2018.6.16纽约时报：什么是悲伤，什么是抑郁？

What Is Sadness, and What Is Depression?

什么是悲伤，什么是抑郁？

I stood onstage as an audience of over a thousand people applauded and cheered. My hosts placed an award in my hands. I nodded to the crowd, and they all rose to their feet. Hooray for you, the strangers shouted. Hooray!

我站在舞台上，一千多名观众向我鼓掌欢呼。主持人在我手里放了一个奖杯。我向人群点头示意，他们都站了起来。为你欢呼，陌生的人们喊道。欢呼！

Less than a week later, I sat up in bed in my house in Maine. A voice said: “You’re nothing. You’re a joke. They’d never have given you that award if they knew the truth.”

不到一周后，我在缅因州家中的床上坐起来。一个声音说：“你什么也不是。你是个笑话。如果他们知道这个真相绝不会给你这个奖。”

It was hard to argue. After all, who knew me better than the voice inside my head?

很难去争辩什么。毕竟，谁比我脑海里的声音更了解我？

As it turns out, the person who knows me better than that voice is me. This is what depression does: It lies to you. At this point in my life, I’m stronger than it is. But if I were younger — or if the voice were louder — things might be different.

事实证明，比这个声音更了解我的人就是我。这就是抑郁症产生的效果：它对你说谎。到生命中的这个阶段，我比它更强大了。但如果是在我年轻的时候——或者这个声音更响亮一点——事情可能会有所不同。

I don’t know what drove Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain to suicide, and all I can wish for their families is love and solace.

我不知道凯特·斯佩德(Kate Spade)和安瑟尼·波登(Anthony Bourdain)自杀的原因是什么，我只希望他们的家人能得到爱与安慰。

But I do know that we don’t have a good language for talking about sadness or depression, which are two countries that have a common border.

但我知道，我们缺乏一种可以用来谈论悲伤和抑郁的优良语言，这是两个共享着一段边境线的国度。

Depression can be a kind of blindness that blacks out everything but the worst. An artist — or anyone — who is suffering from that blindness isn’t someone who is seeing a reality the rest of us cannot face. Most of the time, that person is just an innocent soul who has been seduced by a voice that is separating her from the truth.

抑郁症可能带来一种盲目性，会把一切都屏蔽在外，只留下最糟糕的事物。一个正在忍受这种盲目性的艺术家——或者任何人——并不是看到了什么我们其他人无法面对的真相。大多数时候，这个人只是一个天真的灵魂，被一种将她与真相分隔开来的声音所诱惑。

Sadness, on the other hand, is a natural and reasonable reaction to the miseries of the world, some of them personal, some universal. There’s nothing unhealthy about sadness, and if certain things about the world at present fail to make you miserable, then you’re simply not paying attention. It’s not a state I aspire to. But as Paul Simon once sang, “Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.”

另一方面，面对世界上的痛苦，悲伤是一种自然而合理的反应，其中一些痛苦是个人的，一些是普世的。悲伤并不是什么不健康的东西，如果目前世界上的某些事情不能使你感到悲伤，那只是因为你根本就没有去关注。这不是我渴望的状态。但是正如保罗·西蒙(Paul Simon)唱过的那样，“有时甚至连音乐也不能代替泪水。”

The problem is that it can be hard to tell the two apart.

问题是，抑郁与悲伤可能很难区分。

When I was 8, I accidentally crashed through a glass door on my way to something called Aquarama in Philadelphia. That landed me in the emergency room at the Bryn Mawr Hospital, where I got 10 stitches and a bandage.

8岁的时候，我在去费城国际水族展(Aquarama)的路上不小心碰到了玻璃门。于是我进了伯恩·马尔医院的急诊室，缝了10针，打了绷带。

Fourteen years later, I was sitting on the stoop of a house in Middletown, Conn., with a girl whom I was just about to kiss. She saw the scar on my arm. “Oh, no,” she said. “You too?”

14年后，我坐在康涅狄格州米德尔敦一栋房子的门廊里，身边是一个我正打算亲吻的女孩。她看到我手臂上的伤疤。“哦，不，”她说。“你也是吗？”

She pulled back her sleeve to show the place on her arm where she had a scar as well. She hadn’t gotten hers en route to Aquarama.

