2010-09-05

Find Stillness to Cure the Illness

 
 

Sent to you by Andy via Google Reader:

 
 

via article.yeeyan.org on 9/4/10

find stillness to cure the illness

找寻宁静来治愈疾病

"Silence is a source of great strength." ~Lao Tzu

"静是巨大力量的源泉。"——老子

It's a busy day, and you're inundated by non-stop emails, text messages, phone calls, instant message requests, notifications, interruptions of all kinds.

这是繁忙的一天,你被淹没在无休无止的电子邮件、短信、电话、即时信息要求、通知和各种各样的打断中。

The noise of the world is a dull roar that pervades every second of your life. It's a rush of activity, a drain on your energy, a pull on your attention, until you no longer have the energy to pay attention or take action.

这个世界的噪声是低沉的咆哮充斥了你生活中的每一秒钟。这是一种动的忙乱、一种对你能量的消耗和对你注意力的牵扯,它永不停息一直到你不再有精力去注意或采取行动。

It's an illness, this noise, this rush. It can literally make us sick. We become stressed, depressed, fat, burnt out, slain by the slings and arrows of technology.

这种噪声,还有这种忙乱,是一种疾病。它能真正地让我们患病,使我们变得紧张、抑郁、肥胖和精疲力竭,最后被现代技术的投石器和箭头残杀。

The cure is simple: it's stillness.

治疗的方法很简单:宁静。

Pause

暂停

Take a minute out of your busy day to do this little exercise: pause in the middle of all you have to do, all that's going on around you. Close your eyes, and sit still. Breathe in, and breathe out, and pay attention to your breath as it comes in and goes out. Just sit still, for about a minute.

在你繁忙的一天中花一分钟做个小练习:在你所有不得不做的事情和所有正围绕着你进行的事情中间暂停下来,闭上眼睛,安静地坐下来。吸气,然后呼气,当气体吸进去和呼出去时把注意力都集中在你的呼吸上。仅仅静静地坐着,坐大约一分钟。

This stillness might seem like inaction, which we're taught is a bad thing. It's lazy, it's passive, it's against our Puritan work ethic. And yet, this simple inaction can change our world.

也许这种静坐象是一种不作为,而不作为被告知是糟糕的事情。它是懒惰、消极的行为,是违背我们清教徒的工作规范的行为。然而事实是,这种不作为可以改变我们的世界。

Stillness calms us. It gives us a small oasis of quiet that allows us to hear our thoughts, that allows us to catch our breath, that gives us room to breathe at all. It is the antibody to the stress and rush we feel daily.

静坐可以使我们镇静下来,它能够给予我们一块小小的安静的绿洲,在那里我们可以倾听自己的思想,可以捕捉我们的呼吸。它能够给予我们一个空间完全地进行呼吸。它是我们日常感受到的压力和匆忙的抗体。

"Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat." ~Lao Tzu

"躁胜寒,静胜热"——老子

The Strength of Stillne

宁静的力量

Stillness has a calming effect on the world around us as well. By becoming still, we cause others to pause, to pay attention. Our quiet also quiets others. We set the mood for those who work and otherwise interact with us.

在这个世界上,在我们周围,静有一种镇静的效用。因为变得安静,我们会使其他人暂停下来,开始注意。我们的安静可以使其他人也安静下来。我们为那些工作的人们设定静的情绪,或者同我们一起相互影响以静下来。

When we rush and set a frenetic pace, it stresses others and inspires them to rush frenetically too. Stillness has the opposite effect. It slows the world down, allows us to focus, gives us time for contemplation, for what matters most.

当我们忙乱着和设定一种发狂的节奏时,这会带给他人压力并促使他们也发狂地忙乱起来。宁静却有着相反的作用,它使世界慢了下来,允许我们集中注意,给我们时间去沉思什么是最要紧的。

It takes strength to be still when others rush. It takes courage to be different, to go against the stream. But while others might think us weird at first, that's OK. Sometimes it's the weird ones that make the most difference. And soon, as our stillness inspires others to find stillness of their own, we won't be the weird ones — we'll be the ones with wisdom.

当其他人很忙乱时要想静下来是需要花力气的。它也需要勇气来做得不同于其他人,去逆潮流而行。如果最初其他人认为我们奇怪时,没有关系。有时候正是这些奇怪的行为才能创造出最不同的东西。很快,当我们的宁静开始激励他人去找寻他们自己的宁静时,我们就不是奇怪的人了——我们是智慧的人。

It takes strength to find stillness when the world around us is a chaos of activity, but it's a strength that's in us, and we need only to find it. Paradoxically, it's stillness that will allow us to find that strength. Be still, look within, and it'll be there.

当我们周围的世界是一种动的混乱状况时,要找寻宁静是需要力量的。但是这是一种在我们内心里的力量,我们所需要的只是找到这种力量。相反的是,正是宁静会使得我们找到这个力量。安静下来,向内寻找,力量就在那里。

Finding Stillness

找寻宁静

It's pretty simple, really, and you don't need me to tell you to do this: to find stillness, you just need to take the time to sit still, every day that you can.

这非常简单,真的,你不需要我来告诉你怎么做,要找寻宁静,你只需要花时间静静地坐下来,每天你都能找到宁静。

Find a time in the morning, when the world is still fairly quiet, to sit still. Don't do anything, don't plan your day, don't check email, don't eat. Just sit, and learn to be comfortable being still.

