選擇作品：The “Busy” Trap? by Tim Kreider

? ? ? ? ?“沒有人喜歡這樣的生活，正如沒有人愿意在堵塞的車流中寸步難行，在擁擠的體育館里動(dòng)彈不得，或在殘酷的高中時(shí)代互相傾軋——但集體卻迫使彼此這樣去做。”

???????? “理想中的生活，應(yīng)介于自我目中無人的悠閑懶散和世人永無止境的狂亂奔忙之間?！?/p>

???????? 克瑞德用生動(dòng)幽默的語(yǔ)言為我們揭露了21世紀(jì)當(dāng)下美國(guó)“忙碌”的社會(huì)現(xiàn)狀。一些人表面上埋怨自己的忙碌，實(shí)則是在隱隱地炫耀。他們沉迷于忙碌，并且為無所事事而感到不安?？巳鸬掠^察著身邊朋友們的忙碌和疲憊，心中卻向往著不受俗務(wù)所累的懶散生活。他相信，人生苦短，最好將時(shí)間花在喜歡的人和事上；臨終之際，與其后悔當(dāng)初沒能努力工作，不如再跟三兩好友喝杯啤酒，散散步，痛痛快快地大笑一場(chǎng)。

內(nèi)容干貨：

1. 作者簡(jiǎn)介，本文概要

???????? 作者簡(jiǎn)介：Tim Kreider is an essayist and cartoonist. Born and educated in Baltimore, Maryland，Kreider lives in New York City and an Undisclosed Location on the Chesapeake Bay. He currently has a regular column at Medium, and has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker’s “Page-Turner” blog, al Jazeera, Vox, Nerve, the Men’s Journal, The Comics Journal, Film Quarterly, and Fangoria. His cartoons have been collected in three books by Fantagraphics Books. The New York Times Book Review once commented Kreider as “a curious and compassionate observer and a fantastic wit”.

????????Notable Works: Pain: When Will It End? (2004), Why Do They Kill Me? (2005), We Learn Nothing (2012), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You (2018),

????????作品梗概：Written as part of a series on anxiety in the New York Times opinion pages in 2012, this essay displays that resent-day American society is fast-paced and constantly moving forward. With so many things to do in such little time, busyness and stress seem to take over our lives. Tim Kreider believes that we are subconsciously falling into the “busy trap”. We submit to the busyness that overtakes our lives without even realization. He also argues that a carefree and relaxed life is more ideal instead of keeping a busy life.

2. 單詞詞組，地道表達(dá)

????????（1）忙碌代表著一種existential reassurance，a hedge against 空虛；如果你非常忙碌，completely booked，每時(shí)每刻都被人需要，那么你的生活顯然就稱不上愚蠢、trivial、或毫無意義。

????????（2）我認(rèn)為理想中的生活介于my own defiant indolence和 the rest of the world’s endless frenetic hustle之間。我的角色只是提供壞影響，就像那個(gè)站在教室窗外，對(duì)端坐在書桌前的你making faces的小孩，催促你make some excuse溜出課堂，去外面玩耍。我本人的resolute idleness與其說是virtue，倒不如說是一種luxury，但我在很久以前就有意識(shí)地做出了決定，the best investment of my limited time on earth是把時(shí)間花在喜歡的人身上。Life is too short to be busy.

3. 散文佳句，沉浸賞析

? ? ? ?? Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in.

????? ? ?“內(nèi)卷”究竟出自個(gè)人還是集體？

? ? ? ???It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school— it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

????? ???理想的生活，應(yīng)是“閑看庭前花開花落”，“漫隨天外云卷云舒”。

? ? ? ???On the best ordinary days of my life, I write in the morning, go for a long bike ride and run errands in the afternoon, and in the evening I see friends, read or watch a movie. This, it seems to me, is a sane and pleasant pace for a day. And if you call me up and ask whether I won’t maybe blow off work and check out the new American Wing at the Met or ogle girls in Central Park or just drink chilled pink minty cocktails all day long, I will say, what time?

4. 主旨哲思，流連賞玩

? ? ? ???表面忙碌，實(shí)則空虛

????????More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

? ? ? ?那精疲力竭的模樣，究竟是忙碌所致，還是為了掩飾我們所做之事并不重要的事實(shí)……

? ? ? ???人生苦短，予之于愛

????????My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue, but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it’s possible I’ll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I’ll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. Life is too short to be busy.

?? ? ? ?懶散悠閑，與愛人朋友相攜相伴，未嘗不是一件美事……

????????你可曾抱怨過生活太過忙碌？你理想中的生活又是什么樣的？“忙碌”的陷阱是否就發(fā)生在你身邊？克瑞德認(rèn)為，人生苦短，與其忙忙碌碌，不如與愛相伴、悠閑度日。面對(duì)短暫的人生，你又會(huì)怎么選擇？