Joy and Pain 愉悦与痛苦

My husband and I recently saw a play about an elderly couple spending their forty-fourth season at their summer home in Maine. The underlying theme was the couple’s sense of time running out ? of their own mortality. We were deeply moved by the terror as well as the courage of the old people. We laughed at their charming eccentricities and wept at their anguish. As the play ended, a woman in front of us beat a hasty retreat saying loudly to her companion, “I can’t stand plays that try to make me cry!”

I felt very sorry for that woman. If she could not bear to look at the dying, she must not have noticed the loving and the living, which wee present in equal part.

It is very hard to be fully human. To know the fullest dimensions of ourselves and others, we have to enlarge our capacity to feel deeply ? and there is no way to do that without opening up a great deal of pain. A very wise aunt of mine put it very well shortly before she died. During one of our frequent giggle sessions she suddenly looked at me and said, “I’ve loved the sound of your laughter since you were a baby, but even while it gave me pleasure it hurt me. I knew that if you could laugh with such joy, you’d also feel your sorrows very deeply.”

It is possible to skim the surface of life without being profoundly touched by anything, but it’s not very rewarding. Although my aunt was certainly right ? when I suffer it is no laughing matter! ? I pity those who close themselves off from pain, for in so doing they sacrifice their opportunities for a piercing sense of joy.

I know a woman whose only daughter died at age thirty-five, leaving two young children. The grandmother lives in New York, the two granddaughters in Alaska. Friends urged Grandma to visit her grandchildren after their mother’s death. “No, I can’t,” she said. “Jenny looks just the way Helen did as a child; it would kill me to see her.”

That was ten years ago. Jenny is now eighteen. Last summer she came to New York with money she’d saved from part-time jobs. When she wrote that she was coming, her grandmother wrote back that she was sorry, but it was an inconvenient time ? her apartment was about to be painted.

Helen had been a friend of mine, and I knew from Jenny’s letters to me that she was still mourning her mother and had some unfinished business to attend to. She wanted to see the place where her mother was born and had lived for many years. She also needed a sense of connection with her grandmother.

When Jenny’s grandmother told her not to come, I invited Jenny to visit me. When she walked through the door, I began to cry. It was shocking to see an almost perfect replica of Helen. I could understand how painful such a sight would be for Helen’s mother. But in avoiding that pain, she also cheated herself of the pleasure I had ? the pleasure of reliving some of the happy times I’d had with Helen, of taking her daughter to some of our favorite places. Jenny’s visit reminded me of my loss and of the tragedy that this lovely young woman could not know her mother. But I felt a sense of thanksgiving ? even triumph ? that so much of Helen lived on in Jenny. I carried and won; Grandma ran away and lost everything she might have had.

Looking back over my life, it seems to me that I have learned the most when I felt the greatest pain. My mother’s death, for example, made me more profoundly aware of the beauty in nature. My capacity for finding joy in the most ordinary events (watching a flower open, leaves turning red, a bird taking a bath) seems to deepen each time I live through great sorrow. Death makes life more precious; frustration makes success more fulfilling, failure makes the next accomplishment more meaningful.

In order to feel deeply it is necessary to feel everything. It is impossible to choose. You can’t really know how great is your sense of joy at a baby’s birth or your satisfaction at succeeding at a hard job unless you are also deeply aware of the anguish of separation and the pain of failure. It’s through the capacity to feel that we discover ourselves and others and explore the potential for a full, significant life.

This is an especially crucial issue for parents. Our natural inclination is to try to protect children from pain. We have the mistaken notion that if a child is happy we are doing a good job; if a child is sad we are failing as parents. But giving children the message that happy is good and sad is terrible decreases their capacity to explore the full range of human experiences.

Children need to understand that suffering, frustration and failure are not only inevitable but helpful. The parent who took a simple puzzle away from a four-year-old because, “He gets too upset and frustrated when he can’t get it right immediately,” did the child a great disservice. Children need to experience such feelings as they grow up; it helps them to develop the patience, persistence and ability to cope that they’ll need when a scientific experiment fails, a low grade is received after diligent study, or a belly flop occurs after a summer of diving lessons. There is nothing so terrible about failing and feeling pain; what hurts in the long run is not trying because of the fear of pain.

