【英语语言学习】数字化的现代生活

I was in New York during Hurricane Sandy, and this little white dog called Maui was staying with me. Half the city was dark because of a power cut, and I was living on the dark side. Now, Maui was terrified of the dark, so I had to carry him up the stairs, actually down the stairs first, for his walk, and then bring him back up. I was also hauling gallons of bottles of water up to the seventh floor every day. And through all of this, I had to hold a torch between my teeth. The stores nearby were out of flashlights and batteries and bread. For a shower, I walked 40 blocks to a branch of my gym.

 

But these were not the major preoccupations of my day. It was just as critical for me to be the first person in at a cafe nearby with extension cords and chargers to juice my multiple devices. I started to prospect¹ under the benches of bakeries and the entrances of pastry² shops for plug points. I wasn't the only one. Even in the rain, people stood between Madison and 5th Avenue under their umbrellas charging their cell phones from outlets³ on the street. Nature had just reminded us that it was stronger than all our technology, and yet here we were, obsessed⁴ about being wired.

 

I think there's nothing like a crisis to tell you what's really important and what's not, and Sandy made me realize that our devices and their connectivity matter to us right up there with food and shelter. The self as we once knew it no longer exists, and I think that an abstract, digital universe has become a part of our identity, and I want to talk to you about what I think that means.

 

I'm a novelist, and I'm interested in the self because the self and fiction have a lot in common. They're both stories, interpretations⁵. You and I can experience things without a story. We might run up the stairs too quickly and we might get breathless. But the larger sense that we have of our lives, the slightly more abstract one, is indirect. Our story of our life is based on direct experience, but it's embellished⁶. A novel needs scene after scene to build, and the story of our life needs an arc as well. It needs months and years. Discrete⁷ moments from our lives are its chapters. But the story is not about these chapters. It's the whole book. It's not only about the heartbreak and the happiness, the victories and the disappointments, but it's because how because of these, and sometimes, more importantly, in spite of these, we find our place in the world and we change it and we change ourselves. Our story, therefore, needs two dimensions of time: a long arc of time that is our lifespan, and the timeframe of direct experience that is the moment. Now the self that experiences directly can only exist in the moment, but the one that narrates⁸ needs several moments, a whole sequence of them, and that's why our full sense of self needs both immersive experience and the flow of time. Now, the flow of time is embedded⁹ in everything, in the erosion of a grain of sand, in the budding of a little bud into a rose. Without it, we would have no music. Our own emotions and state of mind often encode time, regret or nostalgia¹⁰ about the past, hope or dread¹¹ about the future.

 

I think that technology has altered that flow of time. The overall time that we have for our narrative¹², our lifespan, has been increasing, but the smallest measure, the moment, has shrunk. It has shrunk because our instruments enable us in part to measure smaller and smaller units of time, and this in turn has given us a more granular understanding of the material world, and this granular understanding has generated reams of data that our brains can no longer comprehend and for which we need more and more complicated computers. All of this to say that the gap between what we can perceive and what we can measure is only going to widen. Science can do things with and in a picosecond, but you and I are never going to have the inner experience of a millionth of a millionth of a second. You and I answer only to nature's rhythm and flow, to the sun, the moon and the seasons, and this is why we need that long arc of time with the past, the present and the future to see things for what they are, to separate signal from noise and the self from sensations. We need time's arrow to understand cause and effect, not just in the material world, but in our own intentions and our motivations. What happens when that arrow goes awry¹³? What happens when time warps¹⁴?

 

So many of us today have the sensation that time's arrow is pointing everywhere and nowhere at once. This is because time doesn't flow in the digital world in the same way that it does in the natural one. We all know that the Internet has shrunk space as well as time. Far away over there is now here. News from India is a stream on my smartphone app whether I'm in New York or New Delhi. And that's not all. Your last job, your dinner reservations from last year, your former friends, lie on a flat plain with today's friends, because the Internet also archives, and it warps the past. With no distinction left between the past, the present and the future, and the here or there, we are left with this moment everywhere, this moment that I'll call the digital now.

 

Just how can we prioritize in the landscape of the digital now? This digital now is not the present, because it's always a few seconds ahead, with Twitter streams that are already trending and news from other time zones. This isn't the now of a shooting pain in your foot or the second that you bite into a pastry or the three hours that you lose yourself in a great book. This now bears very little physical or psychological reference to our own state. Its focus, instead, is to distract us at every turn on the road. Every digital landmark¹⁵ is an invitation to leave what you are doing now to go somewhere else and do something else. Are you reading an interview by an author? Why not buy his book? Tweet it. Share it. Like it. Find other books exactly like his. Find other people reading those books. Travel can be liberating¹⁶, but when it is incessant¹⁷, we become permanent exiles without repose¹⁸. Choice is freedom, but not when it's constantly for its own sake.

