I want to die at sunset. I want to watch the sky change and turn orange and pink and purple as day dies into night. I want to hear the wind fluttering through the leaves and smell very faintly, nag champa amber incense, but very faintly, because scent can be tough on a dying body. I want to die with socks on my feet because I get cold. And if I die with a bra on, I'm coming to haunt everybody.
我想在日落时死去。 我想看着天空变成 橘黄、粉红、绛紫色, 白昼消逝,黑夜降临。 我想听着风轻轻吹动树叶的声音, 闻着淡淡的金香木和琥珀香气, 香气淡些便好, 毕竟已是将死之身。 我想穿着袜子迎接死亡, 以免感到寒冷。 但如果让我穿着胸罩去死, 我做鬼也不会放过你们。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I will terrorize you and that is a threat, OK?
我会回来吓唬你们的。
I want to die in my own bed, at my own home, with my loved ones nearby who are talking amongst themselves and comforting each other for this very big thing that's about to happen in their lives. I want to die with all my affairs in order so my loved ones have nothing to worry about but their grief after I die. I want to die empty, devoid of all of the skill, gift, talent and light that I carry in this body and satiated, full of the richness of this one unique human ride. And when my loved ones notice that I have released my last breath, I want them to clap. I want them to clap because I died well, but I died well only because I lived well.
我想在自己家的床上安息, 我深爱的亲朋就在身旁互相安慰着, 我的离去在他们生命中是件大事。 我想在临死之前 把所有事情安排妥当, 这样我死后我的家人朋友 除了悲伤也无需担心什么。 我想一无所有地离世, 将我所拥有的一切技艺、 天赋、才能和观点全部抛弃, 这段独一无二的 人生旅程已经让我满足。 当我的呼吸停止的时候, 我想要我的家人朋友鼓掌欢送我, 因为我的一生过得很好, 所以算是善终。
Now, will it happen this way? Probably not. Realistically, I mean, even with all this rah-rah death talk I talk,
那么事情真的会和我想的一样吗? 可能并不会。 实际上,我的意思是,
I'm probably going to go kicking and screaming.
就算我如此激情 地就“死亡”一事侃侃而谈, 当真正面临死亡时, 我可能也会拳打脚踢、放声尖叫。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Unless we choose, the date, place, manner and time of our death will remain a mystery. Then why think about it at all? Death creates context for our lives. My entire life is leading up until that point. How we die creates the period at the end of the sentence, but it is the period that makes it a sentence at all.
除非是我们刻意选择, 通常我们死亡的日期、地点、 方式和时刻都是未知的。 那我们为什么要去考虑死亡? 因为这能帮助我们过好自己的一生。 我的人生始终进行着,直到死亡。 ”死亡”这个阶段出现在人生的末尾, 但正是它让人生变得完整。
Imagine for a moment your 847th birthday. OK, try. I mean, you're probably pushing 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 in this room.
想象一下自己的847岁生日。 来,试着想一下。 在座各位当中,
Imagine 847 of them. So you’re sitting there and your body is raggedy. Because unless they cure aging, I promise you, you do not want to be immortal. I promise, you're going to be begging for death. So it's your 847th birthday. Here they come with a cake. No candles on it, because it would burn the house down.
即将过第30、40、50、 60、70个生日的可能都有。 想象一下第847个生日的场景吧。 你什么也做不了, 只是形容枯槁地坐着。 除非人类发明停止衰老的方法, 否则没人愿意永生不灭。 我能肯定,到那时 你会千方百计地求死。 试想一下自己的847岁生日, 蛋糕端了上来, 上面没有蜡烛,
And now here they come, singing that same tired song. "Happy birthday to you," you would be so over it. And if it was a Stevie Wonder version, that song is already 45 minutes long,
毕竟847根蜡烛 能把整个房子都烧了。 家人朋友又唱起那首歌, “祝你生日快乐“, 你早就听烦了。 如果唱的是史提夫·汪达 (美国著名歌手)的版本,
you'd be extra over it.
这一版本有足足45分钟, 你已经烦得不能再烦了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Nobody wants that. We count birthdays now because they're finite. They're special. They mark the passage of time, and one day, we won't have any more time.
没人想过这种生日。 我们过生日是因为它有限, 是因为它特别, 是因为它标志着人生的各个阶段,
And I find that to be a really useful fact. I think it's healthy for us to think about our death.
