Chapter 9 And Then You Die
一、问答
1. ️Have you thought about death or dying? How did you feel when you were thinking about them?
When I was sixteen, I experienced a traffic accident. At that moment of life and death, I felt I would not see my loved parents, sisters and friends again, and I would miss the world.
2. How knowing “then you die” would affect the way we live? What is the sunny side of death?
When you experienced the death, you will treasure the life more. The sunny side of death is it can help us get rid of the worthless and trivial things and focus on more important things.
3. Did you have a transformational moment growing up? Something you would consider a wake-up call?
When I attended the Gaokao for the first time, I failed. I went into a deep depression that summer. Mom took me from one school to another in order to select a better school for me to resume the course. At that time, I realized life was so hard for me and I had to study hard, because it was the only way to change my fate. Since that moment I spent all my time on studying. Quickly I caught up with other students and got a satisfactory mark in the end. I also found the confidence back and felt growing up.
二、感想
Oddly, it was someone else’s death that gave me permission to finally live. And perhaps the worst moment of my life was also the most transformational.
本章作者讲到，一年夏天，好友Josh的突然死亡让他悲痛万分，随后也让他清醒地认识到，既然我们都无法避免死亡，那么所有的担心或愧疚都是没有意义的。于是他放弃了以前混混噩噩的生活，开始努力学习，承担责任，关注更加重要事情。生命中最悲惨的时刻，往往会成为我们的重要转折点。
Because once we become comfortable with the fact of our own death—the root terror, the underlying anxiety motivating all of life’s frivolous ambitions—we can then choose our values more freely, unrestrained by the illogical quest for immortality, and freed from dangerous dogmatic views.
当我们看透生死时，我们就可以自由地选择我们的价值观和生活方式，不会去盲目追求长生不死，也不会受那些危险的教条主义观念束缚。
At one foot you feel like you’re floating. Anything but looking straight down feels as though you’re part of the sky itself. You actually kind of expect to fall at this point.
作者一步步地不断靠近悬崖边，体验那种死亡的感觉。在距离悬崖边只有一尺时，他的腿在发抖，身体本能地蹲下。往下望去，自己好像已成为天空一部分，有一种想跳下去的欲望。这一段描写得太震撼了，写出人类在接近死亡那一刻内心的真实感受。
Dissolving one’s ego into an expansive nothingness—achieving the enlightened state of nirvana—is seen as a trial run of letting oneself cross to the other side.
从古到今，很多思想家文人探讨过生死的问题。佛家思想中，冥想是教人怎样在活着时候看透死亡，是把自我意识融入到广博的虚无空间中，最终达到一种豁然开朗的涅槃状态。
Confronting the reality of our own mortality is important because it obliterates all the crappy, fragile, superficial values in life.
只有看透生死，才会抛开那些毫无意义的、脆弱的、肤浅的价值观。当大多数人整日追逐名和利，只有经历过生死的你，才会考虑生命的真正价值。就是在你离开时，你会给这个世界留下什么？ 这个世界是否会因为你而变得更好？
就如同肯尼迪总统就职演说中的一句话，“不要问你们的国家能为你们做些什么，而要问你们能为国家做些什么。”
三、字词
1. The music droned on, but nobody listened.
droned on单调沉闷地拖下去
如：The meeting droned on for hours.
2. Still not putting two-and-two together, I hurried down to the shoreline,
put two and two together 根据事实推理
如：That’s when I put two-and-two together.
3． The autopsy would later say that his legs had cramped up due to dehydration from the alcohol,
cramped up抽筋
如：My Leg cramped up.
4. It’s why we feel compelled to spend so much time giving ourselves to others,
feel compelled to 感到必须 (做某事)
如：I feel compelled to study hard.
5. Then I look again to my right, at the little ants milling about the signage below me, snapping photos, chasing tour buses, on the off chance that somebody somehow sees me.
mill about 漫无目标地乱转
如：We are milling about in the airport.
on the off chance 对…抱微小的希望；只是碰碰运气
如：On the off chance, he would come out to have dinner with us.