-
Come on, admit it -- you like living at
breakneck speed.
好了，承认吧――你就喜环忙得团团转。
Life in the Fast Lane
James Gleick
1 We are in a rush. We are making
haste. A compression of time characterizes many of
our
lives. As time-use researchers look
around, they see a rushing and scurrying
everywhere.
Sometimes culture resembles
Godbey in their book Time for Life.
人在快车道
詹姆斯
·
格
利克
我们东奔西忙。我们急急匆匆
。时间紧迫是我们许多人的生活特点。时间利用研究者环顾四周，只见人人
忙乱，
处处步履匆匆。
有时文明就像是
“
一个被踩瘪的大蚁冢
”
，
约翰
·
P·
鲁宾逊和杰弗里
·
戈德比在
《生活时
间》
一书中写道。
2
(1)
Instantaneity
rules.
Pollsters
use
electronic
devices
during
political
speeches
to
measure
opinions
on
the
wing,
before
they
have
been
fully
formed;
fast-food
restaurants
add
express
lanes.
Even
reading
to
children
is
under
pressure.
The
volume
One-Minute
Bedtime
Stories
consists of traditional stories that
can be read by a busy parent in only one minute.
即时行为主宰着一切。
人们发表政治
演说时，
听众尚未形成看法，
民意调查人员就利用电子
装置进行当场测定；快餐店增设了快速通道。甚至给孩子念故事也得赶时间。
《一分钟临睡
前的故事》一书收的都是让忙碌的家长仅用一分钟就能讲完的老故事。
3
There
are
places
and
objects
that
signify
impatience.
The
door-close
button
in
elevators,
so
often
a
placebo
used
to
distract
riders
to
whom
ten
seconds
seems
an
eternity.
Speed-dial
buttons on
telephones. Remote controls, which have caused an
acceleration in the pace of films
and
television commercials.
许多场
所和物件都表明人们有急躁情绪。
电梯里的关门按钮常常起心理安慰作用，
好让那些
连
10
秒钟都觉得
漫长难捱的乘梯人分散注意力。还有电话机的快拨键。还有可使影片和电
视广告快速播放
的遥控器。
4 Time is a gentle deity,
said Sophocles. Perhaps it was, for him. These
days it cracks the whip.(2)
We humans
have chosen speed, and we thrive on it -- more
than we generally admit. Our ability
to
work and play fast gives us power. It thrills us.
时间之神温雅从容，
索福克勒斯如是
说。
他那时或许如此。当今社会时间扬鞭催人。我们人
类选择了
速度，
凭借着速度而繁荣兴旺――其程度超过人们所普遍承认的那样。
< br>我们快节奏
工作、娱乐的本领赋予我们力量。我们为此兴奋不已。
5 And if haste is the accelerator
pedal, multitasking is overdrive. These days it is
possible to drive,
eat, listen to a
book and talk on the phone -- all at once, if you
dare. David Feldman, in New York,
schedules his tooth flossing to
coincide with his regular browsing of online
discussion groups. He
has
learned
to
hit
PageDown
with
his
pinkie.
Mike
Holderness,
in
London,
watches
TV
with
captioning so that he can keep the
sound off and listen to the unrelated music of his
choice. An
entire
class
of
technologies
is
dedicated
to
the
furtherance
of
multitasking.
Car
phones.
Bookstands on exercise machines.
Waterproof shower radios.
如果匆忙是加速器的踏板，一
心
多用就是超速档。如今，完全可能做到边开车边吃东西边听录音书籍边打电话
--
要是你敢这
么做。
纽约的大卫·
费尔德曼把用洁牙线清洁牙缝安排在日常浏览网上讨论之时。
他已经学
会用小手指敲击下行键。
伦敦的迈克·
霍尔德内斯看带字幕的电视节目，
这样他就能把音量
调低到听不见，
好欣赏自己喜欢的与电视节目无关的音乐。
有一整套的技术专门用来促进一
心多用。如汽车电话。如健身器材上的搁书架。如防
水的淋浴间收音机。
6 Not so long ago, for most people,
listening to the radio was a single task activity.
Now it is rare
for a person to listen
to the radio and do nothing else.
不久以前，
对大多数人而言，听收音机是一项单一的活动。如今极少有人
在听收音机时，别
的什么也不干。
7 Even TV has lost its
command of our foreground. In so many households
the TV just stays on,
like a noisy
light bulb, while the life of the family passes
back and forth in its shimmering glow.
就连我们生活中占据重要地位的电视机也失去了控制力。
在许多
家庭里，
电视机就一直开着，
如同一个发出噪声的灯泡，人们在
其微弱的闪光里日复一日地过着他们的家庭生活。
8
(3)
A
sense
of
well-being
comes
with
this
saturation
of
parallel
pathways
in
the
brain.
We
choose mania over boredom
every time.
the historian Stephen Kern.
脑海中充斥的这种种并行不悖的情况带来的是一种幸福感。<
/p>
每次我们都宁可大干一番而不愿
厌倦懈怠。
“人类从未，也永远不会选择放慢速度，
”历史学家斯蒂芬·克恩说。
9 We catch the fever -- and the fever
feels good. We live in the buzz.
where
my days, crammed with all sorts of activities,
feel like an Olympic endurance event: the
everydayathon,