开眼窗外事

By+Sam+Anderson

窗口向來是一个隐喻，横亘在外界和内部之间，是阻隔，也是贯通，区分着“内”与“外”。正如我们常说的，眼睛是心灵之窗，我们的所知便是通过从窗口来窥视外面的世界而得到的。在这个意义上，“开明”一词颇有意思，只有敞开窗户，才能明明白白，而不至于被自己固有的观念所蒙蔽，才能透过外在的表象，看到内在的本质。

Our windows keep shrinking. Our vision narrows and narrows. Mine roams， for much of each day， in a space roughly the size of a playing card： the rectangle of my phones screen.1 The view through that piece of glass is not out onto the actual world but inward， down a digital depth over which I exercise near-dictatorial2 control. If I want to see a bird on my phone， I see a bird. If I want to see a manatee captioned by a motivational slogan，3 I see that. This means， of course， that my phone is not really a window at all. A real window is something that frames our fundamental lack of control.4

Windows are， in this sense， a powerful existential tool： a patch of the world， arbitrarily framed，5 from which we are physically isolated. The only thing you can do is look. You have no influence over what you will see. Your brain is forced to make drama out of whatever happens to appear. Boring things become strange. A blob of mist balances on top of a mountain； leafless trees contort themselves in slow-motion interpretive dance； heavy raindrops make the puddles boil.6 These things are a tiny taste of the bigness of the world. They were there before you looked； they will be there after you go. None of it depends on you.

Sometimes what you see can be astonishing. One day， I was taking a nap in the red chair in my office when I woke up to the sound of a car crash. I sat up and looked， immediately， out my window. Across the street， in a parking lot， a car had just backed into a chain-link fence7. The car must have been moving fast， because it was in bad shape： Its hood had popped up， its windshield wipers were snapping back and forth under a perfectly clear sky and part of its bumper was sitting on the ground.8 The fence was mangled9， bent out in exactly the shape of the cars back end.

I couldnt believe I was seeing this， on an otherwise ordinary weekday morning， out of my office window. I watched the driver get out of the car. He was stocky with a shaved head； he wore cargo shorts and a flannel shirt unbuttoned to expose his chest hair.10 I disliked him immediately. After a few seconds of assessing the damage， he walked around the car and opened the passenger door—from which a very small child scrambled out11. A toddler12 in the front seat！ My disdain for this man increased exponentially.13

As the child ran around the parking lot， the man tried to repair the damage he caused. He attempted to tug14 the ruined fence back into place， but it wouldnt move. He tried to shove15 the fallen piece of bumper back onto his car， but that only made the rest of his bumper fall off too.

I sat in my red chair， looking out my window， silently cheering.

The man tried， a little harder， to fix the fence. He grabbed its support pole， which was wickedly bent，16 and pulled against it with his full weight. The pole suddenly broke， and the man fell hard onto the blacktop17. The entire fence fell on top of him， and one of his sandals18 flew off and landed 10 feet away on the sidewalk.

I think I laughed out loud. This was a slapstick19 masterpiece. It was brightening my whole day， the failure of this terrible man. He climbed out from under the collapsed fence and limped20 back to the apartment building above the lot， rubbing his elbow.

That， I thought， would be the end of it. The man—that villainous man—was going to leave all the chaos behind for someone else to clean up.21 It was only the middle of the morning， but I imagined him sprawled out on his sofa with a case of beer， eating horrible snacks， while his child played with fire and broken glass and battery acid near a malfunctioning electrical socket.22

But this is the power of windows： They contradict23 your easy assumptions. They scribble24 over your mental cartoons with the heavy red pen of reality. The man emerged a few minutes later with some tools. He got to work immediately， detaching one of the fences bent support bars and hammering it straight on the asphalt.25 For the next hour， I watched out my window as he doggedly fixed the fence， straightening and reattaching its support bars， scrupulously unbending its bent chainlink.26 He even improved it. He stole a support bar from another fence farther back in the parking lot and added it to this one. Now the fence would be extra secure， stronger than before， impervious27 to damage.

