雙語：越聰明，越孤獨

這聽起來像是一種極度刻薄的非民主思想，充分利用了孤獨在浪漫主義文化中擁有的獨特魅力——以獲得一種間接優(yōu)越感，或許還可以把缺乏社交技能看做一種美德。

It is important, therefore, to be clear what is meant here by intelligence.

因此必須搞明白什么是“聰明”?

It has nothing to do with degrees or any of the criteria by which we ordinarily measure cleverness.

聰明與日常衡量它的任何標準(如學位)無關。

What is meant is emotional intelligence, which exists or not in every strata and nook of society.

這里所說的是指情商，它在社會上到處都是而又覓而不得。

Emotional intelligence means a capacity for self-honesty and self-observation; it means, a knack for opening oneself up to the stranger, more exciting, less easily admissible aspects of oneself and at the same time for noticing the many beautiful, peculiar and profound experiences and sensations passing through consciousness.

情商意味著一種自我坦誠和自我觀察的能力;它意味著能夠向陌生人展示自我，更加坦然面對更興奮和無法容忍的自己，同時還意味著能夠留意許多存在于意識中的美麗、奇特和深遠的經(jīng)歷和感觸。

We’re not really used to doing this.

我們往往不是這樣做。

We cleave tightly to reassuring notions of what normal people are like, which means we exclude a lot – often the richest bit – of what we truly feel, want and think.

我們恪守常理，如什么樣的人才是常人，這也就意味著我們排除了——通常是我們內(nèi)心最豐富的那部分——我們真實感受，以及所思所想。

We edit out our more generous, wilder, more impatient, more terrifying sides; leaving only the socially admissible husk that we artfully pretend is who we are.

我們?nèi)サ糇陨砀犊?、更狂野、更不耐煩、更可怕的一?留下的只是我們巧妙偽裝的能夠得到社會認可的軀殼。

And simultaneously, we ensure that we are never far from something that can take us powerfully away from ourselves, and so miss out on the troubling wonders that streak across the mental horizon at every instant.

與此同時，我們還要確保從不會遠離那些隔離真實自我與虛偽自我的強大力量，因此，我們往往會錯過了時不時在腦海中閃現(xiàn)的煩人的奇妙想法。

Most of what is in our minds remains unfelt and unseen, troubling us only in the small hours.

在我們腦海中，大部分東西仍是不可視和不可感的，往往只在凌晨夜不能寐時帶來困擾。

Insomnia is the revenge for all that we tried so hard not to notice in the daylight.

晚上失眠是對我們白天所規(guī)避的萬事萬物的報復。

In this context, emotional intelligence emerges as a species of courage, directed at vanquishing not an external enemy but a fear of being weird or of going mad.

在這種情況下，派情商上場是一種勇氣，此舉不為征服敵人，而為征服那些使人成為異類或瘋子的恐懼。

A certain sort of intelligent person is, above all else, a superior and more committed reporter of their inner states.

與上述不同，真正聰明的人，應該善于并堅定地表達自己的內(nèi)心。

Or, as Emerson once put it, ’In the minds of geniuses, we find – once more – our own neglected thoughts.’

或者，正如愛默生曾說的那樣，“在天才的腦海里，我們能重拾自己曾遺失的思想。”

It is almost certain that people who have devoted themselves to self-honesty and self-observation have an above average chance of meeting with incomprehension, irritation, censorship or boredom when they attempt to share the data from their own minds frankly in company.

幾乎可以肯定的一點是，那些致力于自我坦誠與自我觀察的人，當試圖在周遭環(huán)境中坦率分享自身想法時，他們更容易遭遇他人的不理解、惱怒、審視或厭倦。

Their thoughts (it might be on politics or architecture, family life or sexuality) will sound more threatening, more intense, oblique or tender than is allowed.

他們的想法(可能關乎政治或建筑、家庭生活或性)，聽起來一般比普通人的更具威脅性、更強烈、更偏激或更溫柔。

That feels lonely, if one is in the mood to frame things like this.

如果一個人在心里這樣思考事物，那注定會感到孤獨。

There are simply fewer people at large committed to self-honesty and self-observation – and therefore up for exchanging notes on what it’s truly like to be alive.

一般而言，鮮有人能致力于自我坦誠和自我觀察，因此樂意交流生活中的真實感受的人自然也就少之又少。

Yet there is one resource that is exceptionally well suited to addressing the feelings of disconnection liable to be felt by the emotionally intelligent: art.

然而，有一種資源非常適合解決感情上的脫節(jié)感，這是情商所能感受到的：藝術。

Works of art are humanity’s secret diary: records of all that could not be said in regular social contexts, but which have found a home in the more intimate, honest communication that can take place between an art-work and its audience.

藝術品是人類的秘密日記：所有不能表現(xiàn)于常規(guī)社會背景的內(nèi)容的記載，卻在作品和欣賞者更加親密而坦誠的對話中找到歸屬。

The libraries, cinemas and galleries of the world are repositories for all the sensations that didn’t easily make it into standard interactions and that contain what we need to state, and crave to hear as audiences, in our lonely states.

全世界的圖書館、電影院和畫廊是一切感情的百寶庫，這些情感不易融入日常交談中，但卻富含作為觀眾的我們在孤獨時所需闡述和傾聽的事物。

Therefore, while emotionally intelligent people may have an uncommonly hard time not being lonely with a person, they have an unusually easy time finding company with people who are not in the room, the fancy term for what we call art.

因此，也許情感智能高的人與他人(直接)相處時很難感覺不孤獨，但卻能與那些不同處一室的人(藝術家)相交甚歡，我們將此稱之為藝術。

We have perhaps over-privileged certain standard notions of friendship.

人們對友誼也許有超高水準的要求

We may just have to accept that our best friends could have died 250 years ago – and be chatting to us via dabs of paint or within rhyming pentameters.

我們只能接受這么個事實: 我們的蜜友可能在250年前就已離開人世——我們將通過畫作或押韻的五音步格詩互訴衷腸。

That said, the goal shouldn’t be a society where art is ever more prevalent and more available when loneliness strikes.

即是說，因為這孤獨的潮流而使藝術變得更常見也更可觸的社會，不該是我們的目標。

It is perhaps a society where art is ever less necessary – because we have grown better at knowing how to share more of who we are in the ordinary moments of our lives; where we have found a more direct and reliable path out from our loneliness.

也許，在這個社會里，藝術變得越來越不必要了——因為我們已經(jīng)變得更懂得如何在生活中的平凡時刻更好地表現(xiàn)自我;在這個社會里，我們找到了一條更直接、可靠的脫孤之路。