在早晨找一个时间,当世界还相对安静的时候,安静地坐着,不要做任何事,不要计划你一天的行动,不要检查你的邮件,也不要吃东西,仅仅坐着,学会怎样舒服地静坐不动。

In practice, we'll gradually find that comfort, and we'll become good at it. If mornings are no good, find time during your lunch break, or after work, or just before you go to bed.

事实上,我们会渐渐发现那种舒适的,我们还会变得擅长这种舒适地静坐。如果早晨不合适的话,在你午休时找找时间,或者下班后,或在你睡觉前。

Find a place to be still. It can be a chair in your house, or a front porch, or the roof. It can be a park bench, or the beach, or a path in the woods. Let this be a ritual that you come to look forward to.

找到一个地方适合你静坐。这样的地方可以是你房子里的一把椅子,或你屋子前的门廊,也可以是房顶上。公园里的长凳、海滩、或树林里的小径。让它成为一个习惯,这样你会变得期待去做它。

From this small place of stillness, calm will carry to the rest of your day, radiating like a soothing force. You'll be calmer throughout the day, and learn to find little pockets of stillness everywhere: when you first start your workday, when you are ready to sit down and create, when you're about to eat, when you are ready to exercise, during a meeting, even.

从这个宁静的小地方开始,平静会在一天中剩下的时间里跟随着你,就象一种安慰的力量在辐射着你。你在整整一天中都会镇静多了。学会四处去找寻这个宁静的小口袋吧,当你刚开始你的工作日时,当你准备坐下来创造时,当你要开始进食时,当你准备锻炼时,甚至,当你在开会中间时。

Practice, regularly. Practice, and learn. Practice stillness, and the stillness becomes a canvas upon which you can paint the masterpiece of your life.

有规律地练习吧。练习,然后学习。练习静坐,那么静坐会成为一块画布,在它上面你可以描绘出你自己生活的杰作。

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"让我们安静下来吧,那样我们或许可以听到上帝的耳语。"——拉尔夫.沃尔多.爱默生


 
 

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2010-09-02

Why You Should Shoot Adverbs on Sight




By Mary Jaksch


Yes, I’m declaring open season on adverbs. What is an adverb exactly? Erm… it’s the word I just used: exactly. So I’ll cull it and write instead ‘What is an adverb?’

An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective or a phrase. It answers questions such as ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘where’, or ‘how much’. Such details may be important, but we need to understand the dynamics of information versus pace.

Information versus pace




‘Pace’ identifies the speed at which readers can devour your text. Long sentences and detailed descriptions slow down the pace. Lean sentences and short paragraphs speed it up.

The more detailed information you give, the slower the pace. If you use words that are redundant, the reader may start to skip and even leave.

What does redundancy mean in terms of writing? Test the two definitions I found on the Internet. Which one slows your reading down?

  1. Redundancy means words that are superfluous.
  2. Redundancy means the superfluity of a linguistic feature due to its predictability within the overall structure.



Just imagine reading a whole article in the style of the second example. I bet you couldn’t click away fast enough!

Now that we’ve got that redundancy thing cleared up, let’s take a look at the implications.

The redundancy test




How do you know when a word is superfluous? It’s simple. If the meaning stays the same without the word, then you’re faced with a ‘superfluity of a linguistic feature’.

He hurriedly scribbled the number down on a pad

In this case the adverb ‘hurriedly’ is superfluous because the word scribbling already implies writing fast. The sentence ‘He scribbled the number down on a pad’ is leaner and stronger.

John got up and walked restlessly to the window.

Here, the word ‘restlessly’ is redundant because the restlessness is already shown in the action.

Some writers like to use not only one, but two adverbs. For example: She really, truly cared for him. In this case, consider culling one of the adverbs, or even both. Here, you would end up with: She cared for him.



In a recent guest post pitch I found this sentence: As writers it’s normal to jump both mentally and actually from one project to another.

That’s a very athletic sentence … which would benefit from some brutal editing.



Should we let some adverbs live?




According to Master Editor Sol Stein in his book Stein on Writing there are two rules for letting adverbs live:

  1. Keep an adverb that supplies necessary information. Example: He tried running faster and fell. If he’s already running, you must keep ‘faster’. If you remove the adverb the sentence means that he fell as soon as he started running.
  2. Keep and adverb that helps the reader visualize the precise image you want to project. Example: She drove crazily, frightening the oncoming traffic.



Pace is better than pretty


Many writers try to improve their writing by making it ‘pretty’. They try to stuff their text full of colorful adverbs and adjectives. Wrong! Lean sentences that heighten the pace keep readers from falling off the page.

Improve your writing now


A simple way to improve your writing is to take a piece you’ve written and highlight all adverbs. Then try to delete as many as possible. Your readers will thank you.

Have YOU got examples of how killing an adverb strengthens writing? Please share them with us in the comments.

Mary Jaksch is the Chief Editor of Write to Done. Enjoy more of her stuff on Goodlife Zen. And check out the A-List Blogger Club that Leo Babauta and Mary run jointly.




Original: http://writetodone.com/2010/08/30/shoot-adverbs/


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