The Opposite of Loneliness
孤独的反义词
Marina Keegan
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
我们并没有一个词可以表达孤独的反义词，如果有的话，我就可以说那是我想要的生活。我感激在耶鲁找到了ta，我也害怕当我们明天醒来、离开耶鲁就会失去ta。
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
孤独的反义词不是爱，也不是团体；而是一种感觉，感觉到你周围有人，很多很多人，这些人聚在一起，他们都是你的朋友。在付过账单，你们围坐在桌边的时候能感受到。在凌晨4点，没人回去睡觉的时候能感受到。在有吉他相伴的夜晚，在几乎要忘了的夜晚，在一起做什么、一起去哪里、一起看什么、一起大笑的时候，都能感受到。还有帽子。
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
耶鲁有很多小圈子，把我们聚在一起。各种无伴奏合唱团、球队、社团、俱乐部。即使在那些没人陪、累得慌、睡不着的最孤独的夜晚，当我们跌跌撞撞回到家里的电脑前，这些小圈子也能让我们感到有人爱、安全感和归属感。但到了明年，我们就不再属于这些小圈子了。我们不再和所有的朋友住在同一区了。我们也不再有一堆群聊小组了。
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
这让我害怕。比起找到好工作、适合居住的城市和靠谱的另一半，我更害怕失去这张聚集了我们所有人的网。孤独的反义词实在难以用语言表达，这也是我此刻的感受。
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves…” “if I’d…” “wish I’d…”
但有一件事很清楚：人生中最好的岁月并不在我们身后。最好的岁月是我们的一部分，并注定在我们的成长过程中一再出现，不管是搬去纽约发展、离开纽约、希望自己还住在纽约或搬离纽约。我计划30岁时参加很多party。我计划年纪大了仍然过得快活。“最好的岁月”的想法都来自那些俗套的话“应该……”“如果我曾经……”“真希望我曾……”。
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
当然，我们希望自己做过这些事：读完所有的阅读材料，认识走道对面的男生。我们是自己最苛刻的评论家，让自己失望特别容易。睡得太晚、拖延、草草了事。我不止一次回顾高中时的自己，忍不住想：那时的我是怎么做到的？我怎么会那么用功？原来我们内心的不安全感一直都在，并将永远跟随下去。
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
但问题是，我们都这样。没有谁睡到自然醒。没有谁读完所有的阅读材料（除了极个别拿奖学金的疯狂同学）。我们都用这些高得离谱的标准要求自己，我们可能永远也达不到对未来自己的完美想象。但我觉得这样也ok的。
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
我们还年轻。我们还这么年轻。我们才22岁。我们还有很多时间。但有时我们会感伤，尤其在party结束后一个人躺着的时候，或是想要放弃一门功课、收起书本走出房间的时候，那种潜伏在集体意识中的感伤就来了。我们感伤的是——我们好像太迟了。别人不知何时已经走在前面了，更有才华、更专业，在拯救世界的道路上走得更远，并在以某种方式创造或发明或改进。我现在才开始太迟了，我必须迎头赶上，必须开始了。
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
我们初来耶鲁的时候，都觉得自己有无限可能。这种巨大且难以言说的能量也很容易就溜走了。以前我们不需要做选择，但突然间我们必须要做选择。我们之中有些人有明确的目标。他们十分清楚自己想要什么，并一路追求，去医学院求学，在最佳NGO工作，专注做研究。对这些人，我想说“恭喜你”和“去你的”。
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
但是，对我们大多数人来说，我们不知怎么地就在人文学科的海洋里迷失了。我们不确定我们走上了哪条路，也不知道我们当初是否该选这条路。如果当初我选了生物专业的话……如果我大一时就涉及新闻学的话……如果当时我想到申请这个专业那个专业的话……
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
我们要记得：我们还能做任何事。我们可以改变想法。我们可以从头再来。可以获得post-bac证书（介于学士学位和硕士学位之间的课程），也可以第一次尝试写作。一切都太迟了的想法很可笑。真的很可笑。我们刚刚大学毕业。我们还年轻。我们不能、一定不要失掉无限可能的感觉，因为到最后，这才是我们的全部。
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
在大一那年冬天的一个周五晚上，我接到一通朋友们打来的电话，约我和他们在EST碰面。尽管我很困惑，但我还是迈着沉重的步伐走向SSS，那可能是整个校园最远的地方了。惊人的是，直到我走到了SSS的大门前，才开始疑惑为什么朋友们选在耶鲁的行政大楼开party，怎么可能啊。当然了，他们根本不在那儿。但外面好冷，我的身份证神奇地让我进了SSS大楼，我拿出了电话。那里很安静，彩色玻璃窗外的木头和大雪几乎看不到了。然后我坐下，向上看，看着我身处的这间宽敞的房间。在我之前，曾有数千个人坐在这里。我一个人在深夜的纽黑文市的暴风雪中，却感到极度的安全。
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
我们没有孤独的反义词，如果有的话，我会说那就是我在耶鲁的感觉。也是此时此刻我的感觉，和你们所有人一起，有爱、感动、谦卑、害怕。我们不要失掉ta。
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
2012，我们在一起。我们一起为这个世界做点什么吧。