 

Not just is the digital now far from the present, but it's in direct competition with it, and this is because not just am I absent from it, but so are you. Not just are we absent from it, but so is everyone else. And therein lies its greatest convenience and horror. I can order foreign language books in the middle of the night, shop for Parisian macarons, and leave video messages that get picked up later. At all times, I can operate at a different rhythm and pace from you, while I sustain the illusion that I'm tapped into you in real time.

 

Sandy was a reminder¹⁹ of how such an illusion can shatter. There were those with power and water, and those without. There are those who went back to their lives, and those who are still displaced after so many months. For some reason, technology seems to perpetuate²⁰ the illusion for those who have it that everyone does, and then, like an ironic²¹ slap in the face, it makes it true. For example, it's said that there are more people in India with access to cell phones than toilets. Now if this rift²², which is already so great in many parts of the world, between the lack of infrastructure²³ and the spread of technology, isn't somehow bridged, there will be ruptures²⁴ between the digital and the real. For us as individuals who live in the digital now and spend most of our waking moments in it, the challenge is to live in two streams of time that are parallel and almost simultaneous. How does one live inside distraction²⁵?

 

We might think that those younger than us, those who are born into this, will adapt more naturally. Possibly, but I remember my childhood. I remember my grandfather revising the capitals of the world with me. Buda and Pest were separated by the Danube, and Vienna had a Spanish riding school. If I were a child today, I could easily learn this information with apps and hyperlinks²⁶, but it really wouldn't be the same, because much later, I went to Vienna, and I went to the Spanish riding school, and I could feel my grandfather right beside me. Night after night, he took me up on the terrace, on his shoulders, and pointed²⁷ out Jupiter and Saturn²⁸ and the Great Bear to me. And even here, when I look at the Great Bear, I get back that feeling of being a child, hanging onto his head and trying to balance myself on his shoulder, and I can get back that feeling of being a child again. What I had with my grandfather was wrapped so often in information and knowledge and fact, but it was about so much more than information or knowledge or fact. Time-warping technology challenges our deepest core, because we are able to archive the past and some of it becomes hard to forget, even as the current moment is increasingly unmemorable. We want to clutch, and we are left instead clutching at a series of static moments. They're like soap bubbles that disappear when we touch them.

 

By archiving everything, we think that we can store it, but time is not data. It cannot be stored. You and I know exactly what it means like to be truly present in a moment. It might have happened while we were playing an instrument, or looking into the eyes of someone we've known for a very long time. At such moments, our selves are complete. The self that lives in the long narrative arc and the self that experiences the moment become one. The present encapsulates the past and a promise for the future. The present joins a flow of time from before and after.

 

I first experienced these feelings with my grandmother. I wanted to learn to skip, and she found an old rope and she tucked up her sari and she jumped over it. I wanted to learn to cook, and she kept me in the kitchen, cutting, cubing and chopping for a whole month. My grandmother taught me that things happen in the time they take, that time can't be fought, and because it will pass and it will move, we owe the present moment our full attention. Attention is time. One of my yoga instructors²⁹ once said that love is attention, and definitely from my grandmother, love and attention were one and the same thing. The digital world cannibalizes time, and in doing so, I want to suggest that what it threatens is the completeness of ourselves. It threatens the flow of love. But we don't need to let it. We can choose otherwise. We've seen again and again just how creative technology can be, and in our lives and in our actions, we can choose those solutions and those innovations and those moments that restore the flow of time instead of fragmenting it. We can slow down and we can tune³⁰ in to the ebb³¹ and flow of time. We can choose to take time back.

 

Thank you.

