2017语文第一单元测试:合作与分享：为什么你必须积极地与别人分享天赋（一个小故事）

合作与分享:为什么你必须积极地与别人分享天赋

Shortly before he passed away, my father came to see me play the part of Schroeder in a community theatre production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. It’s a night (and a lesson) I’ll never forget.

父亲去世前的那一阵子，曾来看过我在社区剧场的一场演出。我在查理·布朗的《你是个好人》中饰演施罗德的角色。那是一个我永远无法忘记的夜晚，是我永远铭记的一节课。

My Father Laughed at Me (and I loved it)

父亲朝我笑（我爱死这个了）

I can still see him sitting there beside my mother in the front row. His skin was pale. His frame was lean. He looked so tired and weak. Just months before, he’d been diagnosed with Leukemia, a thing that seemed intent on doing what it came to do in a quick and merciless manner.

我看见父亲和母亲坐在第一排。他显得如此疲倦与脆弱，皮肤苍白，坐也坐不直。就在几个月之前，他被诊断出有白血病，而那种疾病似乎企图用一种及其迅速和残忍的方式夺走他的生命。

But what I remember most about that night was the sound of his laughter. From the stage and all through the performance, I could hear him chuckling and giggling in a way I hadn’t heard him do in quite some time. It was the laugh I’d always loved, and on that night, it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

但我对那晚最深的印象却是他贯穿全场的笑声。我听见他吃吃地笑，那是我最喜欢的笑声，但我已有很久没有听到过了。而在那个晚上，这父亲的笑声可以说是最最甜美的声音了。

It was, however, a fluke that I was even in the play. I hadn’t pursued the role, or any other role, or much of anything else I cared about since high school. Long ago, I’d put such things away in order to become practical.

其实我出现在舞台上根本就是一个偶然。我没演过这个角色，其他的也没有，从高中起我就不重视这些事了。很久以前，我把这些事情放在一边，以便让自己变得更加实际一点。

Who I Used to Be

曾经的我

Yes, when I was a small boy, I made my first trip to a movie theatre, saw Tom Thumb, and insisted on reenacting it for a string of hapless babysitters.

是，当我还只是个小男孩时，我去电影院看过一次《Tom Thumb》，而后我就坚持着想要将它改编成一些不幸的保姆的故事。

Yes, after receiving a cassette recorder for my eighth Christmas, I used it to produce a series of little radio plays I wrote.

是，自从我在八岁生日时拿到那个录音机起，我就曾用它录制过一系列短小的自创广播剧。

Yes, when I was in the fifth grade, I saw my first live play, went home, and immediately wrote my own, one my classmates and I performed for our Home and School Christmas program.

是，当我五年级时，我看了第一场戏剧，而我一回到家 ，就开始写我自己的剧本，并在家校联合圣诞派对上和同学一起演出。

Yes, I went on to write dozens of sketches, stories, poems, and plays; become a member of my high school drama club; and even win a few awards. 

是，我曾经写了一堆一堆的剧本、故事、诗歌……我还成为了高中戏剧社的一员，甚至赢得了一些奖项。

But that was all just grade school and high school stuff. Life’s a ball and then you grow up. You get a degree. You get a job. You get real.

但那终究只是小学和中学东西。生活就像一个球，而人终究会长大。当你拿到了一个学位，找到了一份工作，你自然会开始务实起来。

Who I Tried to Become

我曾向往的未来

You see, I was going to be the first in my family to attend college and I took that pretty seriously. I wanted to make everyone proud. Especially my father.

你也许知道，我是我们家第一个上大学的人，因此我十分看重这件事。我想让所有人为我骄傲，特别是我的父亲。

I thought I couldn’t afford to waste my time on things I loved. They seemed so silly, trivial, and impractical. Sure, the university offered degrees in things like English and Theatre, but come on. I had to earn a living.

我认为不能在我的喜好上浪费时间。它们看起来是如此的琐碎和不实用。当然，大学里也开设了关于英语和戏剧的科目，但是伙计们，我至少得活下去。

No one I knew made their living writing stories or poems or plays, and the town in which I was raised contained no actors or artists, at least not any that I knew of or that anyone paid attention to.

我不知道任何一个能光靠剧本，小说和诗歌谋生的人，而在我土生土长的小城中，也没住着任何演员或是画家——至少没有一个是我或是人们所注意的。

So I took stock of my more practical skills, like math. I’d heard somewhere (Okay, more like everywhere) that engineers made good money and were in high demand, and I headed in that direction. 

所以我决定提高那些更实用的技能，比如说，数学。我曾在什么地方听说（好吧，似乎“到处”更为妥当）那些设计师们有着很高的薪水。于是我把目标定在了那个方向。

I boxed up all the silly stuff, writing and acting and goofing about, and threw it in an attic somewhere. I shut the door. I moved on.

