The Course of Love 读书笔记

Alan de Botton 是我近段时间钟意的作家。读过他的爱情笔记，旅行的意义，爱的进化论。相比较而言，这本书看得更受启发，就在开始读这本书之前，我在脸书上写下一番话，其中有一句是，我们都想爱与被爱。书中第237中也说道“爱”这个话题，而他写的更美，更动人。

拉比准备接纳婚姻，是在于他已经准备好去爱，而不是被爱。

在谈及“爱”时，我们讲它是做单一的、未分化的事物，但其实它包含着两种截然不同的模式；被爱和爱。只有当我们乐于践行后者，并且意识到我们有违常情地执念于前者是危险之举时，我们房客步入婚姻。

年幼时，我们只知道“被爱”。这“被爱”貌似理所当然，实际却大错特错。对幼童而言，父母天然该守护在侧，时刻暖心而快乐地提供抚慰、引导、逗趣、喂食和清理。我们将这种爱的观念带入到成年。长大成人后，我们希望如此被服侍和溺爱。在内心隐秘的思维中，我们将恋人想象成可以预知我们所需、辨读我们心灵，会忘我奉献、妥帖安排一切。这貌似“浪漫”。实则充满隐患。

We speak of 'love' as if it were a single, undifferentiated things, but it compreises two very different modes: being loved and loving. We should marry when we are ready to do the latter and have become awere of our unnatural- and dangerous - fixation on the former.

We start out knowing only about "being loved." It comes to seem, quite wrongly, the norm. To the child, it feels as if the parent were just spontaneously on hand to comfort, guide, entertain, feed, and clear up while remaining amost constantly warm and cheerful.

We take this idea of love with us into adulthood. Grown up, we hope for a re-creation of what it felt like to be ministered to and indulged. In a secret coner of our mind, we picture a lover who will anticipate our needs, read our hearts, act selflessly, and make everthing better. It sounds "romantic", yet it is a blueprint for disaster.

当我们接受伴侣在诸多重要的领域比我们更聪明、更理性。更成熟时，我们就为婚姻做好了准备。我们会想以他们为榜样。我们会对教诲心悦诚服。而在其他一些时候，我们会乐意做最好的为人师者，提出建议时，力戒吼叫，也不期待对方必然心领神会。人无完人，随意，互相教育实则是充满爱心之举。

We are ready for marriage when we accept that, in a number of significant areas, our partner will be wiser, more resonable, and more mature than we are. We should want to learn form them. We should bear having things pointed out to us. And at other moments we should be ready to model ourselves on the best pedagogues and deliver our suggestions without shouting or expecting the other simply to know. Only if we were already perfect could the idea of mutual education be dismissed as unloving.

(未完，明天接着写🤦♀️)