這裡是英文版的錄音，請戳此收聽
我們靠什麼活著呢？你也許會說，依靠水、食物和空氣。不錯，沒有水就會渴死，沒有食物會餓死，沒有空氣就會窒息而死。但是我們人類並不像動物那樣只為活著而活著。從原始如野獸般的生活一路走來進入高度文明的社會，生存權對於人類而言是最基本的保證，並不需特別說明。那麼有人就會說，人們活著依靠的是財富。財富當然是必須的，在這個日益商業化的世界裡顯得尤為重要，可是每個人只要付出勞動，多多少少總能佔有一定的財富保證個人的基本生活。因此這個答案也是不對的。幸福呢？看上去是一個正確的答案，不過並未切中要害，因為我們仍能看到很多人忍受著難言的痛楚生活著卻沒有去自殺，比如說那些從集中營裡出來的倖存者。因此，幸福並不是支持生命的最根本的基礎，而是很多人所追求的人生目標。
自殺是一個有意思的現象，動物界裡不會有動物想不開而去自殺，而人類世界裡則時有發生，從中我們也可以看出人類與動物的一個區別——人有自由意志。生存的意志為大部分人所接受，並常常為之褒揚稱頌；但是死亡的意志則讓人感到困惑——為什麼很多人看待如至寶的生命，有些人卻視之如草芥，棄之如敝履？簡單說來，這些人死亡的意志大於生存的意志，因此要求一死。那麼自殺者身上所沒有的東西正好可以在求生者身上找到，而這樣東西就是前文所提問題的答案，即人依靠自己所創造的意義而活著。
我們因意義的存在而活著，意義一死人也要隨之而去。曾經聽說，有些退休的老人，退休前高官顯爵，享受著崇高的社會威望，退休後生活變化巨大，若不能找到新的生活的意義而出現意義真空，即便生活得安寧富足，也容易消沉萎靡，不久就要棄世而去。因此，現在儘管很多人都退休了，但仍然奮戰在各個工作崗位上，讓充實的生活來填充可能出現的意義真空，進而再度爆發出更強的生命力。在肯亞工作時認識了一位老工程師，儘管年逾古稀，仍然在工地上跑前跑後。他對手下的實驗室人員進行嚴格管理，經常性地下工地去檢查，動不動就通知承包商去修補工程缺陷，他的精力可比年輕人旺盛得多。有時候問他，這麼老了，為什麼不回家休息，安度晚年呢？他說，待在家裡啥事不幹，說不定哪天就要死了。我的姑姑快六十歲了，現在給一家房地產公司煮飯。她的大兒子（即我表哥）是當地知名的大廚，手頭有不錯的生意，從不吝惜給父母花錢。我問她，家裡又不是缺錢，何苦給人去打工？她反問了一句：我要是不幹活，往後的日子該怎麼過？我聽後就不說話了，點了點頭。她是典型的中國婦女，目前似乎把所有應該做的事都做遍了：結婚，生子，帶孩子，送孩子讀書，幫孩子找工作，看著孩子們結婚，幫著照看孫子孫女，看著孩子們各自開枝散葉，日子過得紅紅火火的。這些所有預設的目標達成後，目標背後的意義也就消解了，但是生活還要繼續，還是需要做一些事情創造一些新的意義，驅逐生活裡的真空。所以，這樣的年紀還去工作並不是為了錢，而是為了尋找生活中新的意義。
因此可以說世界上最殘酷的懲罰是剝奪一個人生活的意義。在希臘神話中，柯林斯王西西弗斯因狂妄自大和欺騙成性而受到了天神極為嚴厲的懲罰，即讓他推著大石頭上山坡，石頭一到山上就滾下來了，他又得重新再推，如此周而復始，永無止境。可以想像，這樣徒勞無功的勞作會一絲一絲地耗盡他哪怕最為強大的生存意志，最後陷入難以忍受的痛苦深淵當中。有人以此在囚徒當中做了一個實驗，讓囚徒們挖一個坑，挖好了就重新埋上，周而復始地進行。不久後囚徒們都瘋了，紛紛要求去做哪怕最髒最累的活，只要能看到一點意義，他們就能有活下去的動力。可見，即便是強制與社會隔離開的囚徒，也需要意義才能活下去，哪怕這個意義是去在工地做苦工，看著道路一點點修好，房子一天天蓋起來，只要能讓人有盼頭的就能產生活下去的意義。因此，監獄管理並不是簡單將他們關起來就了事了，還需要給他們安排勞動改造以及其他一些活動，幫助他們尋找支撐自己活下去的東西。
既然意義對人們來說如此重要，那麼愛與尊重上也應加入這一新的又更根本性的內涵。正是出於對家人與朋友的愛與尊重，我們應該尤為關注他們所珍視的意義，不論這個意義在你眼中是高尚或卑微，一律採取不評判的態度。幫助他們實現意義的價值是我們能為他們做的最好的事。不過，倘若我們總是以自我為中心，忽略甚至踐踏他們所珍視的意義，恐怕會造成悲劇。曾有一友人向我抱怨，說他的母親總是給他準備吃的，而他現在最煩吃這吃那，便對母親生硬地說，你除了給我準備吃的就不會幹別的嗎？他的母親極為傷心，母子倆還吵了一頓，鬧得很不愉快。我對友人說，你的母親農村出身，最大的期待便是望子成龍望女成鳳，她做不了其他的事情，便只能一心一意準備好吃的招待子女，而這辛苦準備的食物裡就是她老人家人生意義之所在。人是靠著意義而活著的，你這樣粗魯的拒絕不就是把老人家的生活的全部意義踐踏在地上，是不想讓老母親活了嗎？友人聽了誠惶誠恐，趕緊回去向母親道歉，此後母親準備什麼都會吃得津津有味，還要誇讚母親的好手藝。上述例子中悲劇得以避免，但是現實生活中，對他人的冷漠以至於踐踏別人賴以存活的意義卻充斥著這個充滿戾氣的社會。比如網上的人肉搜索，侵犯他人隱私，將人逼入絕境；再如無處不在的網絡語言暴力，摧折了很多年輕的生命。
