思考与写作newyorker.com
如果能重来一次？
What If You Could Do It All Over?
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导读
《纽约客》的一篇随笔，讨论人为何总忍不住设想「如果当初选了另一条路会怎样」——那些未曾走过的人生岔路、反事实想象与遗憾心理。文章借用文学与心理学视角，审视这种「平行人生」式的回望究竟是自我折磨还是有用的思考工具。
为什么经久不衰：几乎每个人都曾在深夜复盘人生选择，而这篇把这种普遍焦虑写得既克制又有文学厚度，配上《钟形罩》的无花果比喻，多年后仍能引发共鸣。
HN 评论精选
用普拉斯的无花果比喻精准概括了“选择即失去”的困境。
这让我想起西尔维娅·普拉斯的《钟形罩》，阿兹·安萨里在剧集《无为大师》里引用过那段话：“我看见我的生活在我面前像故事里那棵绿色的无花果树一样枝杈伸展。每一根枝头都像一颗饱满的紫无花果，一个美好的未来在向我招手眨眼。一颗是无花果是丈夫和幸福的家与孩子，另一颗是著名诗人，再一颗是杰出的教授，还有一颗是Ee Gee，了不起的编辑，又一颗是欧洲、非洲和南美，还有一颗是康斯坦丁和苏格拉底、阿提拉，以及一帮名字古怪、行当冷门的恋人，另一颗是奥运会女子赛艇冠军，而在这些无花果之上和之外还有更多我看不清的果子。我看见自己坐在这棵树的枝杈间，饿得要死，只因为我拿不定主意该摘哪一颗。我每一颗都想要，但选择一颗就意味着失去其余所有；而当我坐在那里无法决定时，那些无花果开始起皱、发黑，一颗接一颗噗噗地落到我脚下。”
acwan93查看英文原文
This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
亲历坎坷的作者说不会用这些经历换取更顺遂的人生，回望不如向前。
我的人生大半没有按预期展开。我和高中时很多人一样有过梦想，没有一个实现。2008/09年股市崩盘后我没读完大学就去参了军。早年经历给我留下的印记，我直到成年才真正认识。家人病了，我毁掉了自己苦心经营的感情，有时出于自我防卫还疏远了亲近的人。我一次次把自己逼到极限。我的二十多岁充满压力、挫败、困惑，有时还有愤怒。这些教会了我接纳和原谅，对别人也对自己。回头看，我不会拿它们去换一个更轻松或更体面的人生。从阿富汗回来后，我几乎没有学历，只能硬闯、硬爬，很大程度上靠的是那些在我身上看到了我自己都不敢奢望的东西的人。我环顾四周，看到常春藤和名校毕业生住着几百万美元的房子、开着特斯拉、后院里有自己货真价实的无花果树，却对生活里的一切抱怨不休。我后来有机会在多种文化和不同程度的富裕中生活，这些教会我认清自己的价值，也看清自己到底在要什么。现在我正考虑卖掉所有家当，买辆卡车和房车，去拥抱远程办公带来的新公路。人生不是用来回望的……
kodah查看英文原文
Much of my life hasn't played out how I expected. I had dreams like many people in high school and none of them came true. Instead of finishing college I joined the military after the stock market collapse in 2008/9. Impressions were left on me throughout my early life that I only came to know as an adult. My family got sick, I ruined the relationship that I'd worked for, and at times I alienated people close to me out of my own sense of self-defense. I pushed myself to the brink repeatedly. My twenties were filled with stress, frustration, confusion, and at times anger. These things taught me acceptance and forgiveness of both myself and others. Looking back, I would not trade them for an easier or more prestigious life. When I came back from Afghanistan I had to scratch, claw, and climb a ladder without a degree thanks in much part to people who saw in me what I could only hoped to have seen in myself. I looked around me when I arrived and I saw Ivy League and top school graduates with multi-million dollar homes, Teslas, and their own literal fig trees in their back yards that complained about everything in life. I've now had the opportunity to live in multiple cultures with varying degrees of prosperity. These things taught me to know my value but to have perspective on what I'm really asking for. Here I am considering selling all my belongings, buying a truck and an RV to go embrace the new open road that is remote work. Life isn't about looking back. It isn't even about getting what you want. It's about navigating the road in front of you and making the best of the opportunities in front of you and for everyone around you. All that to say, I've embraced the idea that whatever lies ahead is where I'm supposed to be and I needn't look at what my neighbors value or what they have because I don't care. This life is mine to live.
