This is a guest post from the amazing blog Soul Shelter, which focuses on the challenge of integrating inspiration and employment, balancing fortune and fulfillment, and much more. I’d encourage anyone to bookmark the site and return regularly.

　　这是从惊人博客“灵魂避风港”里摘下的一个读者留言，其重点是挑战灵感和就业机会的整合，财富和充实的平衡，以及更多类似的话题。我鼓励大家把这个网站收藏起来，并经常来关注一下。

　　In the vocation of writing, poverty is a prerequisite for greatness. At least that’s what I told myself back when I was nineteen or twenty years old. I had only recently committed myself wholeheartedly to “becoming a writer.” I harbored a zealous admiration for literature’s impoverished, ill-fated greats: John Keats, Stephen Crane, Henry David Thoreau—all were paupers, and all died young.

　　在写作里，贫困就是伟大的先决条件。至少这是我在19，20岁的时候，经常对自己说的一句话。我只是在最近才下定决心，要全身心地去为“成为作家”而奋斗。对于文学界里贫困窘迫，命运多舛的大家，我心中总涌动着一股狂热的钦佩：约翰济慈，斯蒂芬克莱恩，亨利梭罗------他们都是贫困子弟，都是英年早逝。

　　As I saw it, those literary greats were able to remain intensely focused on the eternal verities because they weren’t after fame or fortune—just beauty, just truth. It was their raw existences, lives close to the bone and suffused with awareness of nature’s riches, that made possible their immortal works. I eventually came to realize I’d romanticized their poverty, but even today I believe my naivete served a powerful purpose, and laid a foundation that has helped me for a decade now.

　　正如我看到的，那些伟大的文学大家之所以能够坚持永恒的真理，是因为他们不追求虚幻的名望和财富，他们眼里只有美，只有真。这是他们原始的存在，像骨头一般索然的生活以及对大自然财富丰富的意识，使得他们的让作品成就不朽成为可能。我终于意识到自己已经把他们的贫穷浪漫化了，但即使是在今天，我依然相信我的天真质朴就是一个有力的服务宗旨，并且奠定了十年来助我前行的基础。

　　ThoreauIn my twentieth year I packed a large cardboard box with belongings and headed east by train to begin my artistic life in Massachusetts, 3,000 miles from California, where I’d been born and raised. I wanted to live near Walden Pond and commune daily, in nearby Concord, with the wise ghosts of Thoreau and Emerson. The closest I could get was the city of Lowell, birthplace of the American industrial revolution—a ramshackle town cluttered with eerie decommissioned factories and mills. But from Lowell I could get to Concord by train as often as I liked.

　　Thoreau二十岁的那年，我带上装满行李的大纸箱，坐上东去的火车，到距离加州3000英里远的马萨诸塞州-----也是生我养我的地方，去开始我的艺术生涯。我向往能住在瓦尔登湖的附近，在康科德的周遭，每天与梭罗和爱默生睿智的幽灵交谈。离我最近的城市就是洛厄尔市-----美国工业革命的诞生地-----一个破旧而混乱，充满了荒废，怪诞的工厂和产地的城镇。但是在洛厄尔，只要我喜欢，就能乘着火车去康科德。

　　I set up my new life in a 300 square-foot studio apartment 14 miles from Walden Pond as the crow flies. My sole furnishings were an inflatable mattress, a plastic patio chair, a small lamp, a pile of books, and a radio/cassette player. In the cardboard box, I had packed the essential kitchen wares: a can opener, a spatula, two plates, two cups, two forks, two knives, two spoons, and a frying pan. More importantly, I had packed a word processor and a ream of paper.

　　群鸦乱舞，在离瓦尔登湖14英里的一间300平方英尺的公寓里，我开始了自己新的生活。我仅有的家具只有一张充气床垫，一张塑料庭院椅，一盏小灯，一堆书，还有一个收音机/卡带播放器。在大纸箱里，装着我带的一些必要的厨具：一个开罐器，一个炒菜铲，两块菜板，两个杯子，两把叉子，两把刀，两只勺，和一个煎锅。更重要的是，我还带了文字处理器和一沓纸。

　　I was determined to begin my writerly life in the spirit of Thoreau’s proclamation in Walden: “Give me that poverty that knows true wealth.” Thoreau, living for two years in his tiny cabin on the shores of Walden Pond in the mid-19th century, had proven conclusively to the industrialized world that simplicity and “mean living” were the highest spiritual ideals, for they rined one’s sense of beauty and truth. “Simplify, simplify,” said Thoreau, and I wanted to heed his advice. The fewer my possessions and the smaller my quarters, the loftier my hopes could be—and the freer I could remain to realize them.