我把所有那些愚蠢的东西——写作和演戏——塞到箱子里，并把它们扔在阁楼里的某个角落。随后我关上房门，继续我的生活。

Getting Down, Down, Down to Business

工作，工作，再工作

And almost immediately, the sadness set in. The sadness became listlessness. The listlessness became depression. The depression became constant.

而几乎是同时，悲伤奔涌而出。它变成懒惰，变成沮丧，挥之不去。

Unhappy with engineering, I tried computer science, another respectable and profitable career path. Same results. I tried accounting, did really well in my classes, and even received an additional scholarship. More sadness.

在设计上碰了钉子后，我试着从事另外一项可敬而有利可图的工作——信息科技，却得到了一样的结果。我还试过当一个会计，开始我干得很好，甚至拿到了奖学金，可到最后呢？还是无尽的悲伤。

Every day, as I walked across campus, I’d glance sideways at the English building, but I’d already completed the required writing and literature courses, courses I loved but considered a mere distraction. 

每天，当我经过学校的英语学院时，总会侧身看一眼学院的走廊。但我已经把规定的文学作业完成了——把那些我喜欢的却又容易使人分心的作业完成了。

In those courses and and all the others in which I was given writing assignments, I’d hear the same thing. “You’re a very good writer, you know?” my professors would say, and they’d often point to my work as an example for my classmates.

每一次当我交上写作作业时，不管是哪一门课，总会听见教授说：“你知道吗，你是个很好的作家！”他们也经常将我的作业当作范例给同学们讲解。

But I wouldn’t listen. I was out to make my father proud, and to me that had nothing to do with the things I loved. 

但我听不进去。我出来就是为了给爸爸争光，而那些我曾喜欢的事情现在跟我一点关系都没有。

Moving On and Further Downward

继续向前

I eventually settled on a marketing major in order to settle on something, anything, get the hell out of there, and get a job. Maybe then, I thought, I could find a way to prove I had something on the ball.

为了能解决一些问题，任何问题，我最终看上了一个市场营销的活儿，并终于从他妈的学校里出来找了个工作。我想，那时候也许我就可以找到一个方法来证明我还是有两把刷子的。

But the job world wasn’t much different. I worked hard, received a lot of praise and a few awards and promotions, but never felt at home. The depression only grew larger and darker, and just as I’d done in college, I drifted from one thing to another while feeling lost.

但有了工作的世界也没改变多少。我努力工作，受到了许多嘉奖，也拿到了一些奖项，还升了几次职，但我从未有过自由自在的感觉。我像在大学里一样，从一个地方飘泊到另一个地方，悲伤和沮丧日益堆积，我变得迷茫。

The Me My Family Never Knew

那个无人知晓的我

Somehow, in the midst of all that, I met Carol, fell in love, and got married. Together we produced and raised two great kids, Megan and Seth, who continue to blow my mind. 

不知怎么地，我遇上了卡洛。我们坠入爱河，并结了婚。我们有了两个孩子：梅甘和赛斯，两个让人激动的小家伙。

And yet, I still couldn’t shake the sorrow. I knew I was not the person I once was, and it struck me that the people in my home, the ones I loved the most, had no idea that such a person had ever even existed. 

那时，我还是无法驱赶悲伤。我知道我不是曾经的那个我，但有一件事对我的打击很大：我的家人，那些我最亲爱的人们，甚至都不知道真正的那个我曾经存在过。

In fact, when a friend of mine paid a visit and showed some old video tapes of me acting and performing in skits and plays and amateur movies my friends and I had made, Carol looked at me as if she had no idea who she married. “I’ve never seen that side of you,” she said, “I love it.”

事实上，当我的一个朋友拜访我并和我一起重温我之前演的那些短剧、话剧和我们编剧的业余电影时，卡洛看着我，仿佛她不认识自己的丈夫。“我从不知道你还干过这些事儿，”她说，“棒极了。”

But I was still busy struggling and straining to be practical and failing miserably at it. The only practical thing I was succeeding at was feeling practically dead inside.

但我还在挣扎着努力着想要变得实际一点，虽然每次都惨败而归。而我唯一变得实际的地方就是成功地认识到我的心已经实际地坏死了。

Saying Yes for a Change

迎接改变

Then came my father’s Leukemia. My attempts to make him proud, in the way I thought I should, weren’t really panning out, and the time to do so was slipping away. Life had not gone as planned. 

很快父亲就病魔缠身了。我那些让他为之自豪的愿望，以我认为对的方式，事实上都没有成功。但时间却在悄悄溜走；生活偏离了轨道。

I think that’s why I agreed to do the play. It reminded me of better days, days when my friends and I had fun, and it had been a long, long time since I’d allowed myself to do anything that sounded like fun.

我觉得这就是为什么我会同意演这部戏。它让我记起了那些更悠闲的日子，那些我和我的朋友们曾经快乐的日子；毕竟我放纵自己去尝试任何听起来好玩的新鲜事物的日子，已经过去很久了。

My friend Jennifer had called to see if I’d be interested. The theatre group was shy one actor.

