2006年NPR美国国家公共电台七月-'Doing Nothing' as a Full-Time Job

（单词翻译）

Most kids are on summer vacation from school right now, but the adults still have to go to work. Commentator¹ Yvette Doss wishes she could split the difference between the two.

Frankly², a lot of days I'd rather be doing nothing. I string up the hammock and settle into my backyard with an iced tea. To commune with the spiders suspended from a little web just above me, only to find myself scrambling³ for a pencil to capture the brilliant, earth changing, poor children saving idea for a business, that will make me ridiculously wealthy and solve all the world's problems all at the same time.

Next I'll remember an E-mail I was supposed to send out and the fact that we have no more socks to wear and that bill that was overdue⁴ and the doctor's appointment I have to reschedule. Funny, isn't it? I'm never more productive than when I am doing nothing. It's what I like to think of as the paradox⁵ of not doing. It's like another paradox, the paradox of being Zen. After you've done buying the yoga mat and the meditation⁶ cushions and the prayer beads⁷ and a little statue of the Buddha⁸ and the incense⁹ and one of those cute little incense holders with the Yin and Yang symbol on them. You have expended¹¹ considerable energy doing and accumulating rather than just being.

Take author Tom Lutz, a self-proclaimed slacker turned professor. One day he found his 18-year-old son Cody in a prone¹² position on his sofa in front of the TV set instead of out job hunting. And it made Lutz inexplicably¹³ angry. So he was compelled to examine the reasons that other sloth¹⁴ makes smoke come out of our ears.

He decided¹⁵ to write a book tracing the history of slackerdom. It's called "Doing Nothing". In it, he examines the impulse to drop out that rucksack revolution epitomized in Jack¹⁶ Kerouac's book Dharma Bums¹⁷. It is at its roots a refusal to work just to consume. To keep that vicious cycle of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume alive.

Lutz argues that for as long as man has considered the work ethic¹⁸ ,man has considered shirking the work ethic and it's often been a point of contention¹⁹ between fathers and sons, much as it was between him and his son Cody. Lutz's history book clocks in at a plump 320 pages and that's without the healthy 34-page-bibliography. Proof positive that he worked his heiney off researching and writing this tome about doing nothing. So, apparently²⁰, did a lot of famous slackers that Lutz profiles such as Dharma Bums himself Jack Kerouac. Playboy Hugh Huffner and the loafer poet Walt Whitman, all whom Lutz argues were closet workaholics.

To make matters worse, Lutz says Benjamin Franklin, our country's most industrious²¹ and hard-working inventor and author of the words "early to bed, early to rise", was only good at making it appear as if he was working hard. To do or not to do then, that is the question. It's enough to make a girl retire her meditation cushion altogether.

Yvette Doss is managing editor at Ciudad magazine.

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string up:very nervous, worried, or excited; 使兴奋, 使敏感
hammock:a large piece of cloth that is hung between two trees or posts so that you can sleep in it;吊床
commune:to communicate with a person, god, or animal, especially in a mysterious, spiritual way;精神意义上的交流,谈心
scrambling:the activity of climbing over rocks using your hands but no ropes;不规则性
overdue:not done, paid, returned etc by the time expected;迟到的
paradox:a statement that seems impossible because it contains two opposing ideas that are both true;自相矛盾的观点或话
Zen:禅宗
Yoga:瑜伽
mat:a small piece of thick rough material which covers part of a floor;小席子,小垫子
meditation:the practice of emptying your mind of thoughts and feelings, in order to relax completely or for religious reasons;冥思,冥想,沉思,入静
Buddha:佛
incense:a substance which has a pleasant smell when you burn it;香,薰香
holder:something that is used to hold an object;支持物,固定器
Yin and Yang:阴阳
self-proclaimed:having given yourself a position or title without the approval or agreement of other people;自称的,自诩的
slacker:someone who is lazy and does not do all the work they should - used to show disapproval²²;懒鬼
job hunting:求职,找工作
sloth:laziness;懒惰
rucksack:a bag used for carrying things on your back, especially by people on long walks;(旅行用)帆布背包
epitomize(=epitomise):to be a very typical example of something;摘要,概括
vicious:violent and cruel in a way that hurts someone physically;恶意的,刻毒的
shirk:to deliberately²³ avoid doing something you should do, because you are lazy;因懒惰而逃避或推卸做某事
plump:round and full in a way that looks attractive;丰满的
loafer:someone who is lazy and does nothing when they should be working;吊儿郎当的人
workaholic:someone who chooses to work a lot, so that they do not have time to do anything else;以工作为第一的人,工作狂
to make matters worse:used to say that something makes a bad situation worse;使事情更为糟糕的是...
early to bed, early to rise:Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. 早睡早起,使人健康、富裕又聪明。—— Benjamin Franklin 富兰克林