而终有一天,我们的人生到此为止。 确实是这样,我认为 对死亡的思考是健康的。
And you might say, of course I do, because I'm a death doula. I wanted us to embrace thinking about our mortality. I spend a lot of time thinking about, talking about, helping people prepare
你们可能会说, 我当然会这么认为了, 毕竟我的职业就是临终陪护。 让大家乐意去思考自己 的死亡是我的工作。
and teaching death doulas. Death doulas offer non-medical and holistic care for the dying person, the circle of support and the community through the process.
对于这份工作,我花了 很多时间去思索和谈论, 也花了很多时间去做, 甚至教他人如何做。 临终陪护负责为即将死亡 的人提供非医疗整体陪护, 在这个过程中给予他们支持, 让他们有归属感。
I want to acknowledge first what a privilege it is for people to be able to know about and afford and hire a death doula. We're working on it. And next, what a privilege it is for me to even be able to imagine my own death. It says that I have a sense of safety. My basic bodily needs are met. And I have safety in my body, my mind and in my life, even despite the skin I wear.
对于知道这个职业并且 有钱雇佣临终陪护的人来说, 我首先承认这确实 能让他们得到很好的服务。 我们一直在努力工作。 其次,这个职业也给了 我自己一种”特权“, 我能更好地想象自己的死亡。 我想象中的死亡是有安全感的, 基本身体需求能够得到满足, 对自己的身体、思想、一生, 甚至对包裹着这副身躯 的皮囊,都有安全感。
That wasn't always the case. I came to this work by serendipity, by circumstance, but mostly by necessity. A little over ten years ago, I was practicing law at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, and I grew depressed. Not like, "Oh my God, I'm so depressed," but like, for real depressed, like, "can't get out of bed" depressed, "can't shower" depressed, can't find hope, "can find a smile, but can't really find joy," type of depressed. I took a medical leave of absence, so I went to Cuba, and I met a woman there, a fellow traveler on the bus, who had uterine cancer. We spent the 14-hour bus ride talking about her life and also her death. And it was a highly illuminating conversation. I heard firsthand how hard it was for her to even be able to talk about her fears around mortality and her disease because people censored their own discomfort with mortality rather than make space for her. I took the invitation, however, to think about my mortality and looked at my life from the perspective of my death for the very first time. And it was grim, I did not like what I saw. I noticed then that I had to live life on my own terms because I was the only one who was going to have to contend with all the choices that I'd made at my death.
但实际情况并非总是如此。 我做这份工作是由于机缘巧合, 也是由于客观环境, 但最主要的是,这份工作 是我必须要去做的。 十多年前, 我在洛杉矶法律援助基金会 从事法律工作, 那段时间我很抑郁。 并不是每天长吁短叹 “老天啊,我太抑郁了”, 而是真的抑郁,以致于卧床不起, 连洗澡的精力都没有, 感觉人生无望, 即使笑着也感觉不到快乐, 我已经抑郁成了这样。 我请了病假,去古巴放松心情, 我在旅游大巴上认识了一位游客, 她是一位患有子宫癌的女士。 我们在14小时的车程里, 畅聊她的一生,以及她的死亡。 这场交谈给了我很大的启发。 对她来说,和他人谈论自己的疾病 和对死亡的恐惧是件难事, 因为他人一联想到自己 的死亡就会感到不适, 从而很难继续同她交谈。 然而,我欣然接纳了她说的话, 也开始思考自己的死亡, 我头一次站在死亡 的角度审视自己的一生。 我发现自己的人生非常沮丧, 我不喜欢这样。 然后我发现, 我得按照自己的意愿去生活, 因为在将死之时,我还是需要亲自 面对自己曾作过的所有选择。
Not long after I came back from Cuba, my brother-in-law, Peter Saint John, became ill. And not too long after that, they couldn't cure him anymore. So I went to New York, where he and my sister and my niece were, and along with Peter's family and my family and his friends, we ushered him to the end of his life.
