In other words, the most important priority for members of our species is to live and to keep going, not to pause, understand and take stock.

換句話說，對於我們這個物種來說，最重要的優先事項是生存和繼續前進，而不是停頓、理解和總結。

Notice any new human in a terrible circumstance, let's say in a home with a violent or alcoholic parent or an abusive or depressed one, and it won't, as one might imagine it could, be able to focus clearly on what's gone wrong or mourn its condition. It will simply, as we've ascertained it must, keep going. In order to do this, it will call upon a range of innate survival techniques. It may start to think surprisingly well of its parents, declaring them justified in their beatings, selfishness or humiliations. It might assiduously blame itself rather than sparing any pity for its own deprivations. Let's remember that a sense of self-compassion can be a very dangerous thing indeed when one is five years old and no one would listen even if one yelled. Or else it will ward off despair through activity, it will overachieve at school or break windows or become obsessed with drugs or sport or politics – anything not to have to listen to the buzz inside. The benighted child can't look back, it can't glance down, it must simply stare ahead at the main goal – survival.

注意到任何一個處於可怕環境中的新人類，比方說，在一個父母暴力、酗酒、虐待或抑鬱的家庭中，它不會像人們想象的那樣，能夠清楚地關注出了什麼問題或哀悼自己的狀況。它只會像我們已經確定的那樣，繼續生活下去。為了做到這一點，它將調用一系列與生俱來的生存技巧。它可能會開始對父母有驚人的好感，認為他們的毆打、自私或羞辱是理所應當的。它可能會不遺餘力地責怪自己，而不是對自己的匱乏表示同情。讓我們記住，當一個人只有五歲，即使大喊大叫也沒人聽的時候，自我同情的意識確實是一件非常危險的事情。否則，他就會通過活動來抵禦絕望，他就

This priority can last for a very long time indeed. After all, a sense of external security isn't remotely assured for most of us until we've settled in a career, built up some capital, bought a home, found a spouse, maybe had some children, by which time we might be in our forties or fifties. Yet our excellence at survival doesn't take away from the basic fact of our situation. We have been born into a mess. We have the ingredients of madness inside us. We have been unmoored by cruelty. We are, quietly, in the recesses of our soul, close to insanity at points, the ineluctable result of too much suffering encountered too soon. But as the external world gets ever safer for us, the internal world has a chance to feel as troubled as it has always been. We may feel far stranger inside at forty than at twenty, even though the causes of our disturbances lie in events far closer to the latter date than the former. Eventually, the pent-up fear and sadness are liable to find a way through. We'll start to do something odd, write long letters to strangers, or crash the car, or sob in public, or develop a certainty that the government is following us. The legacy of the unkindness of which we have been the recipients begins to emerge. With any luck, we may soon enough wind up in a clinic or the consulting room of an experienced therapist and here have a chance to find out more about the sadness and loss that have been inside us since the start. We may finally feel safe enough to let out a very long scream and meet with the love and understanding that were our due from the start.

這種優先權可能會持續很長一段時間。畢竟，對於我們中的大多數人來說，在事業穩定下來、積累了一定的資本、買了房子、找到了配偶、也許有了孩子之前，外部安全感是無法保證的，到那時我們可能已經四五十歲了。然而，我們出色的生存能力並不能掩蓋我們處境的基本事實。我們生來就是一團糟。我們的內心充滿了瘋狂的成分。我們因殘酷而失去自我。我們的靈魂深處悄悄地接近瘋狂，這是過早遭遇太多痛苦的必然結果。然而，當外部世界對我們越來越安全時，我們的內心世界卻有機會像以往一樣感到不安。四十歲時，我們的內心可能會比二十歲時陌生得多，儘管造