美文赏析(八十七)The Death of an Illusion幻想破灭

美文赏析（八十七）
The Death of an Illusion
If industrialization isolated the elderly, where are they to find a foothold in today’s electronic ether? In less than 20 years, from 1975 to 1993, the number of Americans over 65 who live with their adult children declined by half, dropping from 18 percent to less than 10 percent. There are doubtless many reasons for this decrease, from the improved health of older Americans to the number of two-or-more-job households. Nevertheless, a third of the over-65 population live entirely alone. One might expect the older that people get—and thus the more help they need—the more likely they are to live with one of their children. Just the reverse is true. If you make it to 85, the odds of your living alone jump to one in two.
Do the old people in the United States like to live alone?
No doubt some of them do. Or at least some of them prefer living alone to the changes and compromises that living with others entails. Independence is, after all, the chief and most honored virtue in this country.
The ideal, ingrained in us early, persists even when we can, quite literally, no longer "stand on our own two feet." When our aging parents' need for help grows too obvious to ignore, we say they are beginning to "fail." Losing one's independence is, for Americans, a shameful thing. And needing help, we know, evokes in our potential benefactors pity, frustration, and fear—in roughly equal parts.
We are all, throughout our lives, a burden to others. From the moment of conception, we are nourished and nurtured by others. As adults we learn to pay for or negotiate our mutual needs, but the fact remains that it takes an invisible army of other people to grow our food, clean our clothes, maintain our roads, fuel our furnaces. When we marry, we accept another's pledge to stick with us in sickness and health, prosperity and poverty. The load we lay on others only becomes more visible, less deniable, as we age.
Our still relatively new culture, which makes both living anywhere and living longer possible, will no doubt devote a good deal of public resources and private energy in the near future to figuring out how best to care for its older members. Should I live another 20 years, I will be a burden—to my spouse or my children or the state, if not all three. What I most want to learn during those
decades, therefore, is not how to live longer, not necessarily even how to live a healthier or more productive life, but how best to be a burden. One that might also be a blessing.
New words and expressions生词和短语
reverse [ri'və:s] n.相反
odds [ɔdz] n.可能性
compromise [kɔmprəmaiz] n.妥协
ingrain [in'grein] v.扎根于
benefactor ['benifæktə] n.捐助者
frustration [frʌs'treiʃən] n.烦恼
conception [kən'sepʃən] n.怀孕，受孕
nourish ['nʌriʃ] v.给予营养，滋养
ether ['i:θə] n.气氛，氛围
nurture ['nə:tʃə] v.培育
negotiate [ni'gəuʃieit] v.协商
furnace ['fə:nis] n.壁炉
pledge [pledʒ] v.承诺
prosperity [prɔs'periti] n.繁荣
spouse [spauz] n.配偶
blessing ['blesiŋ] n.恩惠
entail [in'teil] v.使必要
参考译文
幻想的破灭
如果工业化使老人孤立，那么在当今的电子时代他们又在哪儿立足呢?在从1975年到1993年不到20年的时间里，与成年子女一起居住的65岁以上的美国人数量从18%降至10%以下，下降了一半。

毫无疑问，这其中有无数原因，比如美国老年人健康状况的改善，美国家庭有两人以上工作的数量增多等。

然而，65岁以上的老人中有1/3以上是完全独立地生活的。

也许人们会认为，人的年纪越大，越需要帮助，因而就越有可能与子女共住，然而事实恰恰相反，如果你活到85岁，则你独居的可能性上升至50%。

美国老人喜欢独处吗?
无疑他们中有些人喜欢。

或者至少他们愿意一个人住而不愿意与别人同住而
做出任何改变和让步。

毕竟，独立是这个国家首要推崇的美德。

这种理想早已根植于我们心中，甚至在我们真的不能“靠自己的双脚站立”时，它依然存在，当我们年迈的父母需要帮助的愿望日益明显以致不能忽略时，我们说他们开始“失败”。

对美国人来说，失去独立是件可耻的事。

我们知道需要帮助会使我们潜在的捐助者产生同情、烦恼和恐惧的复杂感情——这些感情所占比例大致相等。

在我们的一生中，我们都会成为他人的负担，从母亲怀孕的那一刻起，我们即被他人抚养、照顾。

长大后，我们学会了知恩图报和相互协商共同的需要。

然而事实上总有一群人在默默地为我们种植食物、洗衣服、修路、供应燃料。

当我们结婚时，我们立下誓言，无论健康还是患病，无论贫穷还是富有，我们永远在一起，永不分离。

随着年龄的渐长，我们给他人带来的负担日益明显，这是不可否认的。

我们相对年轻的文化使得我们择地而居、更加长寿成为可能，在不久的将来，它将投入更多的公共资源和个人的精力为照看老年人而做出最大的努力。

如果我能再活20年，我也将成为我的配偶或子女或国家的负担。

要不就是给三者同时带来负担。

因此在这20年里我最想学的不是如何活得更长甚至不一定是如何活得更健康，更有成效，而是如何尽可能地做好个的负担，一个可能给人祝福的负担。