好与坏，都是一样的：一个道家的在世寓言

好与坏，都是一样的：一个道家的在世寓言

Of all the philosophies, axioms and pearls of wisdom I've amassed over the years, one comes up more than any other. It's the Taoist lesson of the relative nature of good and bad. It's efficiently illustrated by the 2.000-year-old story of the good (and bad) fortune that follows a farmer's loss of his horse.

在我多年来积累的所有哲学、公理和至理名言中，有一条最常被提及。这是道家关于好与坏的相对性的教训。2000年前，一个农民失去了他的马，他的好运气(和坏运气)的故事有效地说明了这一点。

We use the good-or-bad dichotomy to categorize nearly everything in our lives -- events, people, food, decisions, even world history. But the lesson of the story is that there is actually no such thing as good or bad. It's a false distinction and a trap that only causes psychic pain.

我们用“好与坏”的二分法来对生活中的几乎所有事情进行分类——事件、人物、食物、决定，甚至是世界历史。但这个故事的教训是，实际上没有好坏之分。这是一个错误的区分和陷阱，只会导致精神上的痛苦。

Good things are constantly being born out of the seemingly bad, and vice versa. Often, it seems, it's just a matter of time until an event or decision from one category leads directly to one in the other.

好的事物总是从看似坏的事物中诞生，反之亦然。通常情况下，似乎只是时间问题，直到一个类别的事件或决定直接导致另一个类别的事件或决定。

In the case of the farmer and his horse: first he loses his most valuable possession, then it returns bringing a dozen new horses with it, then his son breaks his leg while taming one of the new horses, and then the son is spared from being conscripted into the army because of the broken leg.

以农夫和他的马为例：首先他失去了他最宝贵的财产，然后它带着十几匹新马回来，然后他的儿子在驯服其中一匹新马的时候摔断了腿，然后儿子因为摔断了腿而免于被征召入伍。

The farmer, who neither celebrates nor decries these events. As he repeats in the story, "Who knows what's good or bad?"

农夫既不庆祝也不谴责这些事件。正如他在故事中重复的那样，“谁知道什么是好的还是坏的?”

Last week, as I watched and read about New Orleans 10 years after Katrina, it was impossible to miss a narrative: This is a city building toward a future that is an improvement over its past.

上周，当我在观看和阅读有关卡特里娜飓风过去10年后的新奥尔良的报道时，不可能不注意到这样一个故事:这是一座面向未来的城市建筑，它比过去更先进。

"We have data that shows before the storm, the high school graduation rate was 54%. Today, it's up to 73%. Before the storm, college enrollment was 37%.Today, it's almost 60%," President Barack Obama said. "We still have a long way to go, but that is real progress. New Orleans is coming back better and stronger."

“我们有数据显示，在风暴之前，高中毕业率是54%。如今，这一比例高达73%。风暴前，大学入学率为37%。如今，这一比例几乎达到了60%。”巴拉克·奥巴马总统说。“我们还有很长的路要走，但这是真正的进步。新奥尔良正在变得更好更强。”

The city's mayor, Mitch Landrieu, echoed that triumph: "We are not just rebuilding the city that we once were, but are creating the city that we always should have been."

该市市长米奇·兰德里欧重述了这一胜利:“我们不仅在重建我们曾经的城市，而且在创造我们应该一直存在的城市。”

Other cities learned lessons from the events of a decade ago and have created their own infrastructure projects to prevent another Katrina. Hurricane forecasting has improved a lifesaving 20% since Katrina because it sparked funding in new satellites and computer modeling technology. NPR even did a heartfelt story about a couple that fell in love because of Katrina. This is all "Who Knows What's Good or Bad."

其他城市从十年前的灾难中吸取了教训，并建立了自己的基础设施项目，以防止再次发生卡特里娜飓风。自卡特里娜飓风以来，由于飓风预报引发了对新卫星和计算机建模技术的资金投入，使挽救生命的工作提高了20%。美国国家公共电台甚至做了一篇感人的报道，讲述了一对夫妻因为卡特里娜飓风而相爱的故事。这就是“谁知道什么是好，什么是坏。”

No one would go so far as to say the deadly and devastating hurricane was good for the city or country.

没有人会说这场致命的、毁灭性的飓风对城市或国家有好处。

I asked my neighbor, Jonathan Orr, about all this. He was a longtime resident of New Orleans, grew up in Louisiana and is a professor at Georgia State University and the coordinator of its mental health counseling program.

我向我的邻居乔纳森·奥尔询问了这一切。他曾长期居住在新奥尔良，在路易斯安那州长大，现在是乔治亚州立大学的教授，也是该校心理健康咨询项目的协调人。

For him, the city has not recovered, and for most residents, especially black ones, things are demonstratively worse post-Katrina, not better-than-ever.

对他来说， 这个城市还没有恢复，对大多数居民，尤其是黑人来说，情况在卡特里娜飓风后明显更糟，而不是比以往任何时候都好。

This anniversary is "wrought with pain, loss, and grief" that may take generations to process, he wrote me in an e-mail.

他在给我的一封电子邮件中写道，这个纪念日“充满了痛苦、损失和悲伤”，可能需要几代人的时间来处理。

New Orleans and Katrina is a story of "courage and resilience while also holding close the pain and grief" , Jonathan wrote.

乔纳森写道，新奥尔良和卡特里娜飓风是一个关于“勇气和韧性的故事，同时也承载着痛苦和悲伤”。

Just understanding the story's meaning makes you feel wiser. Once you know it, you can start applying it to your past, present and projected future.

仅仅是理解故事的意义就会让你觉得更有智慧。一旦你知道了它，你就可以开始把它应用到你的过去、现在和预期的未来。