我从古巴回来后不久, 我的姐夫彼得·圣约翰生了一场病, 没过多久便回天乏术。 于是我去了纽约, 彼得、我姐姐和外甥女, 彼得的家人朋友以及我的家人都在, 我们一起送他最后一程。
Being present for Peter's death is one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given. Not only did I get to care for somebody who I loved so dearly, but it also grew my capacity for compassion. I knew, intellectually, that there were thousands of other people that were walking through the same thing at the same time. And it also hinted at the things that I've been talking about in Cuba. Everybody was uncomfortable with the fact that he was going to die, even the medical care team. I knew that there should be somebody, somebody who was there, somebody who could be with us to walk alongside us. Somebody who could listen to us, offer resources, hold our hands, hold our hearts, bear witness to our pain, help us sort through information, tell us that we were doing the best that we could with the worst that we were dealt. But I couldn't find anybody. So I became that someone for other people.
见证彼得的离世是我人生中 意义最重大的事情之一。 经历了这件事,我开始关心 自己深爱的亲朋, 也变得更有同情心。 我知道,理智地想一想, 有成千上万个人 都同时经历着这种痛苦。 这件事也印证了我刚才所讲 的在古巴的经历。 所有人都会对自己 终有一死的事实感到难受, 就连医护团队也是如此。 我知道,我们需要有人陪着 自己度过这一段艰难的时刻。 我们需要有人倾听自己, 提供情绪的出口, 握住我们的手,抚慰我们的心, 见证我们的痛苦,帮我们厘清头绪, 对我们说,我们已经做到最好了, 即使我们实际上做得一团糟。 但我找不到这样的人。 所以我成为了这样的人。
I sit deep in the trench with folks as they prepare for death. There's no fixing or saving anything because there's no fixing or saving grief or death. It just is, I meet people where they are at. My goal is to help them answer the question: "What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully, holding both at the same time?"
当人们行将就木的时候, 我和他们同在。 不需要修复什么, 也不需要留住什么, 因为无论是悲伤还是死亡, 都不是能修复或留住的。 我只是出现在了他们生命的末尾。 我的目标是帮他们回答一个问题: “我要做什么才能获得内心的平静, 让自己先好好活着, 再优雅地死去呢?“
When I'm thinking about my present life from the vantage point of my graceful death, I can see very clearly who I want to be, how I want to spend my time and what of me I'll leave behind. It allows me to consciously curate my life right now and also figure out my little "whys" right now. Because what are we waiting for, anyway? Like, death?
当我站在死亡的制高点 审视自己现在的生活, 我能清楚地知道自己 想要成为什么样的人, 想要如何度过自己的时间, 以及想要丢掉哪些缺点。 这能够让我从现在开始有 意识地策划自己的生活, 以及想明白自己心中 的诸多“为什么”。 因为我们在等待着什么,对吧? 比如说,死亡?
I used to think dying people had it all figured out, though. I used to think that they'd lay there with their hands like this because we all know this is like, universal dying person pose. So they'd lay there with their hands like this, and there'd be a little glimmer in their eye, they'd be like, "Oh, yes, finally, it all makes sense." Turns out it's not like that at all, it doesn't look like that.
我曾以为人在弥留之际 会把这些全都想明白。 我以为他们会像这样双手交叠躺着, 毕竟大家都知道,这是电影里 将死之人的经典姿势。 双手交叠,眼睛里闪着微光, 看上去就像 “啊,没错,我终于全明白了。” 事实上却完全不是这样。
Hollywood has lied to us, we know that already. Cinderella was unconscionable, but this is just flagrant. It's not like that at all. It's way too much work to be doing while you're dying. So it doesn't look like that, there's no secret, there's nothing magically you'll find out then. This is it, there's nothing to figure out, no big secret at all. Many of my clients also reached the end of their lives
我们早就知道 好莱坞总是骗人,对吧? 比如,灰姑娘的故事 就很不合理,却家喻户晓。 实际上死亡根本不是那样, 你在死前需要做太多事情了。 这没什么秘密可言, 你并不会到那个时候 就奇迹般地想明白什么。 就是这样, 其实你没想明白什么事情, 也没什么惊天大秘密。 我的很多委托人 都即将走到生命的终点,
wishing that they had more time. But I'm always curious, more time for what? What else would they do with the time that they had? It's rarely to go see Machu Picchu, OK, I'll tell you that.
他们总希望自己最后的时间再长些。 但我一直很好奇, 他们要这时间干什么? 他们会用这些时间 做什么别的事情呢? 可不能是去马丘比丘 (秘鲁印加遗址)参观吧。 好吧,让我来告诉各位。
Can I tell you a story? OK, so this client is a composite, very many clients shoved together because as juicy as their stories are, it's not my responsibility or job to tell them. So this is many clients together, and I find that it's an easy composite to make because it's universally applicable. This applies whether or not somebody has worked their entire life or sits on a big trust fund or works three jobs to keep the lights on. You might find bits of yourself in this story.
