國(guó)家地理:為什么旅行是一項(xiàng)基本的人類活動(dòng)(4)
It's not the place that is special but what we bring to it and, crucially, how we interact with it. Travel is not about the destination, or the journey. It is about stumbling across "a new way of looking at things," as writer Henry Miller observed. We need not travel far to gain a fresh perspective.
特別的不是地點(diǎn)，而是我們觀看它的角度，以及重要的是，我們與它互動(dòng)的方式。旅行非關(guān)目的地或行程，而是如同作家亨利·米勒所說，旅行是關(guān)乎意外發(fā)現(xiàn)“觀看事物的新方法?！倍@得新視角，其實(shí)毋須遠(yuǎn)行。
No one knew this better than Henry David Thoreau, who lived nearly all of his too-short life in Concord, Massachusetts. There he observed Walden Pond from every conceivable vantage point: from a hilltop, on its shores, underwater. Sometimes he'd even bend over and peer through his legs, marveling at the inverted world. "From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow," he wrote.
沒有人比亨利·戴維·梭羅更明白這一點(diǎn)，他短暫的一生幾乎都住在麻薩諸塞州康科德鎮(zhèn)，從想象得到的各個(gè)觀看位置--山頂、湖濱、水下--觀察瓦爾登湖。有時(shí)他甚至彎下腰，從雙腿間往后看，贊嘆眼前的顛倒世界。他寫道：“只要觀看角度得宜，就能在每場(chǎng)風(fēng)暴和當(dāng)中的每滴雨水中看到彩虹?！?/p>
Thoreau never tired of gazing at his beloved pond, nor have we outgrown the quiet beauty of our frumpy, analog world. If anything, the pandemic has rekindled our affection for it. We've seen what an atomized, digital existence looks like, and we (most of us anyway) don't care for it. The bleachers at Chicago's Wrigley Field; the orchestra section at New York City's Lincoln Center; the alleyways of Tokyo. We miss these places. We are creatures of place, and always will be.
梭羅從未對(duì)凝視他心愛的湖感到厭倦，我們也仍能欣賞這個(gè)世界回歸老派步調(diào)后的沉靜之美。如果真要說，疫情甚至讓我們重新愛上了這個(gè)真實(shí)世界。我們已經(jīng)見識(shí)過孤立的數(shù)字化生活，而我們（至少大多數(shù)人）都覺得不怎么樣。芝加哥瑞格利球場(chǎng)的觀眾席、紐約市林肯中心的交響樂樂池、東京的街頭巷弄，我們想念這些地方。我們的生命與地方相連，這點(diǎn)絕對(duì)不會(huì)改變。
After the attacks of September 11, many predicted the end of air travel, or at least a dramatic reduction. Yet the airlines rebounded steadily and by 2017 flew a record four billion passengers. Briefly deprived of the miracle of flight, we appreciated it more and today tolerate the inconvenience of body scans and pat-downs for the privilege of transporting our flesh-and-bone selves to far-flung locations, where we break bread with other incarnate beings.
911恐怖襲擊后，不少人預(yù)測(cè)航空旅游將走到盡頭，或至少大幅萎縮。然而航空業(yè)卻穩(wěn)定復(fù)蘇，到了2017年更創(chuàng)下高達(dá)40億人次的載客紀(jì)錄。我們?cè)诙虝旱乇粍儕Z飛行這份贈(zèng)禮后變得更加珍惜，如今愿意忍受X光安檢和搜身所帶來的不便，就是為了享有飛到遙遠(yuǎn)國(guó)度與他人共進(jìn)一餐的特權(quán)。
