该做什么

What should one do? That may seem a strange question, but it’s not meaningless or unanswerable. It’s the sort of question kids ask before they learn not to ask big questions. I only came across it myself in the process of investigating something else. But once I did, I thought I should at least try to answer it.

人应当做什么？这问题听起来有点怪，但它并非毫无意义，也不是无法回答。这是那种孩子会问、后来学会了不再问的大问题。我自己也是在探究别的事情时，偶然撞见了它。但既然撞见了，我想我至少该试着回答一下。

So what should one do? One should help people, and take care of the world. Those two are obvious. But is there anything else? When I ask that, the answer that pops up is Make good new things.

那么人应当做什么？应当帮助他人，照看这个世界。这两条是显而易见的。但除此之外还有别的吗？我这样问自己时，冒出来的答案是：做出好的新东西。

I can’t prove that one should do this, any more than I can prove that one should help people or take care of the world. We’re talking about first principles here. But I can explain why this principle makes sense. The most impressive thing humans can do is to think. It may be the most impressive thing that can be done. And the best kind of thinking, or more precisely the best proof that one has thought well, is to make good new things.

我没法证明人应当这样做，正如我没法证明人应当帮助他人或照看世界一样——这里说的是第一性原理。但我可以解释这条原则为什么讲得通。人类能做的最了不起的事，就是思考。这或许是万事万物里最了不起的一件事。而最好的思考，或者更准确地说，能证明自己想得好的最好证据，就是做出好的新东西。

I mean new things in a very general sense. Newton’s physics was a good new thing. Indeed, the first version of this principle was to have good new ideas. But that didn’t seem general enough: it didn’t include making art or music, for example, except insofar as they embody new ideas. And while they may embody new ideas, that’s not all they embody, unless you stretch the word “idea” so uselessly thin that it includes everything that goes through your nervous system.

我说的“新东西”是很宽泛的意思。牛顿的物理学就是一样好的新东西。事实上，这条原则最初的版本是“有好的新想法”。但那样似乎不够宽泛：它没能涵盖比如做艺术、做音乐这类事，除非艺术音乐里体现着新想法。而它们确实可能体现着新想法，但那并不是它们的全部，除非你把“想法”这个词稀释得毫无用处，宽泛到能装下你神经系统里流过的一切东西。

Even for ideas that one has consciously, though, I prefer the phrasing “make good new things.” There are other ways to describe the best kind of thinking. To make discoveries, for example, or to understand something more deeply than others have. But how well do you understand something if you can’t make a model of it, or write about it? Indeed, trying to express what you understand is not just a way to prove that you understand it, but a way to understand it better.

不过即便对于那些自觉产生的想法，我也更喜欢“做出好的新东西”这个说法。描述最好的思考方式还有别的说法，比如“做出发现”，或者“比别人更深地理解某件事”。可如果你连一个模型都做不出来，或者连一篇文章都写不出来，你对这件事又理解到什么程度呢？说到底，试着把自己理解的东西表达出来，不只是证明你理解了它的方式，也是让你理解得更深的方式。

Another reason I like this phrasing is that it biases us toward creation. It causes us to prefer the kind of ideas that are naturally seen as making things rather than, say, making critical observations about things other people have made. Those are ideas too, and sometimes valuable ones, but it’s easy to trick oneself into believing they’re more valuable than they are. Criticism seems sophisticated, and making new things often seems awkward, especially at first; and yet it’s precisely those first steps that are most rare and valuable.

我喜欢这个说法还有一个原因：它会把我们导向创造。它让我们更偏爱那种天然被视为“造东西”的想法，而不是比如对别人造出来的东西做一番批评性的评点。那也是一种想法，有时也确实有价值，但人很容易骗自己，把它的价值看得比实际更高。批评显得老练精明，而做新东西，尤其是在起步阶段，往往显得笨拙；然而恰恰是那些起步的步子，才是最稀有、最珍贵的。

Is newness essential? I think so. Obviously it’s essential in science. If you copied a paper of someone else’s and published it as your own, it would seem not merely unimpressive but dishonest. And it’s similar in the arts. A copy of a good painting can be a pleasing thing, but it’s not impressive in the way the original was. Which in turn implies it’s not impressive to make the same thing over and over, however well; you’re just copying yourself.

