Why We Should Focus More on Clouds, Trees and Streams

Claire Whitely

No one, probably, has ever much doubted that these things are nice. Clouds, trees and streams represent nature in its most gentle, tranquil guise.1. tranquil： 安寧的，平靜的；guise： 外表，外貌。Their appeal is instinctive.2. appeal： 吸引力，感染力；instinctive：天生的，本能的。But we take them for granted. They form a pleasant background to other things: out of the plane window, we catch sight of a sea of3. a sea of： 大量的。clouds.Truly lovely—for a moment. Then the cabin crew come around with the sandwiches and you’ve found some episodes ofMad Menyou’d missed.4. cabin crew： 機(jī)艙工作人員；Mad Men： 美劇《廣告狂人》，故事背景設(shè)定在上世紀(jì)60年代的紐約，大膽地描述了美國(guó)廣告業(yè)黃金時(shí)代殘酷的商業(yè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。Your cousin’s wedding reception was in a garden of old oak trees, they were stunning5. wedding reception： 婚宴；oak tree：橡樹；stunning： 極好的。—but that was two years ago, and you may not have looked properly at a tree since. There was that stream you used to love playing in as a child, damming up the flow till the water eventually protested and swept away your rocks.6. 這里有你在孩提時(shí)代就喜歡嬉戲其中的溪流，你曾經(jīng)堆起小石塊擋住水流，直到河水最后把它們沖垮。dam up： 筑壩攔水，擋?。籶rotest： 抗議；sweep away： 一掃而空。There must,theoretically, still be lots of streams. But the adult world is often decidedly stream-free.

The problem is a lack of encouragement to focus on these natural elements. In a busy and remorselessly7. remorselessly： 冷酷地。practical age, there are few explanations around as to what the point of such focus might be. And yet spending moments of close observation with clouds, trees and streams may in fact play a minor but important supporting role in the pursuit of a balanced and more or less sane life.8. supporting role： 配角，次要角色；sane： 健全的，理智的。

或許這是我們童年里才會(huì)出現(xiàn)的場(chǎng)景：我們踏著小溪，試圖搭起小石擋住湍流；我們仰望白云，思考長(zhǎng)大以后的日子；我們偷偷爬上高枝，撫摩它粗糙而堅(jiān)韌的老樹皮……隨著一天天長(zhǎng)大和成熟，我們與社會(huì)越來越近，卻離自然越來越遠(yuǎn)。自然帶給我們很多高貴的品質(zhì)，我們卻將自然的賦予視為理所應(yīng)當(dāng)。它靜靜陪伴我們，我們卻無意欣賞。不如從今天起，給自己幾分鐘，盡享自然的饋贈(zèng)吧！

Clouds

We are preoccupied with9. be preoccupied with： 專注于。ourselves in unhelpful ways. The clouds,however, are usefully indifferent to all our concerns. They don’t care about fashion. They are uninterested in gossip. They are not responsive to our status or lack of it.

We are always close to these vast, quiet things. A grey tuft detaches itself in the break up of a great continental bank of cloud.10. 一簇灰色的云從巨大的云團(tuán)中分離出來。tuft： 一叢，一簇；detach： 分離，分開；bank： （雪、云等）堆。It inches its way across the sky, slowly losing de finition.11. inch： v. 緩慢移動(dòng)，漸進(jìn)；de finition：（線條、輪廓等）清晰。Ten minutes later it is barely recognisable. And shortly after that, it merges with12. merge with： 融入，與……結(jié)合。another cloud and its brief individual career is over. Islands of clouds form, make chains, nations, empires, then drift and dissolve—like a peaceful, silent, painless repetition of the turbulent mayhem of human history.13. 成片的云朵變換著組合，形成鏈條、國(guó)家乃至帝國(guó)，然后飄走消散，就如同人類歷史上的動(dòng)蕩與混亂，寂靜無聲且不帶有任何苦痛地反復(fù)更替著。turbulent： 混亂的，動(dòng)蕩不安的；mayhem： 極混亂的狀態(tài)。

There is a constant drama above our heads: collisions, fractures,swirls, separations…14. collision： 碰撞，沖突；fracture： 破裂；swirl： 紛亂。Human life is no less active, but it can mean a moment of relief from our particular involvements to look up and be returned to a broader perspective, from where the agitations of the present moment will seem less signi ficant15. no less： 仍然；involvement： 混亂，復(fù)雜；agitation： 煩亂，焦慮?！猘s they will for us too with time (even if we are incapable of holding on to this idea on most of the occasions we need it). It will all pass, even the current nastiness and enmities, like the clouds that seemed so fixed and heavy but an hour ago—and yet have now all moved on, leaving behind only two or three of their cohorts, apologetic and timid before the victorious sun, like the cowed remnants of a scattered army.16. 一切都會(huì)過去，即使是當(dāng)前的污穢和怨恨也都會(huì)消散。就像云朵在一個(gè)小時(shí)前還靜靜地密布于天際，現(xiàn)在卻也早已飄散。在太陽那勝利者般的照耀下，剩下的只有兩三朵謙卑而又羞怯的云，就像受到威脅的四散的潰軍一樣。nastiness： 骯臟，污穢；enmity： 仇恨，怨恨；cohort： 一組，一群；timid： 羞怯的；cowed： 被恐嚇的，被威脅的；remnant： 殘存者；scattered： 分散的。

