Maybe we're in a coffee shop and someone's preparing us a drink.

閒聊也許發生在我們在咖啡店裡，有人正在準備我們的飲料時；

Perhaps we've crossed the neighbor in the hallway while getting our post or we're on a train waiting for the doors to open.

也許是我們拿信件的時候在走廊裡遇到鄰居時，或者是我們正在火車上，等待著門打開時。

Why would we bother to hold up our day for a few moments?

為什麼我們要為了短暫的時刻而打亂我們的日程呢？

Given how many things we already need to do and how many good friends we already have that we haven't seen in far too long.

考慮到我們需要做的事情有那麼多，還有那些我們已經很久沒見過的好朋友，為什麼我們還要抽出時間跟陌生人閒聊呢？

We may also have a more high-minded defense for our silence.

我們對於保持沉默可能還有更高尚的辯護。

We aspire to be profound people and there is no way that we can get anywhere meaningful with a near or complete stranger in a compressed amount of time.

我們渴望成為有深度的人，而在有限的時間內與陌生人交談，幾乎沒有辦法達到任何有意義的交流。

We shun the smaller chats because in the back of our minds, we tell ourselves that we are already sufficiently deeply committed to the long and consequential ones.

我們迴避閒聊，因為在內心深處，我們告訴自己我們已經足夠深入地參與了那些長久而重要的對話。

But this is to miss the point and the opportunities presented by minor social exchanges.

但這樣會錯過小型社交交流所帶來的意義和機會。

They stand in relation to lengthy friendships rather as Haikus do next to 1000 page novels.

它們跟長期的友誼之間的關係就像俳句與千頁小說的關係一樣。

There are things a tiny poem can do that; a comprehensive narrative will miss.

有些事情，小詩可以做到，小說卻不能。

There are single sentences that can mark us as much as entire volumes.

一句話能給我們留下的印象並不亞於一整本書。

There are pictures that can stick with us in a way that a three-hour film won't.

有些圖片能夠以電影無法比擬的方式深烙印在我們心中。

We can be disproportionately and yet powerfully touched by so-called minor things, small sympathetic chats matter above all because few of us are ever very far from sadness and despondency.

我們可能會被所謂的小事情深深觸動。小小的同情聊天尤為重要，因為我們幾乎都會悲傷和絕望。

There are so many reasons to dislike ourselves, to be paranoid about what other people think and to regret mistakes we've made when we are in a febrile or fragile mood,

在情緒激動或脆弱的狀態下，我們有很多理由不喜歡自己，擔心別人的看法，並對自己犯過的錯誤感到後悔，

A short kindly exchange can be all that's needed to start to turn around a deeply dark day.

而一個簡短而友善的交流可能就足以開始改變深陷黑暗的日子。

An enormous amount of sympathy and fellow feeling can be compressed in the most miniscule dialogue.

在最微小的對話中，可以帶有大大的同情和共鳴。

They make them like that to torture us, don't they?

他們是故意這樣來折磨我們的，對吧？

We might say to a parent struggling to close the zip on a child's jacket and a sudden downpour thereby sending a modest sign that we know how difficult things can be,

當我們看到一位父母在努力為孩子的夾克拉上拉鍊卻突然下起大雨，這樣一個微小的情景可能會讓我們向他們表示，我們了解這種事情有多辛苦，

and that we have, in some ways, been there or somewhere like there ourselves.

並且在某種程度上，我們也曾經有過類似的經歷。

Or we might, on our way to a station exchange one or two sympathetic words with a taxi driver about their elderly mother who we learn has just gone into a care home after having a fall.

或者在我們前往車站的路上，與出租車司機交換幾句同情他們年邁母親的同情話語，我們得知她剛剛因為跌倒而進入了一家療養院。

The chat won't change anything in an already tricky situation.

這樣的對話在本已棘手的情況下並不會改變什麼。

But the humanity on display might just, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer remarked that we can never know for sure who around us may at any particular moment be thinking of ending their own life.

但所展現的人性或許可以，哲學家阿圖爾·叔本華曾提到，我們永遠無法確定身邊的人在某個特定時刻是否正考慮結束自己的生命。

The thought usefully puts into relief, what might be at stake in any exchange we may at points.

這種思考有助於凸顯出在我們進行任何交流時可能面臨的風險。

And without any obvious warning, be the last thing between someone and their decision to despair.

而在毫無明顯警告的情況下，可能成為一個人與絕望之間的最後一根救命稻草。

A charge often made against small chats is that we can surely only be pretending to be friendly.

對於閒聊常常有人批評說，我們只是在假裝友善。

Yet this is to miss out how much and how deeply our hearts may go out to people whose lives we merely brush against.

然而，這樣的看法忽略了我們的心有多麼深切地與我們僅有一面之緣的人產生共鳴。

We can imagine our way into pains whose details we will never know. We can, if it doesn't sound too paradoxical, love a stranger.

我們可以想像自己陷入我們永遠不會了解的痛苦之中。如果聽起來沒有太矛盾的話，我們其實可以愛一個陌生人。

And even more oddly, for only a minute or two, we are in all this so often held back by unhelpfully, grand ideas of what it means to change the world.

更奇怪的是，即使只有一兩分鐘，我們在這一切中常常被對改變世界的意義持有不太有幫助的偉大觀念所阻礙。

We imagine the requirements for improvement on such a large scale that along the way, we end up grievously neglecting what it is actually in our powers to achieve right now.

我們想像著對於如此大規模的改善所需的條件，以至於在這過程中，我們嚴重忽略了我們當下實際能夠實現的事情。

Today, the next time we go out, we suffer from an upside down view of where significance can lie.

現在，下次我們外出時，我們會因為對意義所在的顛倒看法而受苦。

We are assembled out of small things and may live or die by their presence or absence.

我們由許多微小的事物組成，而這些微小的事物的存在或缺失可能會影響我們的生死存亡。

We have in our hands, a very potent weapon already the power to say a warm, gentle, sympathetic, hello.

我們手中已經擁有一個非常強大的武器，那就是能夠說出一個溫暖、溫和、富有同情心的問候。