新颖性是必不可少的吗？我认为是。在科学上，这一点显然是必不可少的：如果你把别人的论文抄来，署上自己的名字发表，那不只是不出色，简直是不诚实。艺术也类似。一幅好画的临摹作品可以让人赏心悦目，却不会像原作那样令人惊叹。这也就意味着，把同一样东西反复做很多遍，哪怕做得再好，也算不上了不起——你不过是在抄自己。

Note though that we’re talking about a different kind of should with this principle. Taking care of people and the world are shoulds in the sense that they’re one’s duty, but making good new things is a should in the sense that this is how to live to one’s full potential. Historically most rules about how to live have been a mix of both kinds of should, though usually with more of the former than the latter. [1]

不过要注意，这条原则里说的是另一种意义上的“应当”。照看他人和世界，这个“应当”的意思是本分、是义务；而做出好的新东西，这个“应当”的意思是——这是把自己活到极致的方式。纵观历史，大多数关于该如何生活的规训，都是这两种“应当”的混合，只是通常前者的分量远多于后者。[1]

For most of history the question “What should one do?” got much the same answer everywhere, whether you asked Cicero or Confucius. You should be wise, brave, honest, temperate, and just, uphold tradition, and serve the public interest. There was a long stretch where in some parts of the world the answer became “Serve God,” but in practice it was still considered good to be wise, brave, honest, temperate, and just, uphold tradition, and serve the public interest. And indeed this recipe would have seemed right to most Victorians. But there’s nothing in it about taking care of the world or making new things, and that’s a bit worrying, because it seems like this question should be a timeless one. The answer shouldn’t change much.

在历史的大部分时间里，“人应当做什么”这个问题，不管你问西塞罗还是问孔子，得到的答案都大同小异：应当明智、勇敢、诚实、克制、公正，恪守传统，服务公共利益。世界上某些地方，有很长一段时间答案变成了“侍奉上帝”，但实际上，明智、勇敢、诚实、克制、公正、恪守传统、服务公共利益，依然被视为美德。事实上，这套说法拿给大多数维多利亚时代的人听，他们也会觉得对。可这里头没提到照看世界，也没提到做新东西，这就有点让人不安了，因为这个问题看上去理应是个亘古不变的问题，答案不该有太大变化。

I’m not too worried that the traditional answers don’t mention taking care of the world. Obviously people only started to care about that once it became clear we could ruin it. But how can making good new things be important if the traditional answers don’t mention it?

传统答案里没提到照看世界，这一点我倒不太担心：显然，人们是在意识到自己有能力毁掉这个世界之后，才开始在意这件事的。但如果传统答案里压根没提做新东西，那它怎么会是重要的呢？

The traditional answers were answers to a slightly different question. They were answers to the question of how to be, rather than what to do. The audience didn’t have a lot of choice about what to do. The audience up till recent centuries was the landowning class, which was also the political class. They weren’t choosing between doing physics and writing novels. Their work was foreordained: manage their estates, participate in politics, fight when necessary. It was ok to do certain other kinds of work in one’s spare time, but ideally one didn’t have any. Cicero’s De Officiis is one of the great classical answers to the question of how to live, and in it he explicitly says that he wouldn’t even be writing it if he hadn’t been excluded from public life by recent political upheavals. [2]

传统答案回答的其实是一个略有不同的问题：它们回答的是“该如何为人”，而不是“该做什么事”。听这些答案的人，在做什么事上其实没有太多选择。直到最近几个世纪，能听到这些答案的人，都是有地产的阶层，同时也是从政的阶层。他们不是在物理学和写小说之间做选择，他们的营生早已注定：打理产业、参与政务、必要时上阵打仗。业余时间做点别的营生也不是不行，但理想状态下，人是不该有业余时间的。西塞罗的《论义务》是关于该如何生活的一部伟大古典答卷，他在书里明说，若不是最近的政治动荡把他排挤出了公共生活，他根本不会动笔写这本书。[2]

There were of course people doing what we would now call “original work,” and they were often admired for it, but they weren’t seen as models. Archimedes knew that he was the first to prove that a sphere has 2/3 the volume of the smallest enclosing cylinder and was very pleased about it. But you don’t find ancient writers urging their readers to emulate him. They regarded him more as a prodigy than a model.

当然，也有人在做我们如今会称之为“原创工作”的事，人们常常也很欣赏这些人，但不会把他们当作楷模。阿基米德知道自己是第一个证明“球的体积是能容下它的最小圆柱体体积的三分之二”的人，他为此相当得意。可你在古代作家笔下，找不到谁号召读者向他看齐。他们把他更多地当作一个奇才，而不是一个榜样。

Now many more of us can follow Archimedes’s example and devote most of our attention to one kind of work. He turned out to be a model after all, along with a collection of other people that his contemporaries would have found it strange to treat as a distinct group, because the vein of people making new things ran at right angles to the social hierarchy.