真正可怕的不是过去改不了，而是系统性的行为模式让未来也改不了。
这是个迷人的话题。看起来很多人在评论里谈另类现实，并说探究它们是愚蠢的游戏（顺便说，我同意）。让我不安的是那些乐观的评论，说什么活在当下、为未来的改变播下种子。眼下的问题（以及用“要是当初”把它们许愿赶走的冲动）似乎并非完全随机发生，它们是系统性行为和决策的结果。比如，对自己说“我明天开始锻炼”太容易了。可第二天醒来你发现日程太满，直到晚上九点才有空，而那时你已经精疲力尽，练不动了。然后你重复这个循环，说“也许明天吧”。你开始拆解自己的一天，发现要挤出锻炼时间不只是加一件事，还得踢掉一件事。而你一天中有精力去做的所有事，其实都被你默认为比锻炼更重要。结果你困在这个循环里，想做点更好的事，却被其他优先级限制住。说实话，这更让我不安。过去不可更改是正常的；真正让我害怕的是，你固守成规到连未来都改不了。
victorronin查看英文原文
This is a fascinating subject. It looks like many people are commenting about alternative realities and that exploring them is a fool's game (BTW. I concur with that). The thing which bothers me is upbeat comments about living here and now and planting the seeds for future changes. It feels like current problems (and desire to wish them away via woulda/counda/shoulda) didn't happen entirely randomly. These problems are a result of systematic behavior/decision making. As an example, it's too easy to say to yourself, "I will start doing sport tomorrow". However, you wake up tomorrow and notice that your day is so busy that you don't have time to do sport until 9pm and by that time you are exhausted and can't do sport. And you repeat the cycle saying, "maybe tomorrow". You start teasing your day apart and find that to squeeze in sport won't require you just to add it, but also to kick something out. And that all the things you have the energy for in the day, you implicitly regarded as more important than sport. And as a result, you are stuck in the loop wishing to do something better but being limited by your other priorities. And frankly, this bothers me way more. The immutability of the past is normal. Being so set in your ways that you can't change the future - this is what scares the shit out of me.
一位年长工程师的世界观：结果不可预知、自我边界模糊，因而看淡生死却也孤独。
我61岁，男性，七十年代中期开始做软件。我第一台能摸到的计算机是PDP-8/M，配ASR-33电传打字机，带纸带读入和打孔。五十多岁时我开始听阿兰·瓦茨，了解古印度宗教与哲学。如今我的世界观大致介于禅宗与不二吠檀多之间，同时也是个自由意志怀疑论者。虽然我没因此瘫痪，但我逐渐认为我们无法知道自己做的任何决定会怎样收场，无法确定做X从长远看对自己是好是坏。我们只有自己对概率的估计，而老实说，我连我们估得准不准都不确定。我也不知道“我”是谁、我从哪里开始又到哪里结束。在婴幼儿和童年时期，我想我们逐渐接受了这样的信念：“我们”是各自居于一具身体里的个体。但我理解宇宙是一个整体（量子场？模拟？），所以“我们是独立个体”这个想法在我看来有点不对劲。我认为我们之间的联结与相互依存远比通常承认的更深。这种世界观的一个好处是我不太担心死亡；不那么愉快的一面是，我的想法太过另类，很少能遇到可以认真聊这些的人。
jes查看英文原文
I'm 61, male, and started in software back in the mid 70s. First computer that I could physically touch was a PDP-8/M with an ASR-33 teletype with paper tape reader and punch. In my mid-50s, I started listening to Alan Watts and learning about ancient Indian religions / philosophies. My world-view today is some kind of cross between Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. I'm a free will skeptic, as well. While I'm not paralyzed by it, I've come to think that we can't know how any decision we make is going to turn out. We can't know with certainty if doing X is going to be good or bad for us in the long run. All we have are our own estimates of probabilities, and I'm not sure how well we can estimate them, either, honestly. I also don't know who "I" am, or where I begin or end. In infancy and childhood, I think we come to accept a belief that "we" are individuals, each residing in our physical bodies. Yet I understand the Universe to be a single thing (a quantum field? a simulation?) and so the idea of us being individuals seems a bit off to me. I think we are far more connected and interdependent than we usually recognize. One good outcome of my world view is that I don't really worry about passing away. A less pleasant outcome is that my world view is so out of the ordinary that I don't often connect with people that I can talk about this with in any serious way.
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