The Problem of Meaning

By David Brooks

“要过有意义的人生”，多年来，我们没少听这句话。但是，什么样的人生才算“有意义”呢？可能我们做了一些好事，内心觉得激动，便觉得自己过得有意义了。“有意义”变成了一种主观感受，不知不觉中取代了恒久成立的客观道德准则和道德框架。这样的“意义”哲学，是不是有点问题？

Not long ago, a friend sent me a speech that the great civic leader John Gardner gave to the Stanford Alumni Association 61 years after he graduated from that college.1. civic: 市民的，公民的；alumni association: 校友会。The speech is chock-full2. chock-full: 满的，满当当的。of practical wisdom. I especially liked this passage:

“The things you learn in maturity3. maturity: （性格、情感）成熟。aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior.You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety.4. 你学会不去焦虑，徒耗精力。burn up:消耗，耗费；anxiety: 忧虑，焦虑。You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs.5. self-pity: 自怜，自哀；resentment: 怨恨，愤慨；toxic: 有毒的，毒性的。You find that the world loves talent but pays off6. pay off: 有回报，得到好结果。on character.

“You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you; they are thinking about themselves.7. 你渐渐明白，大多数人既不护着你，也不跟你作对，他们只关心自己。You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.”8. 你懂了，不管你多么努力地去取悦他人，这个世上总有人不会喜欢你；这个教训一开始让你苦恼不堪，后来却让你感觉如释重负。relaxing: 愉快的，放松的。

Gardner goes on in this wise way. And then, at the end, he goes into a peroration9. peroration:（演讲的）结束语，总结语。about leading a meaningful life. “Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties,10. affection: 喜爱，喜欢；loyalty: 忠诚，忠心。out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you... You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.”

Gardner puts “meaning” at the apogee11. apogee: 顶峰，顶点。of human existence. His speech reminded me how often we’ve heard that word over the past decades. As my Times colleague April Lawson puts it, “meaning” has become the stand-in concept for everything the soul yearns for and seeks.12. stand-in: 临时替代者，顶替者；yearn for: 渴望，渴求。It is one of the few phrases acceptable in modern parlance to describe a fundamentally spiritual need.13. parlance: 说法，用语；fundamentally: 根本地，基本地。

Yet what do we mean when we use the word meaning?

The first thing we mean is that life should be about more than material success. The person leading a meaningful life has found some way of serving others that leads to a feeling of significance.

Second, a meaningful life is more satisfying than a merely happy life. Happiness is about enjoying the present; meaning is about dedicating oneself to the future.14. 快乐只关乎享受当下，而有意义的人生需要投身于未来。dedicate oneself to: 投身于，致力于。Happiness is about receiving; meaningfulness is about giving. Happiness is about upbeat15. upbeat: 达观的，乐观的。moods and nice experiences. People leading meaningful lives experience a deeper sense of satisfaction.

In this way, meaning is an uplifting16. uplifting: 振奋人心的，鼓舞人心的。state of consciousness. It’s what you feel when you’re serving things beyond self.

Yet it has to be said, as commonly used today, the word is flabby and vacuous, the product of a culture that has grown inarticulate about inner life.17.flabby:（言语、性格等）软弱的，无力的；vacuous: 无意义的，空洞的；inarticulate:不善言辞的，不善表达的。

Let me put it this way: If we look at the people in history who achieved great things—like Nelson Mandela or Albert Schweitzer or Abraham Lincoln—it wasn’t because they wanted to bathe luxuriously in their own sense of meaningfulness.18. Nelson Mandela: 纳尔逊·曼德拉（1918—2013），前任南非总统，被尊称为南非国父；Albert Schweitzer: 阿尔贝特·施韦泽（1875—1965），德国哲学家、神学家、医生及人道主义者，1952年诺贝尔和平奖得主；Abraham Lincoln: 亚伯拉罕·林肯（1809—1865），美国第16任总统，黑人奴隶制的废除者；luxuriously: 惬意地，舒适地。They had objective and eternally true standards of justice and injustice.19. eternally: 永恒地，不朽地；justice: 正义，公正。They were indignant when those eternal standards were violated.20. indignant: 愤怒的，愤慨的；violate: 违反，违背。They subscribed to moral systems—whether secular or religious—that recommended specific ways of being, and had specific structures of what is right and wrong, and had specific disciplines about how you might get better over time.21. subscribe to: 同意，赞成；secular: 世俗的，现世的；discipline: 纪律，行为准则。

Meaningfulness tries to replace structures, standards and disciplines with self-regarding22. self-regarding: 利己主义的。emotion. The ultimate authority of meaningful is the warm tingling we get when we feel significant and meaningful.23. ultimate: 最强大的，至高的；tingling: 强烈的感受。Meaningfulness tries to replace moral systems with the emotional corona that surrounds acts of charity.24. 意义试图以伴随慈善之举的那种情感来取代道德体系。corona: 日冕，日华；charity: 仁慈，宽厚。

It’s a paltry substitute.25. paltry: 可鄙的，卑贱的；substitute: 替代品。Because meaningfulness is built solely on an emotion, it is contentless and irreducible.26. solely: 只，仅仅；contentless: 无实质内容的； irreducible: 无法简化的，无法减少的。Because it is built solely on emotion, it’s subjective and relativistic.27. subjective: 主观的，非客观的；relativistic: 相对论的。You get meaning one way. I get meaning another way. Who is any of us to judge another’s emotion?

Because it’s based solely on sentiment28. sentiment: 态度，情绪。, it is useless. There are no criteria29. criteria: 标准，criterion的复数形式。to determine what kind of meaningfulness is higher. There’s no practical manual that would help guide each of us as we move from shallower forms of service to deeper ones.30. 我们服务他人的层次由浅入深时，没有使用手册对我们进行指导。manual: 使用手册，说明书；shallow: 肤浅的，浅薄的。There is no hierarchy31. hierarchy: 等级体系，分级结构。of values that would help us select, from among all the things we might do, that activity which is highest and best to do.

Because it’s based solely on emotion, it’s fleeting32. fleeting: 短暂的，飞逝的。. When the sensations of meaningful go away then the cause that once aroused them gets dropped, too. Ennui33. ennui: 倦怠，厌倦。floods in. Personal crisis follows. There’s no reliable ground.

The philosophy of meaningfulness emerges in a culture in which there is no common moral vocabulary or framework.34. 关于意义的哲学萌生于一个没有共同的道德词汇和道德体系的文化之中。framework: 体系，框架。It emerges amid radical pluralism,35. radical: 完全的，彻底的； pluralism:多元化，多元性。when people don’t want to judge each other. Meaningfulness emerges when the fundamental question is, do we feel good?

Real moral systems are based on a balance of intellectual rigor36. rigor: 严谨，缜密。and aroused moral sentiments. Meaningfulness is pure and self-regarding feeling, the NutraSweet37. NutraSweet: 阿斯巴甜，一种人造甜味剂。of the inner life.