如今，我们中的更多人可以效仿阿基米德，把大部分心力投入一种工作。他终究还是成了一个榜样，还有一批和他一样的人——若是搁在他同时代人眼里，把这些人归成一类会显得很怪，因为那条“做新东西的人”的脉络，是横切社会等级、与之成直角穿过去的。

What kinds of new things count? I’d rather leave that question to the makers of them. It would be a risky business to try to define any kind of threshold, because new kinds of work are often despised at first. Raymond Chandler was writing literal pulp fiction, and he’s now recognized as one of the best writers of the twentieth century. Indeed this pattern is so common that you can use it as a recipe: if you’re excited about some kind of work that’s not considered prestigious and you can explain what everyone else is overlooking about it, then this is not merely a kind of work that’s ok to do, but one to seek out.

哪些新东西才算数？这个问题，我宁愿留给做出这些东西的人自己去回答。要给它划出个门槛，是件很冒险的事，因为新出现的工作种类，往往一开始都会被人瞧不起。雷蒙德·钱德勒当年写的，实打实是通俗廉价小说，如今他却被公认为二十世纪最好的作家之一。这种模式太常见了，常见到你可以把它当成一条秘方来用：如果你对某种不被看重的工作满怀热情，又能说清楚别人都忽视了它的哪些地方，那么这不仅是一种可以去做的工作，更是一种值得主动去寻找的工作。

The other reason I wouldn’t want to define any thresholds is that we don’t need them. The kind of people who make good new things don’t need rules to keep them honest.

我不想划定门槛，还有一个原因：我们根本不需要门槛。能做出好的新东西的那种人，不需要靠规则来约束自己保持诚实。

So there’s my guess at a set of principles to live by: take care of people and the world, and make good new things. Different people will do these to varying degrees. There will presumably be lots who focus entirely on taking care of people. There will be a few who focus mostly on making new things. But even if you’re one of those, you should at least make sure that the new things you make don’t net harm people or the world. And if you go a step further and try to make things that help them, you may find you’re ahead on the trade. You’ll be more constrained in what you can make, but you’ll make it with more energy.

所以，我猜出的一套安身立命的原则是：照看他人和世界，做出好的新东西。不同的人会在这两条上各有偏重。想必会有很多人把全部心力都放在照看他人上；也会有少数人把重心几乎全放在做新东西上。但就算你是后一种人，也至少该确保自己做出来的新东西，不会给人和世界带来净损害。而如果你更进一步，试着做一些能帮到他们的东西，你或许会发现自己反而赚到了：你能做的东西会受到更多约束，但你做起来会有更大的干劲。

On the other hand, if you make something amazing, you’ll often be helping people or the world even if you didn’t mean to. Newton was driven by curiosity and ambition, not by any practical effect his work might have, and yet the practical effect of his work has been enormous. And this seems the rule rather than the exception. So if you think you can make something amazing, you should probably just go ahead and do it.

反过来说，如果你做出了一件了不起的东西，哪怕你本无此意，它也往往会造福他人或这个世界。牛顿的驱动力是好奇心和抱负，而不是他的工作可能带来的任何实际效用，可他的工作带来的实际效用却极其巨大。而这似乎是常规，而非例外。所以，如果你觉得自己能做出一件了不起的东西，那你大概就该径直去做。

注释

[1] We could treat all three as the same kind of should by saying that it’s one’s duty to live well — for example by saying, as some Christians have, that it’s one’s duty to make the most of one’s God-given gifts. But this seems one of those casuistries people invented to evade the stern requirements of religion: it was permissible to spend time studying math instead of praying or performing acts of charity because otherwise you were rejecting a gift God had given you. A useful casuistry no doubt, but we don’t need it.

[1] 我们可以把这三条都归为同一种意义上的“应当”，说法是：把日子过好本身就是一种本分——就像一些基督徒说过的那样，充分利用上帝赐予的天赋是自己的本分。但这似乎是人们发明出来、用以规避宗教森严戒律的一种诡辩：把时间花在钻研数学上、而不是祈祷或行善，之所以说得过去，是因为不这样做就等于拒绝了上帝赐下的天赋。这诡辩无疑是有用的，但我们用不着它。

We could also combine the first two principles, since people are part of the world. Why should our species get special treatment? I won’t try to justify this choice, but I’m skeptical that anyone who claims to think differently actually lives according to their principles.

我们也可以把前两条原则合并成一条，因为人本来就是世界的一部分。凭什么我们这个物种该享受特殊待遇？我不打算为这个选择辩护，但凡是自称想法不同的人，我都怀疑他们其实并没有真照着自己的原则生活。

[2] Confucius was also excluded from public life after ending up on the losing end of a power struggle, and presumably he too would not be so famous now if it hadn’t been for this long stretch of enforced leisure.

[2] 孔子也是在一场权力斗争中落败后，被排挤出了公共生活；想必他若不是有这么一长段被迫赋闲的日子，如今也不会这么有名。

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

感谢特雷弗·布莱克韦尔（Trevor Blackwell）、杰西卡·利文斯顿（Jessica Livingston）和罗伯特·莫里斯（Robert Morris）审读本文草稿。