她卷起袖子，给我看她胳膊上也有一道疤痕。这道疤可不是去国际水族展路上弄的。

Six years after that I found myself alone at the edge of a cliff in Nova Scotia. A voice whispered: “Go ahead, jump. Who would miss you?”

六年后，我发现自己独自待在新斯科舍一个悬崖边上。一个声音低语道：“跳吧，跳吧。谁会怀念你呢？”

Fortunately, I was pulled back at that moment, although even now I cannot say by what exactly. But something reached out and held me.

幸运的是，我在那个时候被拉了回来，虽然直到现在我还说不清究竟是被什么拉回来的。但是有些东西伸出手臂抱住了我。

Sadness and depression, and love, are at the heart of “Long Players,” a new book by Peter Coviello, a memoir about the dark hole he fell into after his marriage dissolved and the way music — and the love of his now ex-stepdaughters — helped to save him.

悲伤、抑郁与爱情是彼得·科维洛(Peter Coviello)的新书《长歌》(Long Players)的核心内容，是关于他在婚姻解体之后陷入黑洞的回忆录，以及音乐和她的几位继女（现在已经成了前继女）对他的爱如何拯救了他。

One morning, in the depth of his depression, he went down to the kitchen and stared at a knife.

一天早上，在他深陷抑郁之时，他走进厨房，盯着刀子。

Mr. Coviello — whom I knew years ago when he was a professor at Bowdoin — emerges from his cave battered but alive. In part, it’s his exuberant love of song that resuscitates him, although it’s also the thing that can instantly transport him back in time to the days of his happiness, shattering him anew.

我在几年前认识了科维洛，当时他在鲍登大学作教授——他最终从自己的洞穴中爬出来，虽然遍体鳞伤，但依然活着。对音乐的热爱是他复苏的原因之一，尽管音乐也能在刹那间将他带回过去那些幸福的日子，再一次将他击溃。

In response to his work, I wanted to make him a playlist of my own, tracing the movement in the book from its early joy through its darkness, and finally emerging on the other side. I thought of starting off with Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” Then: “Oh No,” by the Mothers of Invention; then “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber; Schumann’s “Traumeri”; and Bob Dylan’s “Lay Down Your Weary Tune.” I might finish up with “The Man Who Sold the World,” by David Bowie; “Midnight Train,” by Dave Rawlings; and “Better Things,” by the Kinks.

为了回应他的作品，我想为他做一份我的播放列表，按照他书中从早期的喜悦到后来的黑暗，直到最后出现在黑暗另一头的过程。我想从查克·贝里(Chuck Berry)的《你永远说不清》(You Never Can Tell)开始。然后是“发明之母”(Mothers of Invention)的《哦，不》(Oh No)；然后是塞缪尔·巴伯(Samuel Barber)的《弦乐柔板》(Adagio for Strings)；舒曼(Schumann)的《梦幻曲》(Traumeri)；和鲍勃·迪伦(Bob Dylan)的《歇下你疲惫的曲调》(Lay Down Your Weary Tune)。我可能会用大卫·鲍伊(David Bowie)的《出卖世界的男人》(The Man Who Sold the World)；戴夫· 罗林斯(Dave Rawlings)的《午夜列车》(Midnight Train)；和“奇想”(Kinks)的《更好的东西》(Better Things)作为结束。

Music’s a good way out of the darkness. But it isn’t the only way. Sometimes, for me, baking bread helps. So does getting out and running or riding my bike. So does the love of friends.

音乐是摆脱黑暗的好办法。但它不是唯一的方法。对我来说，有时候烤面包也有帮助。还有出门跑步或者骑车。来自朋友的爱也是如此。

Therapy’s good, too.

心理治疗也很好。

After that girl touched the scar on my arm, she kissed me and said, “I’m so sorry.”

那个女孩摸了摸我手臂上的疤痕，吻了我一下，说：“我很遗憾。”

I kissed her back. I didn’t know anything about the future. “It was a long time ago,” I told her. “I’m better now.”

我回吻她。当时的我对未来一无所知。“那是很久以前的事了，”我告诉她。“我现在好多了。”