心歸屬感、為有家園可歸、為寧靜致遠、為冥思心斂，猶如佛陀靜坐蓮花座上，眼睛半閉，攝合心猿意馬，在花園中央孤獨下來，條條歧途都回歸這裡。 

      A sweet image, a sweet story, that, like all stories, has its own “ otherness.” There is the emaciated Buddha as well as the fat Buddha; the dark soul journeying as well as the sedentary soul in peace, the Buddha whose last words are “ Walk on!” The Hindu dancing Shiva is never at rest, enacting in his dance somehow the endless fluidity of time, space, self, objects, others, laws and dreams, desire and science, mind and world.

         像所有的故事一樣，再完美的形象，再甜美的故事，都有其「彼方」。佛陀有臉潤飽滿的時刻，也有憔悴落魄的時刻。佛陀的靈魂不是自始就安詳寧謐，而是曾經顛沛流離，灰暗絕望，他最後的話語是「繼續前進」。印度教的「希媧」舞神永無止盡地跳下去，象徵著時間、空間、自我、物體、別人、法則、夢想、慾望和技藝、心靈和世界，都是永恆地變動不居的。 

        We are thrown into a world that is always already in motion and whose always alreadyness we immediately inherit. The image of ourselves, then, as quietly sitting someplace, or centered for dominating viewing in Foucault’s pan-option, taking in a world that is somehow “ out there”—that image and the story it spins encourages what I call a “ modernist” way of journeying. How do you journey toward another story—let’s call it the postmodernist—of how the world and ourselves exist and we “ correspond” with each other , another story of how we travel, if you will, from self to world?

      我們出生時所投入的世界，已經總是在運轉當中，我們也只有立刻加入其已經運轉中。我所謂的「現代主義旅行觀」，是指自我的形象氣定神閒端坐一處，或是像「傅柯的宏觀論」所說的，所見所聞的形象跟故事，莫不是驗證自我中心地睥睨世界。換個「後現代旅行觀」如何？也就是旅行到世界和我們存在的彼方，尋找另一個故事，再來互相驗證，或者從自我旅行到世界，也是另一個故事。        

        It seems to me that you cannot do so unless you first perceive that you have been thrown into, say, a modernist story of things and not into the world itself. We are now living at the crossroads of both kinds of awareness, although only the postmodern awareness allows us that awareness.

        我覺得，你不可能這樣做，除非你首先體悟到，你自已不是被投入世界的本身，而是被投入現代主義的敘述觀故事裡。我們現在生活在兩種「認知」的十字路口，雖然只有後現代的「認知」，能夠讓我們有那種「認知」。     

      In the last decade of the second millennium, we have our so-called cultural wars, the semiotics of such proliferating each day. Perhaps it is all about traveling, about the journey, not only—as Rod Serling used to say at the beginning of every segment of Twilight Zone—of time and space, but of mind. Again, the Buddha: “ You cannot travel on the path before you have that Path itself.”

       在第二千禧年的最後十年，我們有所謂的「文化戰爭」，語意學每天快速地繁殖不已。或許都是關於跋涉、關旅行、如「羅德、瑟林」在「陰陽魔界」每章開始所說的：不但是時間和空間，心靈也在旅行。佛陀也說過：你一但在途中，你自己也成為道的本體。          

        Some are secure and content, for whatever reason, and want to journey little from that contentment and security, except perhaps to augment it. Others are unsatisfied with their present lot and continue to journey toward a goal that promises what is yet not theirs. Still others have no journey in mind but are on the road because one place is good as another. There is for them no place to rest. Perhaps, like Rimbaud, they are not going to any place but merely fleeing from ‘ apparitions assembled in the brain.”

       

        不管是何理由，有些人安定而滿足，絲毫不想離開，除了有助於增強那種滿足跟安定。還有些人則對他們目前的命運不滿意，繼續旅行到曾經許諾卻尚未達到的目標。還有些人心裏根本不想旅行，因為此地跟彼方其實無異，卻已經身不由己在途中。對他們而言，真是生無所息。或許如「藍波」，他們不是旅行到任何地方，只是逃避「魅影凝聚在腦海」。

Postmodern Journeys 01

Walk On 01

By Joseph Natoli

Translated by Springhero

      “ And sedentary species, “ she said, “ like sedentary genes, are terribly successful for a while, but in the end they are self-destructive.”

                                  —Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines

「任何定棲的動物」她說，「像定棲的基因一樣，會成功一陣子，但是最後會自我毀滅。」

      I was forced to travel, to ward off the apparitions assembled in my brains.                                  —Arthur Rimbaud,

      我不得不旅行，以免聚集在大腦的魅影揮之不去。 

     The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The “ dictators’ of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always are the ‘ gentlemen of the road.”                                   —Proust

      旅行可以免除階層體制及作威作福。動物界之所以獨裁者，那是因為生活在富裕當中。無政府主義者如同往常，注定是途中漂泊者。

       You know, in a lot of ways—none of them having to do with y bank account—I am ripe for the postmodern journey. I mean I’ somehow situated emotionally to take one. The composition of my consciousness is such that the idea of a journey to places I’ve never been to before resonates beautifully, like a soprano voice from long ago singing “ Ave Maria” in the church of my childhood, Regina Pacis.

     你知道，從各方面來看，我都適合從事後現代之旅，這無關我銀行存款多寡的問題。我意思是，情感上我是蓄勢待發。我的意識結構醞釀已久，動人地迴響著：前去罷，陌生的異域！宛如我童年時期，在瑞吉那的教堂歌詠「聖馬利亞」的獨唱女高音。

       Even my unconscious mind has me traveling cheerfully through a Borgesian garden of forking paths. No, my unconscious does not project fears of flying, of traveling, of instability, of nomadic wandering.

      即使我無意識的心靈都要我愉快地旅遊經過交叉路口附近的「波濟花園」。不，我的無意識，對於搭乘飛機的恐懼，不穩定感，或游牧般的漂泊，全然不在乎。 

       It is only when I don’t travel that still waters breed a mental pestilence. When an “ order of things” becomes more than the barest, faintest circumference of imagination but presumes to stand for the world “ just as it is” and myself “ just as I am,” then I have dark dreams.

      只有我不旅行的時候，才會發生心靈境界停滯，瘟疫叢生。當井然有序不僅僅是共存環境所需要，而且也假定為代表世界本身，甚至連個人本質都含概在內，我宛如處於夢魘當中。