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1. 手机刷新了人与人的关系。会议室门口通常贴着一条通告:请与会者关闭手机。可是会议室里的手机铃声仍然响成一片。我们都是普通人,并没有多少重要的事情。尽管如此,我们也不会轻易关掉手机。打开手机象征我们与这个世界的联系。手机反映出我们的"社交饥渴症"。最为常见的是,一个人走着走着突然停下来,眼睛盯着手机屏幕发短信。他不在乎停在马路中央还是厕所旁边。
Few things have changed human relations as much as the cell phone has. It so happens that we often see a notice on a door to a conference room, "Please keep your cell phone off when a meeting is in session." We still, however, always hear the beeps resounding throughout the chamber. The prevalence of using the cell phone today reflects our "thirst for socialization" and symbolizes a connection between us and the outside world. We are therefore reluctant to turn it off, although few of us are VIPs, or those who have many urgencies to take immediate care of. So we often notice such a picture: a pedestrian, all of sudden, stops, his eyes fixed on the phone screen, to edit his messages, oblivious of all other things. Whether being on the road center or beside a toilet does not seem to bother him.
2. We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and
destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly. However, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words of Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, all powerful to be impotent.”
So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun
我们人类,正面临全球性的危机,我们的生存和文明受到威胁。尽管我们聚在一起共商对策,而灾难却在扩大,形式不容乐观。但也有令人欣喜的消息:如果行动大胆果断,反应迅速,我们有能力解决这场危机,避免其向最坏的方向发展。
但是,时下世界上的许多国家领导人可以用当年温斯顿·丘吉尔批评欧洲诸政要忽视阿道夫·希特勒的名言来形容,"它们在奇怪的悖论中前行,仅仅为一个决定而犹豫不决,有了决心却拖泥带水,信心犹疑不定,见解随波逐流,掌权者虚弱无力。"
而如今我们向这个星球脆弱的大气层倾倒超过七千万吨温室气体,把其当作天然排污口。明天我们还会变本加厉,堆积的温室气体吸纳了越来越多的太阳热度。
3. Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. You need training, however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird’s wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. From most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts. This predilection brings with it a clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, and avoid predators.
凡眼见于俏脸、鲜花,无人不觉赏心悦目。然而,要参透数学、物理或棋弈之美,欣赏树之有形、鸟之翼趣,乃至对长笛奏出的悠悠颤音心领神会,则必经专门训练方可体味。在人类大部历史上,这种训练就是学会如何观察,历来由长者教之于幼者。通过观察,人类学会去鉴赏天地万化之模式,从量子力学到百纳被无所不包。此痴情所至,亦使人类在进化过程中占尽先机,能辨万化之象,有助于先人们择偶、觅食,逃避猛兽。