　　我决心秉着梭罗在瓦尔登湖宣言中“ 给我明了真正财富的贫穷 ”的精神，开始我的写作生涯。在19世纪中叶的时候，梭罗有两年时间都住在瓦尔登湖畔的小木屋里，他向工业化世界总结性地证明了简朴和“卑微的生活”是最伟大的精神理想，因为他们的思想里只有美和真。梭罗说过，“简单，再简单，”我很想遵从他的建议。我的拥有越少，住房越小，我的期望就会越高-----我能意识到它们的可能性也就越大。

　　My rent in Lowell was 0 dollars a month. With roughly ,500 in bank savings, I could conceivably live and write—and do nothing else—for about three months. I set to work. I spent nearly every day clicking away on my word processor, and every evening reading. Intellectually, I’d never been wealthier. It was an education unlike anything provided by my years of schooling.

　　在洛厄尔，我每个月的房租是400美元。每个月银行里还能存 1500美元，所以在大概三个月内，我可以无后顾之忧的生活，写作，还可以做些其他的事情。我开始工作。几乎每天都是在我敲打文字处理器的从指间流逝，而每个晚上则都在书页中翻过。而实际上，我一直都是这样紧巴巴的。这段时间我的学业，与以往在学校接受的教育都不相同。

　　Practically everything in my life had been cleared away for the sake of writing. And only years later would the true nature of this apprenticeship period become clear to me: more than learning how to be a “starving artist,” I was learning how to be gratul for what little I possessed.

　　事实上，因为写作的缘故，我生命中其他的一切都已被我抛诸脑后。只能是几年以后，我才知道这段实习的实质，是要学会怎么利用我仅有的财富去创造伟大，而不是学会怎么去做一个“饥荒艺术家”。

　　The residence in Massachusetts proved successful. I returned home that autumn unafraid of poverty, able to work for five to six hours at a stretch, and in possession of a 150-page personal manifesto. I’d become a writer.

　　在马塞诸塞州的居住是颇有收获的。那年秋天我回家了。不再惧怕贫穷。我可以每天有弹性地工作5-6个小时，并且还拥有了一本150页厚的自己的宣言。我已经是一名作家了。

　　Maybe it’s needless to say that my “manifesto” never saw the light of day. At the sentence-level it was truly awful, but however far I remained from producing publishable work, I’d committed myself to my craft, and knew that if I nurtured this commitment my words would find their way, sooner or later, into print. Four years later that’s what happened, when my first short story was published in a national literary magazine.

　　也许没有必要交代，其实我的宣言从未见过天日。从句子层面上来说，宣言写的真的很差，但是不管到我能发表作品的这段路还有多远，我都会一直全身心投入自己的创作，我相信，只要我坚持这份坚持，我的作品，总有一天会变成铅字印刷品。四年以后，这个梦想成了现实：我的第一篇短篇故事在一本全国性的文学杂志上刊登了。

　　Since that idealistic Massachusetts adventure, I’ve never lost my grasp on the importance of simplicity (though living simply remains a day-to-day challenge). Simplicity frees one to make any range of choices and pursue any range of possibilities. And such freedom is hindered by complexities like financial demands, time constraints, and the baggage of material belongings. By consciously seeking simplicity in life, one places oneself in a condition of gratitude. And gratitude, by instilling an awareness of one’s blessings, clarifies one’s vision and helps one establish goals.

　　因为马塞诸塞州人所走的理想主义路线，我对简朴的重要性也一直都是深有体会(尽管简朴的生活还是每天都要面对的挑战)，简朴释放了人类，它使得你可以去做任何选择，去追求任何可能。这种自由常常被生活的复杂所束缚，譬如经济需求，时间制约，以及财产所有物的大包小包等等。如果你想下意识的去追求简单，那么就让自己懂得感恩。而感恩，则是通过逐渐培养人的祝福意识，让人清楚自己的未来并且建立起自己的目标。

　　I’m lucky that I had the opportunity, back at age twenty, to romanticize things and be naive. Through the years since, those early ideals have helped me recognize real happiness. I continue striving to be gratul, and to live up to Thoreau’s wise exhortation: “Simplify, simplify!”

　　我很幸运，因为在20岁的时候，我有机会去把事情浪漫化，并且过着天真幼稚额生活。这些年来，早期的一些想法让我明白了真正的幸福。我会继续为了“伟大”去奋斗，争取活到梭罗箴言里所说的境界“简单，再简单!”

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