我的朋友杰妮芙打电话来问我有没有兴趣。剧组需要一个演员。

“Umm, a musical?” I asked.

“嗯，是音乐剧吗？”我问。

“Uh-huh.” she said.

“是哦！”她说。

There were reasons to say no. I was in my thirties and it had been fifteen years or more since I’d done any acting. I’d never been in a musical. Whatever singing voice I might have once had (I actually sang in a few weddings when I was younger) had been ground down by the cigarettes I smoked to escape my restlessness. 

我有理由拒绝。我已经三十多了，而且已经有至少十五年没有演过一场戏。我更没有演过任何音乐剧。不管我曾经有怎样的歌喉（年轻时我曾经在几次婚礼上唱过歌），都肯定已经被那些用来驱散疲劳的尼古丁破坏得一干二净了。

And it was community theatre, something many people regarded as the K-mart of the performing arts and the last bastion of ridiculous, wannabe actors. We would be a bunch of goofy people having a goofy time doing a goofy thing.

何况那是个社区剧场，是某个被大家视为表演艺术之廉价市场和滑稽演员的最后堡垒的地方。我们肯定会被看作是一群在台上做绝对傻事的傻瓜。

“Okay.” I said.

“好吧。”我说。

It was a blast. The people involved in the production were smart, warm, supportive, and fun. The practices were an escape from my troubles and depression. I felt alive. I felt happy. I felt a lot like the person I used to be.

那个话剧拿到了开门红。参与的人都很聪明、体贴、有趣而且积极。那些排练则是我逃脱沮丧和麻烦的有效途径。我觉得我重生了。我觉得我回到了那个曾经的我。

We did three performances. Friends came, Carol and the kids came, and on a Saturday night, my parents came. They all laughed, but no one laughed as hard as my father did. 

我们连演了三场。朋友们来了，卡洛和孩子们来了，而在一个星期六的晚上，我父母也来了。大家都笑的很欢，但没有一个笑得像爸爸那么欢。

My Father’s Delight

父亲的喜好

Oh, how he laughed, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Back stage, the others grinned and remarked how much he seemed to be enjoying himself.

啊，他笑得多欢啊！而且也不是只有我一个人注意到了这点。后台那儿，其他人也笑着讨论他看起来多开心。

Afterward, when it came time to go out and greet the audience, a few of the other cast members and I made our way to the front row. My dad was there, smiling like a big kid, working to rise from his seat. When he stood, he embraced me. 

剧终后，谢幕的时候到了。当我和其他几个演员站到前台时，我看见我爸坐在那边，笑得像个老顽童，正努力着站起来。他站起来后，拥抱了我。

He shook his head, looked at us through watery eyes, and said, “I just want you to know you sure made an old man happy tonight. I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time, and I really needed something to laugh about.”

他点了点头，热泪盈眶。他说：“我只是想让你们知道你们今天晚上真的让一个老人开心至极。我很久没有笑得这么厉害了，而我发现我真的需要一些能让我好好笑一笑的东西。”

My new friends and I had made an old man, my old man, happy, and we’d done it by doing something that made us happy. 

我和我的新朋友们让一个老人——我的老人——开心，同时我们也从中得到了快乐。

What a Little Joy Can Do

小欢乐的功力

I wondered how much happier I could have made him through the years if I had simply followed my heart and pursued the things I loved. I wondered how much joy I could bring to everyone I love, if I just did things that brought me joy too.

我开始想象如果那些年我追求自己所爱的事，能带给他多少倍于现在的欢乐；我想象着如果我做了那些我喜欢的事，该带给我爱的人们多少快乐。

I don’t know if I always made my father proud, or if that even mattered. What I do know for certain, however, is that one night, a night when he and I both needed it most, I made him laugh, and that makes me proud. 

我不知道父亲是否一直为我骄傲，甚至不知道这是否重要。我只知道一件事：那就是今晚，是我们俩都最需要的一个晚上，我让他笑了出来，而那使我骄傲。

That’s why you absolutely, positively have to share your gifts. And I’m not talking about the the respectable, admirable, or sensible ones. I’m talking about the ones that make you giddy, the ones that make you feel like you might be floating. 

这就是为什么你必须积极地与别人分享天赋。我并不是在说那些可敬的、明智的、令人钦佩的天赋，我是指那些会让你头晕、会让你轻飘飘的天赋。

Yes, you too have something to give, something you love, something you enjoy, something that lights you up inside. Those are the gifts you have to share because you have a need to share them, and because there’s someone out there who has a need to receive them.

是的，你肯定也有可以付出的东西；那些你爱的东西、那些令你享受的东西、那些点燃了你的内心的东西。它们就是你应该分享的东西，因为你需要分享它们，而你身边的某个人也需要它们。

Don’t be a miser and hoard your gifts. Share them. The world is waiting.

别做个窝藏天赋的财迷；大胆地分享出来，整个世界都在等你。