讓我們回顧一下千年的古訓：「己所不欲，勿施於人。」須知，有時你之所不欲而施之於他人，那種心理產生的可怕快感，恰似一把匕首，取其性命而不自知。
英譯文：
What Do We Live By
What do we live by? You may answer, by water, by food, and by air. It is true that without all these we may die of thirst, starvation and suffocation. But we human beings are not beasts, only for humble existence. We have evolved from a life similar to those poor creatures to a highly-civilized one, in which the right to live for the most is well guaranteed. Then people may maintain that riches are what we live by. Riches are necessary, with which goods and services can be obtained, especially in this increasingly commercialized society, but nearly every one of us more or less has a share so long as we are working. Hence riches are not fundamentally what we live by. How about happiness? It seems a right answer, but not to the key point, because we still see some people endure unbearable hardships for long without resort to suicide, such as those survivors from the concentration camps. Therefore, happiness, for many people, is a life-time goal to pursue, not necessarily the underlying support for a life to continue.
Speaking of suicide, a phenomenon occurring among human beings from time to time, but never seen in the animal world, we may perceive another point that differentiates human beings from animals—free will. The will to survive is universally accepted and applauded, but the will to kill oneself may puzzle us—everyone struggles to live, why someone should dispatch a life so much cherished by the majority? We may simply, say for those who commit suicide the will to die is stronger than their will to live. What is lacking in those who kill themselves and what can be found in those who cherish their lives so dearly is the key to the question—what do we live by. And my answer is that we live by the meaning we create.