我能给各位讲个故事吗? 好的,故事中的这位委托人 集诸多特点于一身, 她的故事是以许多委托人 为原型杂糅而成的, 毕竟大家的故事都很精彩, 我不能一一赘述。 我有这么多委托人, 但其实很容易就能将 他们的故事结合到一起, 毕竟人生无非就这些事儿。 无论是一生忙于工作的人, 还是坐拥一大笔信托基金的人, 抑或是做三份工作以维持生计的人,
This client is somebody who had a decent amount of privilege, but not without adversity, of course, because she's human. She had a great job, great career, had been a real trailblazer. Kids who she loved, who she was proud of, good friends, traveled a bunch, did a bunch of great things in her life, had plenty of romance and love. She was doing OK. The girl who had everything.
都可能在这个故事里找到自己的影子。 这位委托人过得相当不错, 当然并不是没遇到过挫折, 毕竟人生总得有点风浪。 她事业有成,是当之无愧的行业领军者, 她很爱自己的孩子并以他们为傲, 她有知心好友,她曾四处旅行, 她一生中做了很多有意思的事, 也收获了浪漫与爱情。 一切都是那么美好。 她拥有了一切。
And then came a plot twist. That plot twist was an aggressive bone cancer that was likely going to kill her. And with that plot twist came a sense of pointlessness to her life. She couldn’t figure out what she’d been doing for the past 60-odd years because she'd been so busy doing. While she was healthy, it was about the next career milestone or what's happening with the kids next or the next trip. When she was sick, more of the same. Next doctor's appointment, next scan, next medication. She was so busy distracting herself from like, the difficulty that she found in her life, staying out of her body so that she didn't have to be present with what was going on. It was always out there, she was always looking out there. But death was coming to remind her that she had no more "out theres." That it was always only right here, where there is nothing at all to do but simply to be.
但故事来到了转折点。 她患上了侵袭性骨癌, 很有可能会导致死亡。 这让她感觉人生毫无意义。 她不明白这60多年 自己到底在做什么, 尽管每天总是忙忙碌碌。 在她身体健康的时候,她总是很忙, 为了职业生涯的下一个里程碑, 孩子们的未来, 或者下一场旅行。 在她生病的时候, 虽然还是每天都在忙, 忙着看医生、扫描检查和吃药, 但她一直在逃避这个问题, 好像只要她不去想, 身体上的病痛就与她无关。 她始终不愿接受这个事实。 但死亡提醒着她, 病魔已经侵袭了她的身体。 大限已至,她无能为力, 只能迎接死亡。
We zoomed out on her life to look at what she enjoyed, to see where she placed value, because from there we can figure out where we place meaning. And it turns out it wasn't about the kids or the work or the money.
我们观察她的生活, 弄明白她真正喜欢的是什么, 搞清楚什么在她心中有重要价值, 以帮她找到人生的意义。 结果我们发现,
It was about the little things. Her hands in the soil. Her garden. Building a fire, reading books and food. She loved to eat, but she had dieted most of her adult life. The sound at all familiar to anybody? OK, if it does, this is for you, OK? If you take nothing away, hear this: you are going to die, so please eat the cake. Eat the cake, order the dessert, eat the french fries, eat the brownies. Eat everything you want to, just eat it, because you're going to die. One day, you won't be able to anymore.
重要的不是孩子、工作或金钱, 而是点滴小事。 在自己的花园里种花、 给炉子生火、读书和品尝美食。 她喜欢品尝美食, 但她成年后几乎每天都在节食。 听到这里,各位有没有感到熟悉呢? 如果有,那这个故事 就是讲给你听的。 如果你从来不点外卖,那么听着: 人终有一死,所以想吃就吃吧。 吃些蛋糕,点些甜品, 吃些薯条和布朗尼。 吃你想吃的所有东西,放开吃吧, 因为人总有一天要死的。 别等到有一天你什么都吃不成了。
At this point in her disease process, chemotherapy had ravaged her taste buds, so she had to rely on her sense of smell to get pleasure out of eating. And she ate. She did it as much as she could because she knew she wouldn't be able to for much longer. She ate as much as cancer would allow, and when her body could no longer process food, we placed her favorite passion fruit soufflé right on her lip, and she would lick it and smile. She lived more in the last eight months or so of her life with the help of hospice than she had before. She was finally present, at home in her body, delighting in the richness of the sensory experience we have by virtue of these fantastical bodies that we will die in.
