The school of life｜物竞天择，适者生存

A key principle governing the natural world is that animals adapt to thrive in particular habitats; what we call an animal's character is essentially a set oftraits that gives it maximal opportunity to flourish in specific circumstances.
自然界的核心法则是：物竞天择，适者生存；本质上所谓的动物性格，就是特定环境塑造出来的最适合动物生存的一系列特性。
The owl is - for example - furtive and nocturnal to help it succeed in crowded habitats with heavy pressures on food supplies.
比如，猫头鹰选择了隐蔽和夜间生存的方式，是为了在食物竞争激烈的环境中求得生存的优势。
Stick insects are docile and skilled at disappearing into a background of twigs and branches to help them avoid the attention of rodents and spiders.
而竹节虫温顺，善于在树枝和树干之中隐藏自己，是为了避开了啮齿类动物和蜘蛛的注意。
And African wild dogs are collaborative and respectful of hierarchies to lend them the very best chances of cornering impalas and springboks.
非洲鬣狗集体猎食和尊从等级体系，是为了增加捕猎羚羊和跳羚的成功率。
We humans are - in the end, beneath a layer of civilisation - not so different.
事实上，脱掉文明的外衣，我们人类和动物没什么区别。
We too adapt our characters to suit our specific habitats, though what we mean by habitats are not corners of the jungle or grassland but rather our families of birth.
我们也会根据自己生活的环境，不是丛林或草原，而是我们出生的家庭，调整自己的性格。
Just like many animals, we arrive defenceless into highly distinctive circumstances to which we must adjust in order to thrive.
就像很多动物一样，我们毫无防备地来到这个世界，来到高度独特的环境中，必须适应才能生存下去。
In certain families, it will in short order become obvious - to the highly attuned psyche of a child - that success here requires that one keep a very low profile and never challenge the reigning figures of authority.
在一些家庭里，孩子们很快就能高度敏锐地意识到，要在这样的家境下长大成人，就必须保持极低的调子，绝不能挑战权威。
In other habitats, the child will learn that it must constantly entertain everyone in order to be noticed while in others still, a child might surmise it needs to act up and get into certain forms of trouble to lay claim to a scarce supply of attention.
在一些家境中，有的孩子需要不停地逗乐周围的人才能得到注意。而在另一些家境中，孩子们或许会觉得，他们需要淘气一些或惹点事儿才能抢夺有限的关注。
This thesis can be helpful- and opens up avenues of compassion - when we encounter people whose behaviour is especially puzzling or maddening.
这个论题的用处在于，让我们得以同情、理解、包容人类令人迷惑和难以容忍的行为。
Why does a certain person keep telling lies?
为什么会有人不停地说谎?
Why does another person find it so hard to be emotionally warm?
又为什么会有人难以表达亲昵和传递温暖?
We may need to look for answers in the adaptive strategies required by the
habitats of their birth: evasions from the truth might be vital when there is someone furious and intolerant in the house; just as emotional reserve may be
a highly intelligent adaptive move when there is a care-giver who is emotionally erratic or absent.
我们或许得从人类成长环境所需的适应策略中找到答案：在家中如果有个易怒且不能容不下人的照顾者，躲避可能就成为必要的生存策略；同样地，如果照护者情绪不稳定或者经常缺位，在情感上保持距离就可能是一种聪明的适应方式。
What makes life notoriously difficult for we humans, as for many animals, is that our habitats do not stand still.
就像许多动物一样，人类生活之所以充满挑战，原因是我们的生存环境是不断变化的。
As the places we dwell in alter, so the traits that we originally developed to cope with them risk becoming either redundant or plain problematic.
随着居住环境的改变，我们最初为适应原生家庭而形成的特性，可能会变得不再适用或者引起新的问题。
It might, for example, have made great sense to hone a shouty, aggressive manner in an early habitat populated by burly competitive siblings, but this manner may, in the context of an adult relationship or an office environment, give rise to severe malfunction and upset.
比如说，家里的兄弟姐妹粗鄙、好胜心强，在这样的成长环境中形成善于大声争吵和攻击性的行为，是有其道理的，但是这种行为模式放在成人世界或者办公室环境中，可能会引发严重的问题和困扰。
Similarly, it may once have made total sense to develop a hypervigilant outlook - with constant panic, lightning responses to threats and round the clock alarm - when the habitat of birth contained an abusive and unboundaried parent.
同样地，如果一个人成长的环境中，父母边界模糊、滥用权威，那么孩子发展出一种高度警觉、常常处于恐慌状态、对威胁反应迅速并且时刻保持警惕的心态，是完全合理的。
But what once guaranteed safety may now destroy any chances of the peaceful and settled adult existence one craves and deserves.
The history of animal species is filled with melancholy examples of failures to adapt to new circumstances.
To be a light speckled moth was wholly strategic before the Industrial Revolution - and a ticket to evolutionary disaster thereafter.
It was once brilliant for a German Shepherd to try to bite most things that came its way - and yet a route to ostracism and extinction once it had to dwell in tightly-packed cities filled with young children.
We may ourselves - without realising it - be behaving in ways that only ever really assisted us in the very specific habitat of our birth.
Our closed characters, our deceitfulness, our manicjoy or round-the-clock fear may be legacies of habitats we left behind decades ago.
Our angry father or manipulative mother, our jealous siblings or moralistic caregiver are no longer here - while the traits we needed to cope with them endure and continuously marr our relationships and our careers.
It may be time to say farewell to much in our characters that was only ever a clever and creative strategy for survival in a narrow world that no longer exists.

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