介绍:
What it really means to 'seize the day'
“把握今天”的真谛，到底是什么？
By Fiona Macdonald
“Human beings have always had mediated experiences, ever since the invention of reading – but now things like TV have so removed us from direct experience of life that we’ve almost forgotten what it’s like,” social philosopher Roman Krznaric tells BBC Culture. “It’s vital to try and recover this carpe diem instinct which is in all of us.”
在BBC文化栏目中，社会哲学家罗曼·克里兹纳利克谈道：“自从阅读被发明以来，人类对各种体验的参与都是间接的。而现在，电视一类的事物把我们与直接的生活体验隔绝得如此之远，都快让我们忘记生活的样子了。试着重新发现carpe diem的本能极为重要，这种本能我们每个人心里都有”。
First coined by the Roman poet Horace more than 2,000 years ago, carpe diem – or ‘seize the day’ – is “one of the oldest philosophical mottos in Western history”, says Krznaric. Yet it’s a slippery idea to pin down. “There are different ways to thinking about it, from seizing opportunities, to spontaneity, to hedonism, to being in the present moment,” he says.
Carpe diem，或者说“seize the day”（把握今天），是西方历史中最古老的哲学箴言之一，于2000多年前由罗马诗人贺拉斯提出。然而，它代表的意涵却难以确定。克里兹纳利克说：“人们可以从不同的角度去解读它，可以说是把握机遇，可以说是随性而为，可以说是享乐主义，也可以说是活在当下”。
Despite – or perhaps because of – its prevalence in culture, carpe diem has been sabotaged by the language of the advertising slogan and the hashtag: ‘Just do it’ or ‘Yolo’ (you only live once).
这个说法在文化生活中无处不在。尽管，也许也正是因为如此，carpe diem的意义遭到了诸如“只管去做”或者“Yolo”（你只活一次）这一类广告语言或者话题标签的破坏。
“Consumer culture has captured seizing the day,” Krznaric tells BBC Culture. “Instead of seizing the day, we’re really seizing the credit card.”
克里兹纳利克对BBC文化栏目说道：“消费文化已经俘获了‘把握今天’这个理念。与其说我们抓住的是今天，不如说我们紧紧握着的是信用卡”。
Carpe diem has also been hijacked by our culture of hyper-scheduled living, argues Krznaric. “‘Just do it’ becomes ‘just plan it’ – people are filling up their electronic calendars weeks in advance with no free weekends. In terms of cultural history, most people are unaware that their spontaneity has been stolen from them over the past half a millennium.”
克里兹纳利克论证说：“Carpe diem也被我们过度日程化的生活方式给绑架了。‘只管去做’变成了‘只管安排’：人们都提前填满了自己的电子日历，没一个周末是空闲的。从文化史的角度而言，大多数人都没有意识到：在过去的500年中，他们的随性生活已经被偷走了”。
“We’ve got quite a struggle ahead of us to reclaim that aspect of carpe diem.”
“要想重新获得carpe diem的这一面，我们还有很艰难的一段路要走。”
