Daring to Be Simple

It can take a very long time indeed to work up the courage to be simple: to read simple books, to wear simple clothes, to have simple days and to say simple things. For a long time, all the glamour seem to lie with complexity. We are pulled towards rare and hard-to-follow ideas; we entertain our friends with elaborate meals; we pursue convoluted relationships; we have careers that enmesh us in cumbersome commitments; we fill our leisure hours with exotic hobbies.
要想变得简单，确实需要很长时间来鼓足勇气：读简单的书，穿简单的衣服，过简单的日子，说简单的话。长期以来，所有的魅力似乎都与复杂性有关。我们被罕见且难以理解的想法所吸引；我们用精致的饭菜款待朋友；我们追求错综复杂的人际关系；我们的职业让我们陷入繁琐的承诺中；我们用奇异的爱好填满闲暇时光。

And then at some point, we may sense and aspire to the real challenge of existence: to dare to sound – to some – like an idiot; to fix on certain basic truths that we've always known, to edit down our calendars, to wear only what is comfortable, to put in front of others the same sort of basic foods we like when we're alone, to have relationships solely with those who know how to be direct, to leave our days more or less free apart from one or two elementary pleasures (like tending to a garden, having a bath, going for a walk), to limit our reading to books we can understand and to communicate without inhibition all those heartfelt and essential things we know to those we are close to (that they are everything to us and that we'll miss them immensely when it is over).
然后在某个时候，我们可能会感觉到并渴望存在的真正挑战：敢于听起来——对某些人来说——像个白痴；坚持我们一直知道的基本真理，简化我们的日程表，只穿舒适的衣服，在别人面前摆放我们独处时喜欢的同类基本食物，只与那些懂得直接的人交往，除了一两个基本的乐趣（比如照料花园， 洗澡，散步），将我们的阅读限定在我们可以理解的书籍上，并毫无保留地向我们亲近的人传达我们所知道的那些发自内心的、必不可少的事情（即他们是我们的一切，当一切结束时，我们会非常想念他们）。

We worry so much about sounding boring or silly if we were to show ourselves without elaboration or live according to our own less adorned inclinations. We spend the major part of our lives trying – unsuccessfully – to be somebody else. It can be the thought of death that eventually loosens us from our pretensions. We realise – under its bracing influence – that there is no point burdening ourselves with habits, ideas, vocabularies, people and duties that don't belong to us. There is no point wasting time we can ill afford on those who can't non-defensively say 'I love you', with clothes that we can't keep clean, with books we can't understand and with crowded days heavy with panic and meaningless challenges. We finally lose our terror of coming across as a simpleton and a yokel.
我们如此担心，如果我们不加以修饰地展示自己，或者按照自己不那么修饰的倾向生活，会显得无聊或愚蠢。我们大部分时间都在徒劳地尝试成为别人。可能是对死亡的思考最终让我们卸下了伪装。在它振奋人心的影响下，我们意识到，没有必要让自己背负不属于我们的习惯、思想、词汇、人和责任。没有必要在那些无法毫无防卫地说“我爱你”的人身上浪费时间，也没有必要在那些我们难以清洁的衣服、我们无法理解的书籍以及充满恐慌和无意义挑战的拥挤日子上浪费时间。我们最终不再害怕被看作是傻瓜和乡巴佬。

We'll be properly mature, properly sophisticated even, we'll probably have had to go through a host of complications, by the time we learn to appreciate the art of being direct, easy-to-follow, emotionally straightforward, predictable, unhurried and – in the eyes of the frantic and the impressionable many – exceptionally dull.
我们会变得相当成熟，甚至相当老练，我们可能不得不经历许多复杂的事情，直到我们学会欣赏直接、易于理解、情感直白、可预测、从容不迫的艺术——即便这对于在那些忙碌和易受影响的许多人眼中——是异常乏味的。

词汇表
work up the courage 鼓起勇气
glamour 魅力，诱惑力
complexity [kəm'pleksəti] 复杂，复杂性
be pulled towards 被吸引
hard-to-follow 难以理解的，难懂的
elaborate 复杂的，精心制作的
convoluted 复杂的，错综的
enmesh 使陷入，使纠缠
cumbersome 笨重的，复杂的
exotic 异国的，奇异的
calendar 日程表，日历
tend to 照料，处理
without inhibition 毫无顾虑地，毫无保留地
heartfelt 由衷的，发自内心的
immensely 极其，非常
without elaboration  不加修饰地
unadorned 未装饰的，朴素的
inclination 倾向，意愿
pretension 自负，虚饰
bracing 令人振奋的
non-defensively 无防御地
simpleton 傻瓜，头脑简单的人
yokel乡巴佬
sophisticated 复杂的，老练的
a host of complications 大量复杂事件
straightforward 简单的，直接的
unhurried  不急的，从容的
frantic 忙乱的，狂乱的
impressionable 易受影响的，易受感动的
dull 枯燥的，乏味的

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