快乐不必认真The Importance of Doing Things Badly（1/2）

Uand these new words before you read this article.

1. enhance[hɑ:ns]v. 提高, 增加, 加强

2. falcy[f?l?si:]n. 谬误; 谬见; 谬论

3. proverbial[pr?v?:bi?l]adj. 谚语的, 闻名的, 谚语式的

4. legitiate[lid?itiit]adj. 合法的, 婚生的, 正当的

5. ible[k??b?l]adj.可鄙的

6. prevalence[prev?l?nt]n. 流行, 盛行; 流行程度; 普遍, 广泛

7.vaglorio[ve?n?gl?:ri:?s]adj. 虚荣的

8. ferior[fi?ri?]adj. 下等的; 差的; 下级的

9. disposition[,disp?zi??n]n. 性情, 处理, 处置

10. hesitatioe???n]n. 踌躇, 犹豫; 口吃; 含糊

I. A. Willias was bornEngnd and educated at Cabridge. After World War I he served as a rrespo for the London Tis. Willias wrote several books oeenth-tury poetry and draa, published widelyjournals and agazes, and published lles of his owry. The follog article first appearedLondon’s The Outlook1923.

Perhaps the greatest threat to productivityboth work and py is the fear of dog thgs badly . This article offers so fort. Willias pots out that there are any thgs worth dog badly, and that our lives are enri, are vaable to ost peopleproportion to how enthiastically they do the, rather than how well.

Charles Lab wrote a series of essays upon popur falcies. I do not, at the ont, carry the very clearlyy ory; but, uhat treachero servant isleadsore even than she ually does, he did not write of one piece of proverbial so-called wisdo that has always seed toto be peculiarly pernicio. And this saw, this scrap of specio advice, this untruth asqueradg as logic, is ohat I reber to have had hurled at y head at frequent tervals fro y earliest youth right up to y present advanced age. How any tis have I not been told that“If a thg is worth dog at all, it is worth dog well”?

Never was there a ore untruthful word spokenear. For the world is full of thgs that are worth dog, but certaly not worth dog well. Was it not so great a sage as Herbert Spencer who said to the young an who had jt beaten hi at billiards,“Moderate skill, sir, is the sign of a good eye and a steady hand, but skill such as yours argues a youth isspent?”Is any ga worth pyg suprely well, at the price of nstant practid application?

Agast the professional pyer I say nothg; he is a publitertaer, like any other, and by his skillhis partik aateur? Tohe sees one of the ost ible of ankd. He earns no oney, but devotes

hiself, for the re selfish pleasure of the thg, to so ga, which he pys dayday out; he breaks dowary dist beeeeur and the professional; eventually his skill deserts hi, and he leaves behd hi nothg that is of service to his fellow n—not a brick id, not an acre ploughed, not a le written, not even a faily supported and educated by his bor.

It is true that he has provided eant for a certa nuber of persons, but he has never had the pck to subit hiself to the test by which we deand that every eaer should jtify his choice of a callg—the deonstration of the fact that the public is willg to pay hi for his eant. And, when his day is over, what is left, not even to the world, but to hiself? Nothg but a na that is at oten, or is rebered by stout gentlencbs.

The pyg of gas, certaly, is a thg which is not worth dog well. But that does not prove that it is not worth dog at all, as the proverb would, by iplication, persuade . There is nothg reeable and satary than pyg a ga whie likes, and the circe of dog it badly terferes with the pleasure of no real devotee of any pasti. The an who ds whether or not he s is no true sportsan—which observation is trite, but the rule it iplies is seldo observed, and paratively few people really py gas for the sheer enjoynt of the pyg. Is this not proved by the prevalend popurity of handicaps? Why should we expect to be given pots unless it be that we wish toby ans other than our own skill?

“Ah! but,”y reader ay say,“the weaker pyer wants to receive potsorder that he ay give the stronger one a better ga.”Really, I do not believe that that is so. Possible, sotis, a strong and vaglorio pyer ay wish to give pots,order that his victory ay be the ore notable. But I do not thk that even this is the true expnation. That, I spect, was given tothe other day by the secretary of a wn-tennis tournant,which I pyed.“Why all this nonsense of handicaps? Why not letbe squarely beaten, and doh it?”I asked hi.“Becae,”He replied,“if we did not give handicaps, none of the less good pyers would enter.”Is that not a nfession that the ajority ofhave both realized the true vae dog a trivial thg badly, for its own sake, and t needs have our ds buoyed and cheated to a false sense of excellence?

Moreover it is not only such trsically trivial thgs as gas that are worth dog badly. This is a truth which, oddly enough, t freely of so thgs—but not of others—and as a thg which we are quite o do will letstag. Actg, at its best,be a great art, a thg worth dog suprely well, though its worth, like that of all terpretative arts, is lessened by its evanesce. For it worksthe ipera diu of huan flesh and blood, and the thg that the actor create—for what we call an terpretative artist is really a creative artist erishable diu—is an ipression upon, aion or a thought aroed , the ds of an audience, and is capable of rerd.

Actg, thepostute—though I have only sketched ever so briefly the proof of y belief— be a great art. But is anyone ever deterred fro takg partaateur theatricals by the ion that he ot act well? Not a bit of it! And quite rightly not, for actg is one of the thgs about which I a writg this essay—the thgs that are worth dog badly.