Trees

They are an image of patience, and resolution. Their gnarled, worn barks speak of the hundreds of seasons they have endured.17. gnarled： [木]粗糙的，多瘤的；bark： 樹皮。They have bent and lost branches in November winds, they have been gnawed at by worms and beetles across the airless days of July, they have been knocked and hacked at by farmers and gardeners.18. gnaw at： 啃，咬；hack： 砍，劈。But they endure—as we might better learn to do through their examples. It’s an unhelpful prejudice of the Western mind to think of philosophy as emanating only from books rather than, as the Eastern tradition more wisely points out, from the volumes of nature as well.19. 西方思想存在無益的偏見，認(rèn)為哲學(xué)只能從書本中獲得，而不像東方文化那樣更智慧地指出哲學(xué)也可以從大量的自然現(xiàn)象中獲得。prejudice： 偏見；emanate from： 出自，源于；volumes of： 大量的。

Oak trees are an image of ordered complexity: the roots patiently draw nutrients from the soil, the capillaries of their trunks send water twenty- five metres upwards,20. capillary： 毛細(xì)血管；trunk： 樹干。each branch takes enough but not too much for the needs of its own leaves, each leaf contributes to the maintenance of the whole. The trees sit out rainy days without complaint, adjusting themselves to the slow shift of the seasons—showing no ill-temper in a storm, no desire to wander, with their many slender fingers deep in the clammy soil,21. wander： 游蕩，漫步；slender：細(xì)長(zhǎng)的；clammy： 濕黏的。metres from their central stems and far from the tallest leaves which hold rainwater in some 40,000 of their little palms.

The trees are an education in the cycle of life as well. All those leaves, resplendent22. resplendent： 光輝的，華麗的。in the summer sun, will be gone by the end of November. Human life is as unstoppable, but it may be through the abstract example of trees that we can come to accept the lesson with greater ease. Our own very disturbing experiences of change are recast23. recast： 重鑄，重做。in more universal terms. Our thinning hair, facial lines and the stiffening of our skin can be recast as a melancholy necessity rather than an unreasonable catastrophe.24. 我們的頭發(fā)變得稀少，面部變得松弛，皮膚變得僵硬，這些都只是令人傷感的必然，而并非不合常理的災(zāi)難。stiffening：硬化；melancholy： 令人傷感的；catastrophe： 大災(zāi)難。

Streams

Streams are always communicating: whispering, exclaiming,arguing (with a rock or twig), con fiding (in a quiet vortex), dozing (in midsummer) or shouting (after a heavy shower).25. exclaim： 叫喊；twig： 嫩枝；vortex： 漩渦；doze： 打瞌睡。

Like fires, they provide an ideal object of contemplation26. contemplation： 沉思，冥想。for us when we are trying to think. Their constant activity enlivens27. enliven： 使有生氣，使活躍。our imaginations.They don’t stare blankly back at us, like pieces of paper on a desk. They distract our minds just enough that the good ideas, the ones that hate to be asked directly to emerge, can feel relieved of pressure and slip out, while we’re following water as it rises gracefully to meet with the objections of a group of awkward rocks just below the surface.28. 當(dāng)我們心隨水流，看它優(yōu)雅地高漲起來，沖向水面下阻礙它的頑石時(shí)，它（溪流）剛好分散了我們的注意力，讓我們頭腦中那些不愿直接出現(xiàn)的好點(diǎn)子沖破壓力，悄然浮現(xiàn)。Streams warn us too that we must be careful to hold on to those thoughts, for our minds are no less fugitive than they are: we get an insight, but in a moment, it will be gone, like a twig in the current,29. fugitive： 無常的，易變的；current： 涌流。unless we grab it at once.

We should not leave the encounter with clouds, trees or streams to chance30. leave sth. to chance： 順其自然，任憑命運(yùn)。alone. We would ideally have collective routines and events around them to edge31. edge： v. 使緩慢移動(dòng)。us into good habits. Perhaps for a minute before lunch, we would ritually32. ritually： 儀式上地。pause and look at the clouds—just as Christians have been encouraged to say a quick prayer of thanksgiving on sitting down to dinner. No week should be counted complete if it does not include three minutes given over to a tree. If streams are hard to come by, a picture of them should be a priority of interior decoration and each of us should make a point of stopping before a “stream-icon” to reacquaint ourselves with its benign and bene ficial moral.33. interior decoration： 室內(nèi)裝潢；reacquaint： 重新認(rèn)識(shí)；benign：溫和的，和善的；moral： 寓意。

We too easily lose touch with the better and saner aspects of ourselves.Somewhere inside us, we have the potential for calm and reason,tenderness and thoughtfulness. Clouds, trees and streams are on hand to help…