This odious28 man was actually a hero. I was the lazy one， with my kneejerk judgments and distant clichés， my superiority from three stories up.29 My window had taken a break， that day， from its usual programming—crows and squirrels roaming over a dead tree， cars piling up at a stoplight—to put on a little passion play for me， an allegory about the nobility of the human spirit.30 My ugly assumptions， I realized， were all about myself. I would never have fixed that fence； I would have panicked31 and run away. My window had woken me up from a nap to teach me a lesson in humility32.

The incident changed my entire day. I went back to my shallow screens with new determination. Years later， I still look out my window at that fence almost every day. It still looks brand new. It makes me wonder what else that man has improved， and how I can make myself more like him.

我们的窗口不断缩小。我们的视野愈发狭窄。而我的视野终日都在约摸一张纸牌大小的范围内游离：也就是我手机的屏幕。透过这块玻璃，视野不是向外朝着真实世界，而是向内深入到一个数码世界，在那里我有着近乎独裁的控制权。如果我想在手机上看见一只鸟，我就能看到一只鸟。如果我想看到一只被标上励志口号的海牛，我就能看到。当然，这就意味着我的手机根本不是窗口。一扇真正的窗恰恰应该是对我们本质上难以掌控外界的表达。

从这个意义上来讲，窗口是一个强大的存在主义工具：一处任意划定的所在，在实际上把我们与外界隔离开来。你唯一能做的，就是看着，你对你将看到的东西没有任何影响力。你被迫去“脑补”那些恰好发生的事情。无趣之事变得新奇。一片薄雾在山顶盘桓；落光叶子的树缓慢扭动着形意舞；沉重的雨点让一个个的小水洼沸腾。这些东西都是大千世界的微观体验，在你看到之前就存在，在你走后继续存在。一切都不依附着你而存在。

有时你的亲眼所见会让人惊奇。一天，我在办公室的一张红椅子上小憩，当我听到撞车的动静时便醒了过来。我坐起来，马上朝窗外看去。在马路对面的一个停车场里，一辆车刚好倒车撞进了铁丝网里。那辆车一定是开得很快，因为撞得蛮厉害：引擎盖都弹开了，雨刷在一个大晴天里来回晃着，啪啪作响，保险杠的一端已经掉在了地上。围栏受损，刚好被撞出了一个车尾形状。

眼前所见让我难以置信，在一个本来好端端的工作日上午，我办公室窗外竟然发生了这样的事情。我盯着司机下了车。他身板结实，剃了个光头；穿了条工装短裤，法兰绒衬衫没系扣子，露出胸毛。我立马对他感到厌恶。他花了几秒查看破损，然后绕过车身打开了副驾驶的门——从里面爬出一个非常小的孩子。居然让这么小的孩子坐在前排座位！我对他的厌恶之情无以复加。

就当孩子在停车场上乱跑时，这男人试着去修补他造成的破坏。他试图用蛮力将受损的围栏复原，却掰不动围栏。他又想把掉下来的那部分保险杠给硬推回去，但这一推反而让整个保险杠都掉下来了。

我坐在我的红椅子上，看着窗外，心中暗喜。

那个男人又试了一次，更卖力地想搞定围栏。他抓住那根被撞得不严重弯曲的支柱，用尽全力地想去掰直。谁知支柱忽然断裂，那人重重地摔在沥青路上。整个围栏都倒在了他身上，他的一只凉鞋飞了出去，落在10英尺开外的人行道上。

我觉得自己当时笑出了声。真是出闹剧般的杰作。这个糟糕男人的失败，让我的一整天都熠熠生辉。他从倒下的围栏下面爬出来，一瘸一拐地走回了停车场边上的公寓楼，边走边揉着手肘。

我那时就想，这事该结了。那个男的——可恶之至——肯定是想一走了之，把个烂摊子留给别人收拾。那会儿还是上午的九十点左右，但我寻思他会呈大字躺在沙发上，喝着罐啤酒，吃着垃圾零食，而他的孩子在坏掉的电插头旁边，把火、碎玻璃和蓄电池酸液当玩具。

