孤独的人最强大别逗了!

孤独的人最强大别逗了!

梭罗曾说：“我宁愿坐在一个南瓜上，并且独自拥有它，也不愿挤坐在一个天鹅绒的垫子上。我宁愿在大地上乘坐空气自由流通的牛车，也不愿坐在观光火车的车厢里，一路呼吸着污浊的空气上天堂。”在瓦尔登湖畔，梭罗远离纷扰，自食其力，从容地享受生活。可是，遁世隐居真如他所说的那么美好吗？远离世俗而生存之人就是所谓的强者吗？其实不然。在作者看来，孤独的生活没有那么浪漫，而真正的强者是那些与社会保持着联系，感受着他人的喜怒哀乐，同时还让自己内心强大、活得很好的人。

Great loners are fascinating. Henry David Thoreau1）at Walden Pond，Buddhist monks in their hermitage2），and fictional heroes such as Robinson Crusoe3）are all romantic figures of successful solitary survival. Their setting is the wilderness. Their apparent triumph is the outcome of grit，ingenuity4）and self-reliance5）.

One reason that such characters seem appealing is that，ironically，they are reassuring6）. They give the comforting impression that anyone could thrive in isolation as they do. This reassurance can be summed up in the declaration made by

Henrik Ibsen7）’s Dr. Stockmann at the end of An Enemy of the People （1882），after the locals have persecuted him for revealing that the town’s tourist baths are contaminated. Stockmann declares：“The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”

The great loners embody an idea of freedom from the vagaries8）and stresses of social life. As human beings，we are vulnerable to each other’s moods，proclivities9），ideologies，perceptions，knowledge and ignorance. We are vulnerable to our society’s conventions，policies and hierarchies. We need other people’s blessing and often their help in order to get resources. When we’re young and when we’re old，we are vulnerable enough that our lives are happy only if other people choose to care about us.

No wonder then that Robinson Crusoe is one of the

best-known novels in history；there is solace10）in the hermit’s self-governing independence. But this romantic image of the eremitic life rests on a mistaken idea of both t he great loners’ circumstances and the nature of social isolation.

Famous hermits，both in real life and in fiction，are always male. They tend to be young，fit and healthy. They tend to have no children and no spouse. They model a rugged yet

reflective self-sufficiency that only a few could emulate11）. What’s more，in the details of their stories，we find evidence that they are not wholly self-reliant. Thoreau’s Walden Pond is only an hour’s walk from Concord，Massachusetts，and Thoreau visited the town regularly during his years in retreat.

He also always kept three chairs ready for guests （one chair for solitude，two for friendship，three for society），and he observed that sometimes there were 25 or 30 souls under his roof. Buddhist monks，while they might remain silent for months at a time，are supported and fed by their

disciples12）and the laypeople13）. Moreover，they undergo years of training before retreating into solitude，much of which focuses on cultivating deeply social states of heart and mind such as compassion，loving kindness and joy at others’happiness.

Even Ibsen’s Dr. Stockmann draws his wife and daughter close to him while he declares triumphantly that the strongest man is he who stands most alone.

One real-world hermit who seems to be different is Richard Proenneke，a retired military carpenter and amateur naturalist，who lived alone at Twin Lakes，Alaska，for close to 30 years. He recorded his life there in video footage that was later used to