曾經被人問到一個問題:既然所有的生命都要死亡,那麼生命的意義是什麼?
思考:生命的意義是什麼?
許多人都曾思考過這個問題,但不說我們自己,就算歷史上的先哲偉人們,有哪個真的給了我們答案?
說到底人跟猴子一樣:會尋找食物,會繁衍後代,會死,會腐爛,會回歸自然。
沒有答案,我們還不能輕易去死,還要活著,要好好活著,那麼,怎麼辦?
好好活著
——只能給我們的生命附加一種意義。
我給自己的答案是:生活的真正意義在於體驗和感受——去努力,去奮鬥,讓自己感受更多,體會更多。種種體驗必然讓我們有限的生命變得更加豐富,讓我們感受到快樂、痛苦、酸甜苦辣……這種種感受才真的令人著迷,而快樂就在這過程之中。
當我離去的一刻,我不會像保爾柯察金那樣,但我會告訴自己,我真的好好感受了,好好的體驗了,生命的確是一段有趣而美妙,充滿了各種各樣滋味的旅程。
以上是我個人籠統而模糊的想法,而下面這個老頭,英國哲學家羅素用自己的一生實踐了自己的答案——
他活了98歲,7次掉進情網,結了4次婚;
他一生鑽研學位,是鼎鼎大名的哲學家、數學家、邏輯學家、歷史學家、文學家,並在1950年獲得諾貝爾文學獎;
他一生反戰,是世界和平運動的倡導者和組織者。
請閱:《羅素自傳》前言:What I have lived for? 我為什麼活著?
Three passions,simple but overwhelmingly strong,have governed my life:the longing for love,the search for knowledge,and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions,like great winds ,have blown me hither and thither,in a wayward course ,over a great ocean of anguish,reaching to the very verge of despair.
三種簡單卻鋪天蓋地般強烈的激情統治了我的一生:對於愛的渴望,對於知識的追尋,以及對於遭受折磨的人類的無可抗拒的憐憫。這些激情如狂風般任性地將我從東吹到西,從南吹到北,讓我飛越痛苦的無盡汪洋,抵達極度絕望的邊緣。
I have sought love,first,because it brings ecstasy- so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it ,next,because it relieves loneliness- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen , in a mystic miniature,the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought,and though it might seem too good for human life,this is what- at last- Ihave found.
我尋求愛,首先是因為它帶來令我入迷的狂喜,它如此強烈,我甚至寧願付出我所有的餘生來換取幾個小時狂喜的體驗。我尋求它,其次是因為它可以幫助我遠離孤獨——那種可怕的孤獨,那孤獨讓我有一種顫抖的感覺,仿佛自己越過了這個世界的邊緣,進入了冰冷的、死氣沉沉的無底深淵!最後,我尋求它,是因為在與愛的結合之中我看到了我夢想中的天堂與聖徒,詩一般夢幻世界的縮影——這就是我所追尋的東西,儘管這一切對於我們的生活來說似乎太過美好,但最終我發現,這依然是我追尋的東西!
With equal passion I have sought knowledg. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this ,but not much ,I have achieved.
我以同樣的激情追尋著知識。我渴望去理解人們的心靈,我渴望去了解星光為何閃耀,我嘗試去理解畢達哥拉斯的力量——經由這力量,數字掌控了萬物演化和變遷。在這方面,我取得了那麼一點點的成就。
Love and knowledge,so far as they wert possible,led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
只要它們存在,愛和知識就會令我飛升天堂,但憐憫卻總是將我拽回到地球。痛苦的哭喊聲迴蕩在我的心裡——饑荒中的孩子、被壓迫者折磨的人們、成為孩子們累贅的無助老人,以及充斥整個世界的孤獨、貧困、痛苦,這一切讓人類生活本應該的快樂幸福成為一個笑話。我渴望減輕這罪惡,但是我卻無法做到,為此我也深受煎熬。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
以上所述就是我的一生,我覺得這一切值得去感受和體驗,並且,倘若老天給予我機會的話,我會很高興重新體驗,重活一遭。