Two Truths to Live by
Hold fast, and let go: Understand this paradox, and you stand at the very gate of wisdom
Alexander M. Schindler
Commencement speech at the University of South Carolina in 1987
The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way: “A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.
Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God's own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.
We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.
A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care for several days. It was not a pleasant place.
One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney.
As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That's all there was to my experience. Just the light of the sun. And yet how beautiful it was--how warming, how sparkling, how brilliant!
I looked to see whether anyone else relished the sun's golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond to the splendor of it all.
The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life's gifts are precious--but we are too heedless of them.
Here then is the first pole of life's paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
Hold fast to life...but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.
This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will, be ours.
But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us.
At every stage of life we sustain losses--and grow in the process .We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter.
We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our own strength.
And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves, as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.
But why should we be reconciled to life's contradictory demands? Why fashion things of beauty when beauty is evanescent? Why give our heart in love when those we love will ultimately be torn from our grasp?
In order to resolve this paradox, we must seek a wider perspective, viewing our lives as through windows that open on eternity. Once we do that, we realize that though our lives are finite, our deeds on earth weave a timeless pattern.
Life is never just being. It is a becoming, a relentless flowing on. Our parents live on through us, and we will live on through our children. The institutions we build endure, and we will endure through them. The beauty we fashion cannot be dimmed by death.
Our flesh may perish, our hands will wither, but that which they create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come. Don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. Pursue not so much the material as the ideal, for ideals alone invest life with meaning and are of enduring worth.
Add love to a house and you have a home. Add righteousness to a city and you have a community.
Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have a school. Add religion to the humblest of edifices and you have a sanctuary. Add justice to the far-flung round of human endeavor and you have civilization.
Put them all together, exalt them above their present imperfections, add to them the vision of humankind redeemed, forever free of need and strife and you have a future lighted with the radiant colors of hope.
参考译文
人生的两条真理
抓紧与放松：理解了这一悖论，你便立于智慧之门
亚历山大·辛德勒
1987年在南卡罗来那大学毕业典礼上的演讲
生活的艺术就是要懂得适时地收与放，因为生活本身即是一种悖论：一方面，它让我们依恋于它所赋予的各种馈赠；另一方面，又注定了我们对这些礼物最终的弃绝。正如老一辈犹太学者所说，人出生时双拳紧握而来，而离开这个世界时却是松手而去。
毫无疑问，我们应该牢牢抓住生命，因为它是如此神奇，充满着美丽，这种美丽从神灵的每一寸土地中喷涌而出。我们明白了这个道理，然而我们常常只是在蓦然回首忆及往事时才突然觉醒，可是一旦觉醒，那样的美景已不复存在了。
我们铭记的是凋谢的美，逝去的爱。可尤为痛苦的回忆是，当美丽绽放之时，我们不曾注意；当爱情到来之际，我们不曾予以回应。
最近一次经历又使我领悟到这个真理。一次严重的心脏病发后，我被送进医院，在特护区住了几天。那儿可不是什么令人愉快的地方。
一天上午，我得接受几项附助检查。因为检查所用的器械在医院尽头对面的一栋大楼里，所以我必须躺在轮床上被人推着穿过院子。
就在我们从病房出来的那一刻，迎面的阳光一下子洒在我身上。这就是我当时所感受到的一切。只不过就是阳光，然而它又是如此美丽，如此温暖，如此璀璨，如此辉煌！
我环顾四周，想看一看是否也有人在欣赏这金灿灿的阳光。可是人人都来去匆匆，大多数人的目光只盯在地上。继而我回想到我也常常如此，对于每天的辉煌熟视无睹，只是一味沉湎于琐碎甚至是微不足道的事情之中，而对身边的胜景无动于衷。
这次经历所获得的感悟的确和经历本身一样平凡，这就是：生活的馈赠是珍贵的，只是我们对此留心甚少。
这就是人生向我们提出的矛盾要求的第一个方面：不要太过忙碌而错过了人生的美好和庄严。虔诚地恭候每一个黎明的到来。把握每一个小时，抓住宝贵的每一分钟。
紧紧地把握人生，但又不能抓得过死，松不开手。这正是人生这枚硬币的另外一面，也正是那悖论的另一面：我们必须接受失去，学会如何放手。
这一课并不容易学好。特别是当我们年轻的时候，总认为世界是由我们掌控的。只要我们满腔热情、全力以赴地去追求，不管什么东西都可能得到——不，是一定会得到。
但是，随着生活继续前进，我们不断面临各种现实，开始慢慢地并真切地明白第二条真理。
在生命的每个阶段上，我们都在承受失去——却也在这个过程中得以成长。我们只有在脱离娘胎、失去其庇护时，才能开始独立生活。
我们向上求学，继而告别父母，告别童年的家。我们结婚生育，继而又送走子女。我们经受父母、配偶的离世，也面临自身体力或快或慢的衰退。
最终，正如松手与握拳的比喻所言：我们自己也得走向不可抗拒的死亡，失去自身，可以说是失去了自己拥有的或梦想过的一切。
但是，为什么我们甘愿顺从于这些生活的矛盾要求呢？既然美转瞬即逝，为什么我们还要去创造美的东西呢？既然所爱终将离去，为什么我们还要倾心相爱呢？
解决这个矛盾必须寻找一个较为广阔的视角，透过通向永恒的窗口来审视我们的生命。这样一来，我们就会发觉，虽然生命有限，但其间所做的一切可以无限延展。
生命从来不曾停滞不前。它瞬息万变，奔腾不息。父母的生命在我们身上延续，而我们的生命又将在我们的子女身上延续。我们建立的制度保存了下来，而我们的生命也因此长存。我们创造的美丽不会因为我们死去而暗淡无光。
我们的肉体会消亡，我们的双手也会枯萎，但它们所创造的真善美将永存后世。不要耗费你的精力去积累那些终将化为尘烬的东西。追求物质不如追求理想，因为只有理想才能赋予生命以意义，才有永恒的价值。
一所房屋有了爱心，就成了一个家；一个城市有了正气，就成了一个社区。一堆红砖加上了真理，就成了一所学校；最简陋的建筑，有了宗教，就成了一座圣殿；人类不懈的努力有了正义，就产生了文明。
如果你能将这一切集合起来，加以提高，使之超越现存的不完美，并赋予其人类得以救赎的憧憬，永远无争无求，那么你的未来将绚烂多彩、充满希望。