她生病的时候, 化学疗法损坏了她的味蕾, 所以她只能靠嗅觉 来体会享用美食的快乐。 她大吃特吃, 因为她知道自己过不了多久 就再也不能吃东西了。 她在身体允许的情况下 吃尽可能多的食物, 当她的身体再也 消化不了食物的时候, 我们把她最喜欢的水果 舒芙蕾放在她的嘴唇上, 她会轻轻地舔, 然后露出笑容。 在人生的最后八个月里, 有了我们的临终陪护, 她确实比之前活得更有意义了。 她是在自己家中离世的, 在最后的日子里, 她充分享受了从感官 体验中获得的快乐。
These bodies that we will die in.
我们拥有能够感受这种快乐的身体, 但人终有一死。
She was also really curious about her legacy. What, if anything, she'd leave behind. But leaving a legacy isn't optional. We're doing it every single day. You're doing it with every smile, every word, every kind word, every harsh word, every action, every inaction, every dollar you spend.
她还非常关心自己的遗产。 如果有财产的话, 她当然会留下。 但不论有没有钱, 人一定会留下一些遗产的。 事实上,我们每天都在留下遗产, 这体现在我们的 每个微笑,说的每句话, 每句善语和每句恶言, 每次行动和每次不作为,
You're telling the people who are paying attention exactly who you are, and that is what they'll tell of you when you are gone. At her funeral, despite all of her career accomplishments, nobody talked about any of that. They talked about who she was, nobody cared about what she'd done. When we focus on our productivity, we highlight what we have to do to feel worthy, rather than who we get to be, where worthiness is our birthright and we are human.
以及花过的每一分钱。 你通过以上种种让大家 知道了你是什么样的人, 你离去后,他们提到你时, 也会说你是这样的人。 在她的葬礼上, 尽管她在事业上取得了诸多成就, 人们却对此只字不提。 人们只会谈论她是什么样的人, 而不关心她做了什么事。 当我们把目光投向 自己能做的事情时, 我们看重的是做什么 才能让自己有价值, 而不是自己要成为什么样的人, 我们认为自己生下来就要创造价值, 但我们是人。
(Applause)
(掌声)
We're human. Messily, magically, fantastically, beautifully, briefly, perfectly human. Now humans are meaning-making machines. We can make a story out of anything and make it sound good. So why not then make meaning out of the magic of the mundane? And absolve ourselves of the responsibility of trying to have some grand life purpose? Why not just give ourselves permission to be fully human, to be fallible, to be messy, to be here while we're here?
我们的一生混乱、神奇、迷人、 短暂而完美。 我们可以给世间万物赋予意义, 我们完全可以给任何事物 赋予自己的故事。 那为什么不将意义赋予 在平凡的事物上呢? 为什么非要把实现崇高 的人生目标当成责任呢? 为什么不做你自己呢? 为什么不允许自己犯错, 非要那么一板一眼呢?
I mean, is nobody else tripping out over the fact that we're on a giant blue rock spinning through space? Y'all don't trip about that, because I do regularly.
在这个星球上, 为什么不享受人生呢? 我是说,我们生活在宇宙中 一块旋转着的蓝色巨石上, 这多不可思议啊! 如果你们不这么觉得,
那肯定是因为听 我说这句话太多次了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And then what really trips me out is that while that's going on, we're getting bent out of shape over traffic. Please let the cars merge, OK? Can we agree universally we're going to let people merge? Let them merge, let them merge. Let them merge. It requires nothing of you, just to give them a little bit of time. And in fact, it's probably taking more time off your life by all the high blood pressure when you don't want to let them merge. Just let them in, it'll be fine, everybody's fine, it's OK. Hold life lightly. We've got to hold life really, really lightly. We are all dying. We're all dying.
