There are few more shameful confessions to make than that we are lonely.

有些事令人羞於啟齒更甚於承認孤獨。

The basic assumption is that no respectable person could ever feel isolated unless maybe they've just moved country or been widowed.

我們基本認為值得尊敬的人都不會感到孤單，除非是剛移民或者伴侶剛過世。

Yet in truth a high degree of loneliness is an inexorable part of being a sensitive, intelligent human.

然而深沈的孤獨感這個殘酷的感受是身為敏感智慧的人類的一部分。

Its a built-in feature of a complex existence.

是複雜的人類內建的特徵。

There are several big reasons for this.

會這樣有幾大原因。

Much of what we need recognized and confirmed by others, a lot of what it would be extremely comforting to share, is going to be disturbing to society at large.

我們有很多事情需要他人認知與確認，多數經過分享能夠帶來極大慰藉，但這些事大多會引發社會不安。

Many of the ideas in the recesses of our minds are too odd, contrary, subtle, or alarming to be safely revealed to anyone else.

腦海深處有許多想法很詭異、衝突、微妙或嚇人，不能輕易向人訴說。

We face a choice between honesty and acceptability, and understandably, mostly choose the latter.

我們面臨的是誠實和接受度的選擇題，可以理解的是我們大多選擇後者。

It takes a lot of energy to listen to another person and enter sympathetically into their experiences.

我們需要消耗精力才有辦法傾聽他人並且對別人的經驗產生同理心。

We shouldn't blame others for their failure to focus on who we are.

我們不該責怪他人沒有注意我們本身。

They may want to meet us, but we should accept the energy with which they would keep the topic of their own lives at the center of the conversation.

他們或許想認識我們，但我們必須接受他們的精力仍會用在將話題引導至他們的人生。

We must all die alone, which really means that our pain is for us alone to endure.

我們都會孤獨死去，這就表示自己的痛苦只有自己能擔。

Other can throw us words of encouragement, but in every life we are out on the ocean, drowning in the swell, and others, even the nice ones, are standing on the shore, waving cheerily.

別人可以出言鼓勵，但是每個生命都在汪洋當中各自浮沈，而其他人就連好人都站在岸上開心的招手。

It´s deeply unlikely that we would ever find someone on exactly the same page of the soul as us.

我們幾乎不可能找到一個人能和我們的心靈完全契合。

We would long for utter congruity, but there will be constant dissonance.

我們渴望全然一致但永遠會有不和諧之處。

Because we appeared on the earth at different times, are the product of different families and experiences, and are not just made of quite the same fabric.

因為每個人都在不同時間來到世上，生長於不同家庭與經驗，身體組成也大不相同。

So, they won´t be thinking just the same as us on coming out of the cinema and looking out of the night sky.

所以別人不會和我們想的一樣，無論是剛看完的電影，還是抬頭仰望的夜空。

Just when we want them to say something high-flown and beautiful, they will perhaps be remembering a painfully banal untimely detail from an area of domestic life, or vice versa.

正當我們想聽他們說些虛華而美麗的話語時，他們或許正在想著平凡的要命又不合時宜的生活瑣事，反之亦然。

It is almost comic.

情況幾近好笑。

We will almost certainly never meet the people best qualified to understand us, but they do exist.

我們幾乎不可能會遇到那個人他最懂我們，但那個人確實存在。

Probably, they once walked pass us in the street, but neither of us has the slightest idea of the potential for connection.

或許我們曾經擦肩而過但卻絲毫不知彼此有可能相知相惜。

Or maybe they died in Sydney two weeks ago, or wouldn't be born until the 22nd century.

或許他兩週前已在雪梨過世或是要等下個世紀才會出生。

It isn´t a conspiracy.

這並沒有陰謀可言。

We would just have needed a lot more luck.

我們只是需要更多運氣。

The problem is sure to get worse.

但問題只會擴大。

The more thoughtful and perceptive we are, there will simply be less people like us around.

一旦我們變得更細心聰敏，周遭相似的人就會更少。

It isn't a romantic myth.

這並不是浪漫的迷思。

Loneliness trully is a kind of tax we have to pay to atone for certain complexity of mind.

孤獨其實就是我們付出的代價才能享有複雜的大腦。

The desire to undress someone is, for a long time, far more urgent than the desire for a good conversation.

