Being Superior to Your Previous Self
憩于理性，行于热情
On Reason And Passion
卡里·纪伯伦 / Kahil Gibran
And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered, saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker1 in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring2 soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill3 in midseas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; and let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honor one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity4 of distant fields and meadows —Then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, —then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God' s sphere, and a leaf in God' s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
女祭司开口说道：请给我们讲讲理性与热情的事。
他于是答道：
你们的心灵常常是个战场，你们的理性与判断和你们的热情与渴望在上面交锋。愿我成为你们心灵的和平使者，将你们本质的一切冲突与对抗变为和谐的旋律。倘若你们自身不是和平使者，不是钟爱自身本质的人，我又该如何完成呢?
你们的理性与热情，是你们远航之魂的舵与帆。如果你们的舵或帆断了，你们就只能在海上颠簸漂浮，或者滞留在海中央。理性独自掌权，是一种局限的力量；热情不加束缚，则是自我焚烧的火焰。
所以，让你们的灵魂将理性升华到热情的极至，它将高唱；让你们的灵魂用理性来引导热情，这样，你们的热情才会历经每日的复活，宛如凤凰从灰烬中展翅重生。
愿你们把自己的判断和渴望当做你们家中两位挚爱的客人。当然，你们不会厚此薄彼；因为偏爱其中一个便会使你同时失去两者的爱和忠诚。
在群山之中，当你们坐在白杨树的阴凉下，享受着远处田野的安宁和草原的宁静安详时——让你们的心在静谧中说：“上帝憩于理性。”
当暴风雨来临，狂风震撼森林，雷电弘扬天空的庄严肃穆时——让你们的心在敬畏中说：“上帝行于热情。”
既然你们是上帝领域中的一丝气息，上帝森林里的一片树叶，那你们也应憩于理性，行于热情。
美即是真
What Makes Me Feel Big
J.弗兰克·多比/J. Frank Dobie
"My mind is big when I look at you and talk to you." Chief Eagle of the Pawnees said to George Bird Grinnell when, after years of absence, that noble writer appeared at his friend' s tepee.
It is very difficult in drawing up a credo to be severely honest about oneself, to avoid all traditional cant. We actually believe in what we value most. Outside of the realms of carnality and property, which men appearing in public generally pretend not to notice, I believe in and draw nourishment1 from whatever makes me "feel big".
I believe in a Supreme Power, unknowable and impersonal, whose handiwork2 the soul-enlarging firmament declares. However, I believe in questionings, doubtings, searchings, skepticism, and I discredit credulity or blind faith. The progress of man is based on disbelief of the commonly accepted. The noblest minds and natures of human history have thought and sung, lived and died, trying to budge the status quo towards a larger and fuller status. I am sustained by a belief in evolution—the increasing purpose of life in which the rational is, with geological slowness, evolving out of the irrational. To believe that goodness and wisdom and righteousness, in Garden of Eden perfection, lie somewhere far ahead instead of farther and farther behind, gives me hope and somewhat explains existence. This is a long view. I do not pretend that it is a view always present in me. It does raise me when I have it, however.
I feel no resentment so strongly as that against forces which make men and women afraid to speak out forthrightly. The noblest satisfaction I have is in witnessing the up movement of suppressed individuals and people. I make no pretense to having rid myself of all prejudices, but at times when I have discovered myself freed from certain prejudices, I have felt rare exhilaration3.
For me, the beautiful resides in the physical, but it is spiritual. I have never heard a sermon as spiritual in either phrase or fact as.
"Waters on a starry night are beautiful and free."
No hymn lifts my heart higher than the morning call of the bobwhite or the long fluting cry of sandhill cranes out of the sky at dusk. I have never smelled incense in a church as refining to the spirit as a spring breeze laden with aroma from a field of bluebonnets. Not all hard truths are beautiful. But "beauty is truth". It incorporates love and is incorporated by love. It is the goal of all great art. Its presence everywhere makes it free to all. It is not so abstract as justice, but beauty and intellectual freedom and justice, all incorporating truth and goodness, are constant sustainers to my mind and spirit.
在离开朋友波尼族印第安人首领雄鹰的兽皮帐篷几年后，作家乔治·伯德·格林又回到那里。这位首领对他高尚的朋友说：“凝视着你，与你交谈，让我感到心胸宽广。”
我们很难为自己拟出一个既能严格遵守又能避免传统教条的信念。事实上，我们最为珍视的东西便是我们的信仰。除了人们在公共场合总会假装视而不见的俗念与财产之外，所有能让我胸怀宽广的都是我的信仰，它们是我力量的源泉。
我相信有一种至高无上且无法控制的未知力量，它的创造，宣告了灵魂拥有无限伸展的空间。然而，我也相信询问、质疑、探索与怀疑，但拒绝轻信或盲从的信仰。人类的进步是基于对普遍接受的质疑。人类历史上，拥有最高尚思想的人们曾经思考过、歌唱过、生活过，最终离去，他们也曾努力扩展并充实现状。我始终相信进化论，即生活目的在不断增加，而其中从非理性到理性的进化时间就像地质变化一样漫长。我相信，伊甸园中完美的善良、智慧与正义就在遥远的前方，给予我希望，并或多或少地解释了生存的意义。这是一个长远的观点。我不会假装认为，自己始终拥有这样的观点。然而，当我拥有它时，我的灵魂的确得到了升华。
使人不敢坦诚言论的势力，是我最为憎恨的。当看到受压迫的个人与民族奋起反抗时，我便会心生敬慕，感到满足。我并不伪称自己已经摒弃了所有的偏见，但有时当我发现自己摆脱了某些偏见时，我就会狂喜不已。