然而让我觉得更加不可思议的是, 生活在这么美丽的星球上, 我们居然还在“路怒”。 他们想超车, 那就让他们到前面去吧。 反正大多数时候他们总能得逞。 有的人喜欢超车, 那尽管让他们到前面去好了。 这对我们来说也不需要费什么力气, 只不过是给了他们一点超车的时间。 再说了,如果你硬是 不想让他们超车, 万一把高血压 给气出来了,得不偿失啊。 就让他们超车去吧, 一切照样都挺好的。 活得轻松一点吧。 我们都要活得轻松一点。 人终有一死。
Now I can understand why people maybe don't want to talk about death or think about it. It's uncomfortable. It's sad, it's scary, icky. Acknowledging your death means that you are not the center of the story, and that is disquieting to the very fragile human ego. Acknowledging your mortality also means acknowledging our powerlessness and lack of control we have in life. Also icky. It also means surrendering to the big "I don't knows" of life and also the really big "I don't knows" of "what, if anything, happens after we die?" But since we don't know, why not imagine something absurd, something glorious, something huge? A vision that actually serves you rather than makes you want to recoil in fear. We could.
我能理解为什么人们并不想谈论死亡, 甚至都不愿想到死亡。 死亡确实蛮难受的, 令人伤心、恐惧、讨厌。 承认自己的死亡意味着 你不再是故事的中心, 这无疑给人类脆弱 的自尊心制造了忧虑, 同时也意味着承认自己对生命 是无能为力且无法控制的。 很让人难受的是, 这还意味着屈服于生命中的未知, 屈服于对”我们死后会发生什么“的未知。 但既然是未知的, 为什么不把死亡想象得 荒唐点、辉煌点、盛大点呢? 将死亡想象成让 自己一生圆满的终点站, 而不是去害怕和畏缩。 我们完全可以这样想。
You want to hear my working theory? It's absurd, OK? And please remember, even though I might kind of look like Miss Cleo, I don't know anything about what happens after we die, alright? This is just an idea, OK. So I'm on my deathbed. On the outside, they are clapping. On the inside -- well, I've hit my death pose, all right? I'm in my death pose. On the inside, I'm starting to feel everything I ever felt in this body, all at the same time. It's all starting to gather up in my body all at the same time. Like that one time I was 11 and I stepped on a frog. I mean, poor frog, and I felt so bad, but I was barefoot, ew, like, I can still feel it squishing up between my toes. Yuck.
各位想听听我的工作原理吗? 虽然也挺荒唐的。 请各位明白,就算我长得 有点像克利奥小姐(电视灵媒), 我也的确不知道人死后会发生什么。 我所说的只不过是我自己的想法。 好了,请跟我来到我的临终之榻上。 看看外面,亲朋好友正在鼓掌欢送我。 再看看我自己—— 我已经摆好经典姿势了,对吧? 好了,看看我自己, 我曾感受过的一切 忽然间全都涌了上来。 这些感觉就在一瞬间涌遍我的全身, 比如,我11岁那年 不小心踩到青蛙的感觉, 唉,可怜的青蛙,我感觉糟透了, 我当时还光着脚, 我依然能感觉到它 在我脚趾间被挤压。 真恶心。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
When you bite into an orange and the juice squirts into your mouth, and then there's the little bite in your jaw, there's a little bite in your jaw because it's sour. Or when you first bite into a fried plantain. Or getting into clean sheets, that feeling gathering in my body, all the feelings, getting into a hot shower, listening to a song that you love for the very first time, I'm hearing Stevie Wonder "As" playing, how I feel my spirit when I see the color yellow. Just all these feelings are starting to roll up in my body. My niece’s laughter, my nephew trying to teach me how to Dougie.
以及下颌微酸的感觉。 还有第一次吃油炸大蕉的感觉, 躺在新床单上的感觉, 洗热水澡的感觉, 第一次听到喜欢的歌的感觉, 没错,就是我听到 史提夫·汪达那首《As》的感觉, 看见鲜艳的黄色 时灵魂雀跃的感觉...... 所有感觉都汇集到了我的身上。 我能感觉到外甥女的笑声,
It did not go well. It didn't go well, I still don't know how to do it. How I can look into my partner's eyes and just by looking into his eyes, I can feel love in my body. All these feelings are starting to gather up in my body.