但窗口的力量出现了：来否定你想当然的假设，用现实粗重的红笔在你脑海的卡通画上涂抹打叉。几分钟后，那个男的带着工具出现了。他立即开始干活，把一根撞弯的支柱从围栏上拆下来，放在沥青路上用锤子砸直了。在随后的一小时里，我看着窗外，他在那儿顽强地修补着围栏，把支柱一根根地敲直后再装回去，小心翼翼地掰直被撞弯的铁丝网。他甚至还加固了围栏，从停车场远处的另一处围栏那里偷偷挪来了一根支柱，用到了这边。现在，这处围栏应该比之前更结实牢固，固若金汤。

这可恶的男人竟是条汉子。我才是懒惰者，装的都是下意识的妄断，事不关己的陈腔滥调，高高挂起的优越感。那天，我的窗口从司空 见惯的程序设置中开了小差——从枯树上跑来跑去的乌鸦松鼠，信号灯前排起的车队变成了为我上演的那一小出“受难记”，亦是崇高人文精神的一则隐喻。我意识到，我不堪的假设实际上都是自己内心的投射。我才不会去修补那围栏呢，我只会惊慌失措，然后逃之夭夭。我的窗口把我从小憩中唤醒，给我上了一节谦逊之课。

这个小事故改变了我的一天。我带着新的决心回到了自己肤浅的手机屏幕上。多年之后，几乎每天我仍会望向窗外，看看那围栏。它看起来还是崭新的。我不禁会去想那个男人还做了什么好事，而我怎么才能让自己更像他。

1. roam： 漫游，漫步；rectangle： 长方形，矩形。

2. dictatorial： 独裁的，专断的。

3. manatee： 海牛；caption： 加上说明，加上标题；motivational slogan： 激励口号。

4. frame： 表达，构建；fundamental： 基本的，根本的。

5. existential： 存在主义的，有关存在的；patch： 小片；arbitrarily： 任意地，武断地。

6. blob： 一团，无固定形状的东西；contort： 扭曲；interpretive dance： 形意舞，现代舞的一种，是以动作或戏剧性表现寓情的舞蹈；puddle：水坑，小水洼。

7. chain-link fence： 铁丝网围栏。

8. hood： 引擎盖；windshield： 挡风玻璃；wiper： 雨刷器；snap： 劈啪地响；back and forth： 反复地，来回土；bumper： （汽车）保险杠，缓冲器。

9. mangle： 使严重损坏。

10. stocky： 矮胖的，结实的；cargo shorts：工装短裤；flannel： 法兰绒。

11. scramble out： 爬出来。

12. toddler： 学步的小孩。

13. disdain： 鄙视，不屑；exponentially： 迅速增长地，迅猛发展地。

14. tug： 用力拉。

15. shove： 挤，猛推。

16. support pole： 支柱；wickedly： 非常，极其。

17. blacktop： 柏油路。

18. sandal： 涼鞋，拖鞋。

19. slapstick： 闹剧。

20. limp： 一拐一拐地走，缓慢费力地前进。

21. villainous： 恶棍似的，坏透的；chaos：混乱。

22. sprawl out： 四肢全伸开懒洋洋地躺（坐）着；malfunctioning： 出故障的；electrical socket： 电源插座。

23. contradict： 否定，反驳。

24. scribble： 任意涂写。

25. detach： 拆卸，使分开；asphalt： 沥青路。

26. doggedly： 顽强地，坚持不懈地；scrupulously： 一丝不苟地，小心翼翼地。

27. impervious： 不易损坏的，不受影响的。

28. odious： 可憎的，讨厌的。

29. knee-jerk： 下意识的，自动反应的；clichés： 陈词滥调，老生常谈；superiority： 优越感；story：（建筑物的）层。

30. passion： 常作the Passion，耶稣受难（故事），耶稣受难复活记；allegory： 寓言；nobility： 崇高。

31. panic： 惊慌失措，过去式为panicked。

32. humility： 谦卑，谦逊。