This is particularly true of human relationships. I once heard a father tell his nine-year-old son, “It doesn’t matter if David won’t play with you anymore; he wasn’t a nice person anyway. Maybe if you invite Kenneth to go to the ballgame with us on Saturday, he will be your friend.” But the break-up of an important relationship always hurts; it is appropriate to feel sad. If we push it aside we diminish the meaning ? and much of the joy ? of such relationships. It would be more helpful to say, “I know how you feel. It hurts when a good friend deserts you. It happens to all children ? and to grownups too ? and it takes awhile to start feeling better. But soon you’ll have a new friend and you’ll feel good again.”

This is not to say that we should ignore or make light of a child’s pain. The stiff-upper-lip approach can cripple a child’s capacity to feel as much as overprotection. If we say, for example, “Well, you’ll just have to sit there until you get the puzzle right,” or “stop whining about David; act like a man and take your lumps, the child may withdraw from the feelings because he is too lonely with them. Suffering needs compassion. Pain needs to be alleviated through sharing and sympathy.

By Eda LeShan
*****************************************************************

前几天我和丈夫一起看了一出戏，戏剧表现一对老年夫妻在缅因州避暑别墅庆贺自己共度四十四周年的故事，其潜在主题在于揭示老人切肤的感受：时光飞逝，人生尽头隐隐在即矣。我们为两位老人的深切恐惧及他们因此而表现出的非凡勇气伸深打动，为他们可爱的偏执而笑，为他们极度的痛苦而泣。演出结束时，我们前排一位妇女匆匆退场，边走边对她的同伴大声说：“我最受不了这叫人哭的戏了！”

我很为那女人惋惜，假如她不能承受直面死亡之痛，她一定就没有留意与死同在的生的可爱。

人生难以终生乐善不疲，要想全面了解自己和别人，就必须充分经历人生的各种感受——不经痛苦的磨砺哪来丰富的感受？我的一位极有见识的姨母临死前深刻地阐述过这个问题。在一次欢乐聚会上，姨母突然看着我说：“我特别喜欢你幼时的笑声，那笑声既令我愉快，有让我心痛。因为，你能那么欢快地笑，就一定会深切地痛。

趟过生命的河而不被任何东西碰触是可能的，但那就一无收益了。虽然姨母说得对——痛苦绝不是一件好玩的事！——可我还是怜悯那些把痛苦拒之门外的人，因为他们在这样做的同时，也失去了刻骨铭心感受愉快的机会。

我认识一个女人，她的女儿三十五岁时离开人世，留下两个年幼的孩子。这位外祖母住在纽约，两个外孙女住在阿拉斯加，朋友们都劝外祖母去看看两个失去母亲的孩子。“我不能去，”她说，“詹妮和她妈妈海伦小时候长得太像，见到她会勾起我无限痛苦。”

那是十年前的事，现在詹妮已经十八岁了。去年夏天她带着打零工攒的钱来到纽约，写信告诉外祖母她来了，可外祖母回信说她来的不是时候——因为他们的居室正要粉刷。

海伦曾是我的朋友，我从詹妮的来信看出，孩子依然深深怀念自己的母亲，试图完成某些未尽的事情：她想看看出生并生活过多年的地方，她需要与外祖母建立一种联系。

詹妮受外祖母拒绝后，我邀请她来我这儿。她进门的一刹那，我情不自禁地惊叫起来，太像了，简直就是海伦的翻版。我理解这情景会给海伦母亲带来什么样的痛苦，可她在拒绝痛苦的同时，也失去了我现在正享受的快乐——回忆当初海伦带着女儿和我一起游玩我们喜欢的地方的美好时光。詹妮的来访引起我对过逝的挚友的回忆，体味到眼前这位年轻姑娘甚至连母亲的印象都隐约模糊的悲哀，但我亦存一丝感激，甚至是喜悦；海伦在詹妮身上活脱脱再现了。我悲痛可我也因此而有所收获；外祖母躲避痛苦，可她却也因此失去了她本该获得的快乐。

回首往事，最痛苦的经历似乎给人最深切的启迪，比如，母亲的去世让我格外体会到大自然的美好。每经受一次痛苦，在平凡之中发现愉悦的能力（比如观赏花儿吐艳，叶儿变红，鸟儿淋浴）就增加一分。死亡令生命格外珍贵，挫折使成功更加完满，失败使来日的成就更有意蕴。

