传统式生活
让人上瘾的东西里,害处最大的三种是海洛因、碳水化合物和月薪。
我衡量成功的唯一标准,就是你有多少时间需要打发。
我不知道狮子(或者食人族)会不会为自由放养着长大的人类付更高的价钱。
如果你走路时非得听着音乐不可,那就不要走路,也不要听音乐。
人们在战争中彼此摧毁,在和平时自己摧毁自己。
体育让男人变得像女人,让女人变得像男人。
科技可以让愚人的生活在所有方面发生退化(甚至陷入危机),同时又让他相信自己的生活正在变得“更有效率”。
科技和奴役之间的区别在于,奴隶很清楚自己并不自由。
只有当你在任何领域都不跟任何人攀比时,你才算是拥有真正的生活。
面临绝症时,大自然让你忍受短暂的痛苦之后死去,医学则让你忍受很长时间的痛苦才慢慢死去。
我们对天然的(或者历史久远的)东西感到满意,例如老旧的街道或者经典油画,但却没法对科技产品感到满意,所以总是强调新的版本,对所谓的“2.0版”无比痴迷。
只有在近代,“努力”才变成一件让人骄傲的事情,而不是一件因为缺乏天赋、才能和气度才不得不做的、可耻的事情。
他们觉得有规律的生活是工作六天,休息一天;我觉得有规律的生活是工作一天(或者半天),休息六天。
他们所谓的“玩”(健身、旅游、体育)看起来更像是工作;他们越是努力,就越会深陷其中。
绝大多数现代科技都是延期执行的惩罚。
我们是猎人;我们只有在随机应变的时候才真正活着;没有日程安排,只有来自周围环境的新鲜刺激。
做任何事情的时候,用无聊程度当做钟表,提醒自己做得够久了。
绝大多数人开始腐化的时候,是离开自由、热闹、纯净的校园,开始孤单地陷于职业生涯和小家庭中的时候。
对于经典主义者来说,竞技运动员是最可悲的:他努力想成为一个动物而不是一个人,但他永远不可能像猎豹一样快,或是像公牛一样强壮。
可以转移的技能:街头斗殴,荒野徒步,勾引异性,广博的涉猎。无法转移的技能:学习,运动,体育,实验室——总之是那些更加简单有序的东西。
只有当你的谈话(或者文字)没法很容易地用别的谈话的片断重新构建出来时,你才算是真正地存在着。
英国有时也会出现地中海式的天气,但英国人还是要到西班牙去度假,因为他们的自由时间并不能自由安排。
对绝大多数人来说,工作和相关的东西会造成慢性损伤效应。
科技在无影无形的时候最有效果。
真实生活和现代生活的区别,跟谈话和两个人分别背诵台词的区别一样大。
当我看到别人在跑步机上奔跑时,总会想到狮群里最强壮的狮子根本用不着狩猎,每天可以睡20个小时,别的狮子会替它狩猎。就像“恺撒建了一座桥”(Caesar pontem fecit)[1]。
任何并非面对面进行的社交活动都会损害健康。
[1]“Caesar pontem fecit”这句拉丁文的字面意思是“恺撒建了一座桥”,然而其精妙之处在于,它的意思也可以诠释为“有人替恺撒建了一座桥”。
THESEUS, OR, LIVING THE PALEO LIFE
The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.
My only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.
I wonder if a lion (or a cannibal) would pay a high premium for freerange humans.
If you need to listen to music while walking, don't walk; and please don't listen to music.
Men destroy each other during war; themselves during peacetime.
Sports feminize men and masculinize women.
Technology can degrade (and endanger) every aspect of a sucker's life while convincing him that it is becoming more "efficient".
The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.
You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.
With terminal disease, nature lets you die with abbreviated suffering; medicine lets you suffer with prolonged dying.
We are satisfied with natural (or old) objects like vistas or classical paintings but insatiable with technologies, amplifying small improvements in versions, obsessed about 2.0, caught in a mental treadmill.
Only in recent history has "working hard" signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse, and, mostly, sprezzatura.
Their idea of the sabbatical is to work six days and rest for one; my idea of the sabbatical is to work for (part of) a day and rest for six.
What they call "play" (gym, travel, sports) looks like work; the harder they try, the more captive they are.
Most modern technologies are deferred punishment.
We are hunters; we are only truly alive in those moments when we improvise; no schedule, just small surprises and stimuli from the environment.
For everything, use boredom in place of a clock, as a biological wristwatch, though under constraints of politeness.
Decomposition, for most, starts when they leave the free, social, and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confinement of professions and nuclear families.
For a classicist, a competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.
Skills that transfer: street fights, off-path hiking, seduction, broad erudition. Skills that don't: school, games, sports, laboratory——what's reduced and organized.
You exist in full if and only if your conversation (or writings) cannot be easily reconstructed with clips from other conversations.
The English have random Mediterranean weather; but they go to Spain because their free hours aren't free.
For most, work and what comes with it have the eroding effect of chronic injury.
Technology is at its best when it is invisible.
The difference between true life and modern life equals the one between a conversation and bilateral recitations.
When I look at people on treadmills I wonder how alpha lions, the strongest, expend the least amount of energy, sleeping twenty hours a day; others hunt for them. Caesar pontem fecit.
Every social association that is not face to face is injurious to your health.