能感觉到外甥在教我跳道基舞, 这感觉不太好, 我还是没学会怎么跳。 我还能感觉到与爱人四目相对时, 那涌遍全身的爱意。 这些感觉就这样在我体内涌动着。
At the same time, I'm also feeling every little bit of pain I've ever felt physically and emotionally. I'm feeling all the sensations, I'm feeling anger, feeling rage, feeling frustration, feeling grief, feeling sadness, feeling all those things gathering up in my body. I'm feeling despair, desperation, sadness. I'm feeling insecurity. All the crippling doubt, I'm feeling all the failures, all the disappointments. Every single time I thought I couldn't make it through the day, It's all starting to gather up in my body. I'm also remembering every single time I did get up. So I'm also feeling all the hope, all the joy, all the awe, all the mystery, all the freedom that I feel in this body.
与此同时,这些感觉中 还夹杂着曾经历过的一些痛苦, 身体上的痛苦, 还有心理上的痛苦。 气愤、暴怒、沮丧、 悲痛、伤感...... 这一切都聚集在了我的体内。 我感受到了绝望和悲哀, 我丧失了安全感,充满着怀疑, 我感觉到了我曾经历过 的所有失败与失望, 每次我都以为自己撑不下去了, 而这时它们一下子 全都涌上了我的心头。 我也想到了自己曾一次次振作起来, 于是感觉到了所有的希望、 欢愉、敬畏、神秘和自由。
But most of all, I'm also feeling all of the love, all the aching love that underwrites it all. And when I cannot take it anymore, I am saturated with this experience that I've had, poof, I explode into a cosmic orgasm.
而最重要的是,我感觉到了爱, 以上这些全都是因爱而生。 当我再也承受不住的时候, 我已被这一生中的所有经历填满, 然后“噗”的一声 在宇宙中绽放开来。
Audience: Yes!
(听众:哇!)
AA: Yes. And like a pinata that's broken open, pieces of glitter start to fall from the sky. Glitter confetti, falling, falling. Orange, pink, purple, yellow, turquoise, everything. Gold, silver, falling, falling, falling, like a really soft snow shower. Falling everywhere. In larger concentrations on the people who loved me. And in lesser concentration on those people whose lives I touched. And then the rest of it just gets reabsorbed into a big undulating glitter wave that goes on all around as far as I can see, for all of eternity that envelops and encompasses us all. Maybe it's just glitter. Could it be? It could be anything. All I know is at that point, all I believe is at that point, when the glitter, all the pieces of me have been reencompassed, the I that I think of myself as, Alua Adwoba Arthur,
没错,就像爆竹一样, 闪着光的彩色碎屑从天上 洋洋洒洒地落下来, 橘色、粉色、紫色、黄色、 蓝绿色、金色、银色...... 如同一场细雪那般四处飘落, 在爱我的人身边就落得多些, 在被我伤害过的人身边就落得少些, 其他的人也都能感受到, 因为会有一道光波遍布我 的目光所及之处, 将所有人永远笼罩在光芒之下。 也有可能只是闪着微光而已。 一切都有可能发生。 我所知道和相信的一切, 都存在于我死亡前的一刹那, 当光芒出现时,我也被笼罩其中, 我所认为的那个自己, 那个名叫
having this one single solitary human experience, has been reenveloped into all that ever was and all that ever will be, And it is complete. And I am safe.
艾鲁阿·阿德沃巴·亚瑟的自己, 那个体验了一把这样的人生的自己, 被过去和未来的光芒所笼罩, 我的人生终于完整了。 回到现实,我还活着。
I am still far from where I was in Cuba. At that point, my death would have come as a relief. An ending to my pain and to my suffering and a way out of this life that I couldn't quite figure out how to get into. If I'm to die today, I know that my death will come as a celebration. As a culmination of a life lived in and loved. A life that's worth dying from.
我的状态早已和在古巴时不同。 在那时,死亡对我来说 可能是一种解脱, 死亡能结束我的痛苦和不幸, 也能让我彻底摆脱这段我自己 都不知道怎么过的人生。 如果我现在死去, 我知道我的离去是值得庆祝的, 因为我一生圆满,一生被爱, 我死而无憾。
After the last decade spent supporting people as they think through their lives and prepare for their death, I know, I trust that the real gift in being with our mortality is the sheer wonder that we live at all.
在这十年的时间里, 我一直在帮助他 人思考人生,筹备死亡, 这让我明白, 我们过着自己的人生 就已经是很棒的事情, 这是对死亡的思考 带给我们的最大收获。
That's all I got. Thank you.
我想说的就是这些。 谢谢大家。
(Cheers and applause)
(欢呼声和掌声)