当代研究生英语原文及翻译(下册)

UNIT 1 PASSAGES OF HUMAN GROWTH (I)

1 A person?s life at any given time incorporates both external and internal aspects. The external system is composed of our memberships in the culture: our job, social class, family and social roles, how we present ourselves to and participate in the world. The interior realm concerns the meanings this participation has for each of us. In what ways are our values, goals, and aspirations being invigorated or violated by our present life system? How many parts of our personality can we live out, and what parts are we suppressing? How do we feel about our way of living in the world at any given time?

2 The inner realm is where the crucial shifts in bedrock begin to throw a person off balance, signaling the necessity to change and move on to a new footing in the next stage of development. These crucial shifts occur throughout life, yet people consistently refuse to recognize that they possess an internal life system. Ask anyone who seems down, “Why are you feeling low?” Most will displace the inner message onto a marker event: “I?ve been down since we moved, since I changed jobs, since my wife went back to graduate school and turned into a damn social worker in sackcloth,” and so on. Probably less than ten percent would say: “There is some unknown disturbance within me, and even though it?s painful, I feel I have to stay with it and ride it out.” Even fewer people would be able to explain that the turbulence they feel may have no external cause. And yet it may not resolve itself for several years.

3 During each of these passages, how we feel about our way of living will undergo subtle changes in four areas of perception. One is the interior sense of self in relation to others. A second is the proportion of safeness to danger we feel in our lives. A third is our perception of time—do we have plenty of it, or are we beginning to feel that time is running out? Last, there will be some shift at the gut level in our sense of aliveness or stagnation. These are the hazy sensations that compose the background tone of living and shape the decisions on which we take action.

4 The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires

a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our own distinctiveness.

Pulling Up Roots

5 Before 18, the m otto is loud and clear: “I have to get away from my parents.” But the words are seldom connected to action. Generally still safely part of our families, even if away at school, we feel our autonomy to be subject to erosion from moment to moment.

寻求自立

6 After 18, we begin Pulling Up Roots in earnest. College, military service, and short-term travels are all customary vehicles our society provides for the first round trips between family and a base of one?s own. In the attempt to separate our view of the wo rld from our family?s view, despite vigorous protestations to the contrary—“I know exactly what I want!”—we cast about for any beliefs we can call our own. And in the process of testing those beliefs we are often drawn to fads, preferably those most mysterious and inaccessible to our parents.

7 Whatever tentative memberships we try out in the world, the fear haunts us that we are really kids who cannot take care of ourselves. We cover that fear with acts of defiance and mimicked confidence. For allies to replace our parents, we turn to our contemporaries. They become conspirators. So long as their perspective meshes with our own, they are able to substitute fo r the sanctuary of the family. But that doesn?t last very long. And the instant they diverge from the shaky ideals of “our group”, they are seen as betrayers. Rebounds to the family are common between the ages of 18 and 22.

8 The tasks of this passage are to locate ourselves in a peer group role, a sex role, an anticipated occupation,an ideology or world view. As a result, we gather the impetus to leave home physically and the identity to begin leaving home emotionally.

9 Even as one part of us seeks to be an individual, another part longs to restore the safety and comfort of merging with another. Thus one of the most popular myths of this passage is: We can piggyback our development by attaching to a Stronger One. But people who marry during this time often prolong financial and emotional ties to the family and relatives that impede them from becoming self-sufficient.

10 A stormy passage through the Pulling Up Roots years will probably facilitate the normal progression of the adult life cycle. If one doesn?t have an identity crisis at this point, it will erupt during a later transition, when the penalties may be harder to bear.

The Trying Twenties

11 The Trying Twenties confront us with the question of how to take hold in the adult world. Our focus shifts from the interior turmoils of late adolescence—“Who am I?” “What is truth?”—and we become almost totally preoccupied with working out the externals. “How do I put my aspirations into effect?” “What is the best way to start?” “Where do I go?” “Who can help me?” “How did you do it?”

迷惘求索的二十几岁

11．到了二十几岁，我们面临的难题是如何在这成年人的世界中生存（自立）。再内心波功的青春期后期，我们

关注的焦点是：“我究竟是怎样的一个人?”“生活的真谛到底是什么?”而此时我们几乎全沉浸在有关外部生

活的问题上：“怎样才能使自己的抱负得以实现?”“最好从何处着手？”“我们应该朝什么目标努力?”“谁

能帮我的忙?”“别人是如何走过来的?”

12 In this period, which is longer and more stable compared with the passage that leads to it, the tasks are as enormous as they are exhilarating: To shape a Dream, that vision of …… 此处隐藏：11896字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……