1 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

2 pastry   

n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry.厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• The pastry crust was always underdone.馅饼的壳皮常常烤得不透。

3 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

5 interpretations   

n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解

参考例句：

• This passage is open to a variety of interpretations. 这篇文章可以有各种不同的解释。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The involved and abstruse passage makes several interpretations possible. 这段艰涩的文字可以作出好几种解释。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 embellished   

v.美化( embellish的过去式和过去分词 )；装饰；修饰；润色

参考例句：

• The door of the old church was embellished with decorations. 老教堂的门是用雕饰美化的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stern was embellished with carvings in red and blue. 船尾饰有红色和蓝色的雕刻图案。 来自辞典例句

7 discrete   

adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的

参考例句：

• The picture consists of a lot of discrete spots of colour.这幅画由许多不相连的色点组成。
• Most staple fibers are discrete,individual entities.大多数短纤维是不联系的单独实体。

8 narrates   

v.故事( narrate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• It narrates the unconstitutional acts of James II. 它历数了詹姆斯二世的违法行为。 来自辞典例句
• Chapter three narrates the economy activity which Jew return the Occident. 第三章讲述了犹太人重返西欧后的经济活动。 来自互联网

9 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

10 nostalgia   

n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧

参考例句：

• He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth.也许是对年轻时幸福时光的怀恋影响了他。
• I was filled with nostalgia by hearing my favourite old song.我听到这首喜爱的旧歌，心中充满了怀旧之情。

11 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

12 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

13 awry   

adj.扭曲的，错的

参考例句：

• She was in a fury over a plan that had gone awry. 计划出了问题，她很愤怒。
• Something has gone awry in our plans.我们的计划出差错了。

14 warps   

n.弯曲( warp的名词复数 )；歪斜；经线；经纱v.弄弯，变歪( warp的第三人称单数 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾，

参考例句：

• This wood warps easily in damp conditions. 这种木料受潮容易变形。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Matt Lauer: Renewable biofuels. Park Ranger Rick Marshall Close. Time warps. 马特·劳尔：“可再生生物燃料。”瑞克：“不说了，时间都扭曲了。” 来自互联网

15 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

16 liberating   

解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Revolution means liberating the productive forces. 革命就是为了解放生产力。
• They had already taken on their shoulders the burden of reforming society and liberating mankind. 甚至在这些集会聚谈中，他们就已经夸大地把改革社会、解放人群的责任放在自己的肩头了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

17 incessant   

adj.不停的，连续的

参考例句：

• We have had incessant snowfall since yesterday afternoon.从昨天下午开始就持续不断地下雪。
• She is tired of his incessant demands for affection.她厌倦了他对感情的不断索取。

18 repose   

v.(使)休息；n.安息

参考例句：

• Don't disturb her repose.不要打扰她休息。
• Her mouth seemed always to be smiling,even in repose.她的嘴角似乎总是挂着微笑，即使在睡眠时也是这样。

19 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

20 perpetuate   

v.使永存，使永记不忘

参考例句：

• This monument was built to perpetuate the memory of the national hero.这个纪念碑建造的意义在于纪念民族英雄永垂不朽。
• We must perpetuate the system.我们必须将此制度永久保持。

21 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

22 rift   

n.裂口，隙缝，切口；v.裂开，割开，渗入

参考例句：

• He was anxious to mend the rift between the two men.他急于弥合这两个人之间的裂痕。
• The sun appeared through a rift in the clouds.太阳从云层间隙中冒出来。

23 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

24 ruptures   

n.（体内组织等的）断裂( rupture的名词复数 )；爆裂；疝气v.（使）破裂( rupture的第三人称单数 )；（使体内组织等）断裂；使（友好关系）破裂；使绝交

参考例句：

• Fault ruptures may consist of a single narrow main break. 断层破裂可能只包括单独一条狭窄的主裂隙。 来自辞典例句
• The dry seed ruptures and the green leaf uncurls. 干瘪的种子裂开了，卷曲的绿叶伸展了。 来自辞典例句

25 distraction   

n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Total concentration is required with no distractions.要全神贯注，不能有丝毫分神。
• Their national distraction is going to the disco.他们的全民消遣就是去蹦迪。

26 hyperlinks   

n.超链接( hyperlink的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Specifies if hyperlinks are displayed and function within the control. 指定是否显示超级链接以及它是否在控件中起作用。 来自互联网
• View, add, and change pages, documents, themes, and borders; recalculate hyperlinks. 查看、添加和更改网页、文档、主题和边框；重新计算超链接。 来自互联网

27 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

28 Saturn   

n.农神，土星

参考例句：

• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings.天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。
• These comparisons suggested that Saturn is made of lighter materials.这些比较告诉我们，土星由较轻的物质构成。

29 instructors   

指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The instructors were slacking on the job. 教员们对工作松松垮垮。
• He was invited to sit on the rostrum as a representative of extramural instructors. 他以校外辅导员身份，被邀请到主席台上。

30 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

31 ebb   

vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态

参考例句：

• The flood and ebb tides alternates with each other.涨潮和落潮交替更迭。
• They swam till the tide began to ebb.他们一直游到开始退潮。