想把一個人脫光的慾望，長時間以來遠勝過好好談話的想法。

And so, we end up locked in relationships with certain people we don't have much to say to, because we were once fatefully interested in the shape of their nose or the color of their remarkable eyes.

所以我們常常交往的對象都談不來，因為當初注定迷戀他鼻子的形狀或是雙眸迷人的顏色。

And yet, despite all of this, we shouldn't be frightened or discomforted by our pervasive loneliness.

然而，除了這些，我們不需對蔓延的孤獨感到害怕或不安。

At an exasperated moment near the end of his life, the German writer Goethe, who appeared to have had a lot of friends, exploded bitterly: "No one has ever properly understood me. I had never fully understood anyone. No one understands anyone else."

臨終前某次一怒之下，德國文豪歌德本來交友廣泛卻突然苦澀的說：「沒有人真的了解我」「我也不了解任何人」「無人能理解其他人」

It was a helpful outburst from such a great man.

聽到這話很好尤其來自偉人口中。

It isn't our fault. A degree of distance and mutual incomprehension isn't a sign that life has gone wrong.

彼此疏離與不理解不是我們的錯，並不象徵生命走錯了路。

It's what we should expect from the very start, and when we do, benefits can follow.

反而應該是我們最初就該抱持的期待，這種期待會帶來好處。

Once we accept loneliness we can get creative, we can start to send out messages in a bottle.

一旦接受孤獨就會帶來創意，我們就會發送瓶中信。

We can sing, write poetry, produce books and blogs, activities stemming from the realization that people around us won't ever fully get us, but that others separated across time and space, might just.

唱歌、作詩、我們會寫書和網誌，這些都是因為知道身邊的人永遠不會了解我們，但也許那個人就在跨越時空的那一邊。

The history of art is the record of people who couldn't find anyone in the vicinity to talk to.

藝術史就是人類的紀錄記錄那些無人可訴說的藝術家。

And we can take up the coded offer of their intimacy in, say, the words of a Roman poet who died in 10 B.C. or the lyrics of a singer who described just our blues in a recording from Nashville in 1963.

我們可以從作品看到加密過後的私密情感，像是西元前 10 年過世的羅馬詩人所作詩文或是唱出我們憂愁的歌詞正是 1963 年在納什維爾所錄製。

Loneliness makes us more capable of true intimacy if ever better opportunities do come along.

若真的碰上機會，孤獨讓我們更懂得親密。

It heightens the conversation we have with ourselves.

孤獨加強了我們與自己的對話。

It gives us a character.

塑造我們的個性。

We don't repeat what everyone else thinks, we develop a point of view.

我們和別人想的不同，有自己的觀點。

We might be isolated for now, but we'll be capable of far closer, more interesting bonds with anyone we do eventually locate.

也許現在是孤獨的，但我們能和找到的對象一起建立更親近、更有趣的關係。

Loneliness renders us elegant and strangely alluring.

孤獨使我們既優雅又莫名吸引人。

It suggests there's more about us to understand than the normal patterns of social intercourse can accommodate, which is something we can take pride in.

讓人覺得很有深度比普通的社交模式更深，我們該為此感到驕傲。

A sense of isolation truly is, as we suspect, but usually prevent ourselves from feeling, from fear of arrogance, a sign of depth.

孤獨感就如我們懷疑的一般，只是我們不敢這麼想，怕自己太傲慢，但孤獨就是深度。

When we admit our loneliness, we are signing up to a club that includes the people we know from the paintings of Edward Hooper, the poems of Baudelaire, the songs of Leonard Cohen.

承認自己孤獨的同時等於加入其他人的社團當中，包括因為作品而認識的人。如美國畫家霍普的畫、法國詩人波特萊爾的詩以及加拿大歌手科恩的歌。

Lonely, we enter a long and grand tradition.

孤獨讓我們走進長久而偉大傳統。

We find ourselves surprisingly in great company.

驚訝於身邊眾多同伴。

Enduring loneliness is almost invariably better than suffering the compromises of false community.

承受孤獨的不變之處就是比忍受不合的同伴來得好。

Loneliness is simply a price we may have to pay for holding onto a sincere, ambitious view of what companionship must and could be.

孤獨只是必要的代價才能看到陪伴有多麼真誠與偉大。