要想深切感受，就须感受所有，选择感受是不可能的。没有分娩的阵痛，哪会体味创造生命的喜悦？没有艰苦的努力，何来成功之后的满足？我们在感受中发现自己和他人，发掘完满而有意义的生命潜能。

这尤其是父母面临的一个严峻问题。家长总是情不自禁地在竭力避免孩子受苦，错误地以为，孩子幸福家长就尽职，孩子不幸家长就失职。这种孩子感觉幸福就好、感觉不幸就糟的观念，削弱了我们全面发掘人性经验的能力。

孩子需要理解痛苦、曲折和失败不但不可避免，而且对他们成长有益。家长拿走四岁孩子手里的玩具，惟恐“他一时弄不出来会灰心丧气，”无异贻误孩子。孩子成长中需要有这种挫折感，挫折感帮助他们发展耐心、恒心，帮助他们在科学实验失败时、在努力学习未果时、或者夏季学跳水肚皮重重地打在水面上时，都能处之泰然、应付自如。失败和痛苦不十分可怕，可怕的是因畏惧痛苦而拒绝尝试。

人与人相处时的关系尤为如此。一次我听到一位父亲对九岁的儿子说：“大卫不跟你玩没关系，他不是个好孩子。星期六你找肯尼斯和我们一起玩球吧，他会成为你的好朋友的。”和好朋友断交总是一件痛苦悲哀的事，如果我们就此把朋友抛置一边，肯定削弱交友的意义和愉悦。那位父亲如果这样说也许更有裨益：“我理解你的心情，被朋友抛弃是件很痛苦的事，这样的事所有孩子甚至大人都会遇到。你现在需要时间慢慢适应，很快就会有新朋友，心情重新好起来。”

我并不是说我们该忽视或轻视孩子的痛苦。漫步经心和过分溺爱都会削弱孩子的感觉能力。比如，假如我们说“自己坐在这儿玩这个智力玩具，好好玩出名堂来”，或者“别老抱怨大卫了，你自个活该”，孩子会因此而退出感觉，而痛苦是需要怜悯，需要同情和分担才能减轻的。

在生活中品尝痛苦并不表明我们是刻意为苦的苦行僧，以至最终被痛苦压垮。我有位朋友丈夫突然离世，她的医生给她开了一些镇静剂和安眠药。“谢谢”，她拒绝开药，“我需要感受痛苦，傻瓜似地东游西荡会让我觉得自己和斯蒂文的一段生活无关紧要。”这位朋友的感受是对的，但她有些过激了。有时候打击和痛苦太大，我们需要逃避一些时日，直到能从容待之。这种情况下，我觉得暂时适当求助一些支持，以缓解最初的打击是必要的。我对朋友说，“假如不强迫自己去竭力忍受这突如其来的痛苦，你会更深切地体味悲伤与痛苦的。”我们需要在严格的“面队现实”和胆怯逃避之间架起一座折中的桥梁。

沉醉酒精或毒品以求暂时逃避现实，这是极度危险的。依赖毒品所造成的身心痛苦远远超出我们日常生活中的挫折和痛苦，那些因此暂时解脱的人最终牺牲更大。

一位父亲曾经告诉我，当他不得不告诉自己六岁的儿子伦尼，他的狗被压死了时，真是痛苦万分，他担心儿子哀伤，对儿子说，“我知道这打击很大，如果你愿意，我们马上再买一只狗。”儿子哭着看着父亲，说，“不，现在不买，我现在需要想念本尼。”六个月以后，伦尼告诉父亲可以着手再觅新狗了。“我后来发现，”父亲对我说，“伦尼对第二条狗比对本尼更是爱护有加。这次经历不是让他失去了什么，而是给他增加了什么，我们为痛苦付出了代价，但我们以奇特的方式获得了回报。”

多年以前，丈夫送我一句引自陀思妥耶夫斯基的话，我把它帖在我的办公桌的上方：我唯一恐惧的，是我已不配自己承受的痛苦。每当我感到特别悲伤、无望和焦虑时，就一遍遍地诵读这一名言，它让我时时记起，只要我还配得上自己承受痛苦——只要我能从痛苦中更加理解自己，同情他人——我将享受痛苦之后的无尽快乐。