We live by meaning, without which we would die. I was told some retired people, especially those who had once enjoyed high social prestige with important positions in their former career, withered and died soon after retirement as they could not find the meaning they had been so familiar with, although they led a peaceful and affluent life of retire. That is why many retired people, though officially retired, still occupy themselves in the work to fill their emptiness with meaning which may produce vitality to sustain their lives. I met a senior engineer in Kenya, who, well over seventy, was still working in the field. He managed the lab staff strictly, visited the sites frequently, and constantly communicated with contractors for any defects to be remedied, almost more energetic than his much younger colleagues. When asked why not rest at home considering he was so senior, he said if he had stayed at home doing nothing, he would have perished at any moment. My aunt, nearly sixty, is at present working as a cook for a real estate company. Her son is a well-known chef with a lucrative business, and normally provides liberally to his parents. Once I asked her why she was still working since she was in such a well-to-do family. She asked back: if I didn’t work, how should I kill the time? I was silent and nodded. As a traditional Chinese woman, she has almost accomplished everything she is supposed to do: to get married, to give birth to babies, to bring up the kids, to send them to school for education, to assist them to pursue their careers, to arrange for them their wedding ceremonies, to take care of the grandsons and granddaughters, and to see her children prosper in their own families. All the meaning in her life has disappeared as soon as these pre-set goals have been achieved, but life shall continue as usual, and something should be done to create new meaning of life to fill the vacuum. So to work at such an age is not for money, but to infuse new meaning into life.
Therefore, it is reasonable to say the most severe punishment to a person is to take away his meaning to live by. In the Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the king for Ephyra, was most heavily punished by the gods, due to his self-aggrandizement and deceitfulness, to push an immense boulder up a hill, which would roll back to where it began once he managed it to the hill-top. This process was an eternity as long as he was alive. You can imagine how desperate he would become, and not for long, the futility arising from the endless toils would take away every bit of his will to live. The Sisyphus fix was applied to some prisoners, who were ordered to dig a hole and then backfill it. The prisoners were soon driven crazy because of these the meaninglessness of the work, and all requested a much heavier job with at least some meaning in it. Even a prisoner, forcibly segregated from the whole society, needs some meaning to live by, even if it is to serve as a laborer for road or house construction, out of which he can at least expect an outcome and create a meaning. Therefore, prison management is not simply to lock the prisoners up once and for all; the management shall assign them some jobs and activities so that everyone would find something to live by.
Since meaning is so essential to all of us, something new and more fundamental shall be invested into love and mutual respect. To love and respect our family and friends, we should pay special attention to their treasured meaning with a non-judgment attitude, be they noble or humble in our eye. To help them fulfill the meaning is the greatest thing we can do for them; tragedy may arise if we are self-centered, ignoring what our family or friends so much cherish, and sometimes even trampling on it. Once a friend complained to me that his mother was always preparing something for him to eat, of which he grew more and more tired. He told her off and asked her if she could do anything else besides making food. His mother was very upset, and a quarrel ensued between them. I said to my friend that his mother was from the countryside, and her only expectation was that her son or daughter should be somebody someday; when she had no other means to achieve that, the only option for her was to make her children well treated, in which all the meaning of her life lay. Human beings live by meaning. Your rude rejection was the biggest attack, which would eliminate all the meaning she kept so hard for long. Did you mean to have your mother killed? He was shocked to hear that and rushed back home to apologize to his mother. From then on, no complaints are heard when his mother presents the food, and many compliments are given to the great cook. A tragedy was avoided in the foregoing instance, but is still inevitable in today’s world. Our society is filled with apathy and violence, and those who are so influenced would ignore others』 dignity and value and do very terrible deeds, such as flesh searching, a wanton invasion of privacy, leaving the victims in despair; such as ubiquitous language violence, taking away lives not yet blossomed.
Let’s go back to Confucius’s teaching: One shall not impose on others what he himself does not desire. Sometimes the euphoria from the imposition on others what you yourself do not desire is a dagger, which you could wield to kill a person without your least awareness.
審校：小熊
編輯：甄雨
朗讀：李珍
歡迎大家閱讀、分享和關注