If you live in America in the 21st century youve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. Its become the 1）default response when you ask anyone how theyre doing： “Busy！”“So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is， pretty obviously， a boast 2）disguised as a complaint. And the 3）stock response is a kind of congratulation： “Thats a good problem to have，” or “Better than the opposite.”

Even children are busy now， scheduled down to the half-hour with classes and 4）extracurricular activities. They come home at the end of the day as tired as grown-ups. I was a member of the 5）latchkey generation and had three hours of totally 6）unstructured， largely unsupervised time every afternoon， time I used to do everything from surfing the 7）World Book Encyclopedia to making animated films to getting together with friends in the woods to chuck dirt clods directly into one anothers eyes， all of which provided me with important skills and insights that remain valuable to this day. Those free hours became the model for how I wanted to live the rest of my life.

生活在21世紀的美國，你很可能已經(jīng)聽過太多人說自己有多忙了。問起某人近況時，“忙啊”、“太忙了”、“忙瘋了”已經(jīng)成為了大家的默認回答。很明顯，這些話看似在抱怨，實質(zhì)上卻是在炫耀。于是得到的無非就是一些恭維的客套回應(yīng)：“忙可是件好事啊”、“忙總比不忙好”。

現(xiàn)在，連小孩子也忙。他們的日程被精確到以半小時來計算的各種課程和課余活動所填滿。晚上回到家里，他們和大人們一樣精疲力盡。而我小時候則是眾多“掛鑰匙兒童”中的一員，每天下午都有三個小時完全無安排無人管的時間。在那些時間里，我干過各種各樣的事情，例如翻閱《世界百科全書》、制作動畫片、和伙伴們到樹林里玩，甚至還互相把土塊直接砸到對方的眼睛里。這些經(jīng)歷讓我掌握了不少重要的技能，讓我長了見識，令我至今依然獲益匪淺。兒時那些自由時光也成為了我希望度過余生的模式。

The present 8）hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life； its something weve chosen， if only by our 9）acquiescence to it. Not long ago I Skyped with a friend who was driven out of the city by high rent and now has an artists residency in a small town in the south of France. She described herself as happy and relaxed for the first time in years. She still gets her work done， but it doesnt consume her entire day and brain. She says it feels like college—she has a big circle of friends who all go out to the cafe together every night. She has a boyfriend again. （She once ruefully summarized dating in New York：“Everyones too busy and everyone thinks they can do better.”） What she had mistakenly assumed was her personality—driven， 10）cranky， anxious and sad—turned out to be a 11）deformative effect of her environment. Its not as if any of us wants to live like this， any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the 12）hierarchy of cruelty in high school—its something we collectively force one another to do.

現(xiàn)代人的這種“忙碌歇斯底里癥”其實并非生活所必需，也不是生活之必然。忙，只是我們默認接受的一個選擇而已。不久前，我和一個朋友通過語音通信軟件Skype聊天。她因為受不了高房租，從城里搬了出來，現(xiàn)在，她落腳法國南部一個小鎮(zhèn)安居，搞自己的藝術(shù)。她對我描述說，這么多年來，她頭一次感覺到自己那么的快樂和輕松。如今她還是要工作，但卻無需耗盡她一天的時間和精力了。她形容現(xiàn)在的生活就像上大學(xué)時那樣：有一大幫朋友，每晚都一起出去泡咖啡館。她還交了新男友。（她以前曾這樣悲觀地總結(jié)在紐約時的戀愛：“每個人都太忙，人人都想自己更出色。”）她曾誤以為自己性格沖動、暴躁、焦慮、憂郁，現(xiàn)在看來，那都是被她原先所處的環(huán)境所扭曲改造出來的。并不是我們都想要這樣的生活，并不是我們都想被堵在馬路上，都擠到體育場互相踐踏，或者陷于高中生那些冷酷欺凌之中——這些都是我們集體無意識地迫使彼此過上的生活。

But just in the last few months， Ive 13）insidiously started， because of professional obligations， to become busy. For the first time I was able to tell people， with a straight face， that I was “too busy” to do this or that thing they wanted me to do. I could see why people enjoy this complaint； it makes you feel important， 14）sought-after and put-upon. Except that I hate actually being busy. Every morning my in-box was full of e-mails asking me to do things I did not want to do or presenting me with problems that I now had to solve. It got more and more intolerable until finally I fled town to the Undisclosed Location from which Im writing this.

Idleness is not just a vacation， an indulgence or a vice； it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body， and deprived of it we suffer a mental 15）affliction as disfiguring as 16）rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole， for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is， paradoxically， necessary to getting any work done.“Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do，” wrote 17）Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth. Archimedes“18）Eureka” in the bath， Newtons apple， 19）Jekyll & Hyde and the 20）benzene ring： history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments and dreams. It almost makes you wonder whether loafers， 21）goldbricks and noaccounts arent responsible for more of the worlds great ideas， inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking.

然而，就在最近幾個月，因為專業(yè)職責的緣故，我在不知不覺中變得忙碌起來。我第一次可以板著臉對別人說，我“太忙”了，他們希望我去做的這事那事，我都沒時間去做。我明白到了人們?yōu)楹稳绱藰酚诒г棺约汉苊?，因為這樣會讓他們自我感覺很重要、很搶手、能幫得上忙。只可惜我對忙碌實在深惡痛絕。每天早上，我的收件夾里都塞滿了郵件，內(nèi)容要么要求我做些我不想做的事，要么丟給我一些得馬上解決的問題。我越來越不耐煩，最后，我逃出了城，逃到了一個隱秘之地，就在這里，我寫下了你眼前的這篇文章。

空閑并不單純是休假，不是放縱，更不是惡習。它不可或缺，它對大腦的意義猶如維生素D對身體那般重要。剝奪空閑的權(quán)利，我們就會遭受精神苦楚，其扭曲殺傷力與患軟骨病無異。空閑營造的空間和寧靜是一種必要的環(huán)境，讓我們可以后退一步審視生活的全貌，建立意想不到的聯(lián)想，等待靈感如夏日的閃電般襲來。這聽起來很夸張，但確實，要事有所成，空閑必不可少。托馬斯·品欽在他的散文中曾這樣描述空閑：“閑著做做夢往往對我們的工作來說是最重要的?！卑⒒椎屡菰钑r發(fā)現(xiàn)了浮力定律，牛頓因蘋果發(fā)現(xiàn)了萬有引力，還有《化身博士》和苯環(huán)的由來——靈感來自閑暇和夢境的故事，歷史上數(shù)不勝數(shù)，不由得讓你懷疑：世界上那些最偉大的思想、發(fā)明和杰作更多是出自工作狂，還是那些好吃懶做、游手好閑、一無是處的人？