Another such thg is ic; but here the proverbial falcy aga exerts its power, as it does not, for so obscure and unreasong discriation,actg. Most people see to thk that if they ot sg, or py the piano, fiddle, or sackbut, adirably well, they t not do any of these thgs at all. That they should not discriately force their ferior perforances upon the

public, or even upon their acquatances, I adit. But that there is no pce“ the ho”for ferior ical perforances, is an untruth that I ftly deny.

How any sons and daughters have not, with a very sall talent, given their parents—and even the less fondly prejudiced ears of their friends—great pleasure with the sgg of siple songs? Then one day there es to the sger the serpent of dissatisfa; sgg lessons are taken, and—if the pupil is of oderate talent and odest disposition—liitations are disvered. And then,ne cases out of ten, the sgg is dropped, like a hot penny. How any fathers have not banished ic fro their hos by enuragg their daughters to take sgg lessons? Yet a ho ay be the fresher f that would deserve brickbats at a parish .

I ay pae here to notice the curio exception that people who ot on any aount be persuaded to sgthe drag-roo, or eventhe bath, will without hesitation uplift their tuneless voices at religio etgs orchurch. There is a perfectly good and honorable expnation of this, I believe, but it belongs to the real of taphysid is beyond y present spe.

This cursed belief, that if a thg is worth dog at all, it is worth dog well, is the cae of a great ipoverishntour private life, and also, to so extent, of the l of standardsour public life. For this te of proverbial faith has o effects on sall talents: it leads odest persons not to exercise the at all, and iodest persons to attept to do so too ud to force theselves upon the public. It leads to the decay of letter-writg and of the keepg of diaries, and, as surely, it leads to the publication of oirs and diaries that should rea lockedthe writers’desks.

It leads Mr. Bnk not to write verses at all—which he ight very well do, for the sake of his oess, and for the aent of his friends—and it leads Miss Dash to pester the overworked editors of vario journals with her unsuessful iitations of Mr. deMare, Mr. Yeats, and Dr. Bridges.The result is that our national artistic life now suffers fro o great needs: A wider aateur practice of the arts, and a higher, ore excsive, professional standard. Until these are achieved we shall not get the best out of our souls.

The truth is, I nceive, that there is for ost ofonly ohg—beyond, of urse, our duties of citizenship and our personal duties as sons, or hbands, or fathers, daughters, or wives, or others—that is worth dog well—that is to say, with all our energy. That ohg ay be writg, or it ay be akg stea-enges,bricks. But after that there are hundreds of thgs that are worth dog badly, with only part of our energy, for the sake of the rexation they brg , and for the ntacts which they givewith our ds. And the snd realizes this, as once she did, the happier, the ore ed, the racio, will our nd be.

There are even, I ata, thgs that aretheselves better done badly than well. sider fishg, where one’s whole pleasure is often spoiled by havg to kill a fish. Now, if one uld ntrive always to try to catch a fish, and o do so, one ight—But that is aory.

I.A.威廉姆斯生于英格兰，在剑桥受过教育。第一次世界大战后，他成为伦敦《泰晤士报》的一名记者。威廉姆斯写了几本关于18世纪诗歌和戏剧方面的书，发表在各种期刊和杂志上，出版了他自己的诗集。以下这篇文章最早出现在1923年伦敦的《展望》一书中。

或许，对工作和创作而言，最大的威胁莫过于唯恐做得不好或者害怕做错。对于这个问题，这篇文章就是一种安慰了。威廉姆斯认为，很多事情都应该草草行事，这样，我们的生活才有意义，我们的个性才能得以发展完善。运动和音乐就是两个很好的例子，大多数人都酷爱运动和音乐，它们的确能给人带来乐趣，仅是这一点就够了，人们并不需要有多深的造诣。查尔斯·拉姆写了一系列有关时下谬误的文章。可惜我一时记不清了。但如果不是狡猾的仆人突然误导我，我倒不觉得他写过什么公众交口称赞而我却认为有害的文章。一件事情值得去做，那么，就应该好好去做。”从没有哪一个谬论让人们如此热衷。因为世界上有很多事情都值得去做，但并不是事事都应该好好去做。伟大的哲人赫伯特·斯宾塞曾对刚在台球桌上战胜他的年轻人说：“先生，一般球技表现为好的眼力和稳定的手法，但从你的球技上看，你浪费了很多时间。”是否每一种游戏都值得持之以恒地练习和应用呢？

对职业运动员，我无话可说。他们是公众表演者，和其他人一样，他们通过自己在某项特定运动中的技术，至少可以实现人的首要社会责任——通过自己的合法劳动维持自己及家人的生活。但对于高明的业余爱好者，我们该怎么说呢？我认为，这些人是最应受到鄙视的。他们没有赚钱，仅仅为了自私的娱乐，就日复一日地投身于这种游戏。他们忽视了业余爱好者和专业人士之间合理的区别。最终他们为自己的技术所累，他们没做出任何对社会有价值的东西，没有垒起一块砖，没有犁过一亩地，没有写过一行文字，甚至没有通过劳动来养活全家和让自己受到教育。

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