The Map to the Route of Your Life

No one will map for you the path by which you must cross the wilderness of your own life — not your parents or your teachers, not your heroes or your lovers, not the self-help books or Shakespeare’s sonnets.

没有人会为你描绘出你必须穿越自己生活的荒野的道路——不是你的父母或你的老师，不是你的英雄或你的爱人，不是自助书籍或莎士比亚的十四行诗。

Some may give you signposts, some may become turning points, but it is a path you ultimately make by walking.

有的可能给你路标，有的可能成为转折点，但最终都是你走出来的路。

Along the way, you mistake dreams and desires for destinations, only to find that they have been way-stations — as soon as you attain them, you begin longing for something else.

一路上，你把梦想和欲望误认为是目的地，却发现它们只是中途站——一旦你到达了它们，你就开始渴望别的东西。

This Möbius strip of longing is the root of everything we suffer in the fangs of the Wanting Monster , but it is also the root of our creative vitality: the restless urge to make, to leave a mark that says “I AM,” a monument to having been.

这种莫比乌斯带的渴望是我们在渴望怪物的獠牙中遭受的一切痛苦的根源，但它也是我们创造力活力的根源：不断渴望创造、留下一个印记，说“我是”，一座曾经存在的纪念碑。

It is our incompleteness that maps the territory of the possible in us.

正是我们的不完整性映射了我们内心的可能性。

It is our existential wanderlust that makes us what we are — pilgrims of mortality, forever coming home to the horizon of tomorrow.

正是我们对生存的旅行癖造就了我们——死亡的朝圣者，永远回到明天的地平线。

Mario Benedetti (September 14, 1920–May 17, 2009) captures this paradox, with subtlety that doesn’t offer an answer but whispers the living question back to you, in an unedited poem found among his papers after his death, beautifully read in the original Spanish by my Patagonian friend Manuel Gutiérrez — a communicator of wonder through theater, music, and humor, whose hospitality made the serpentine birdworlds possible and who is always teaching me how to navigate the terrain of life with an open heart for a compass.

马里奥·贝内代蒂（Mario Benedetti，1920 年 9 月 14 日至 2009 年 5 月 17 日）巧妙地抓住了这一悖论，他死后在他的论文中发现了一首未经编辑的诗，他巧妙地捕捉到了这一悖论，这首诗没有提供答案，而是低声向你诉说着这个活生生的问题。他总是教我如何以开放的心态寻找指南针，在生活的道路上航行。

Music: “Sun Will Set” by Zoë Keating, with the artist’s permission; image: my father walking through the sunflower fields of Bulgaria merged with the first image captured by the Vera Rubin Observatory — 678 exposures of the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae taken over the course of seven hours.

音乐：佐伊·基廷（Zoë Keating）的《Sun Will Set》，已获得艺术家许可；图片：我父亲走过保加利亚的向日葵田，与维拉鲁宾天文台拍摄的第一张图像融合在一起——在七个小时内拍摄了 678 张三裂星云和泻湖星云的照片。

La encontré en mi bolsillo / era una ruta no sabía hasta dónde me llevaba pero igual la seguí en un merodeo con todas mis nostalgias en la mano

La encontré en mi bolsillo /era una ruta no sabía hasta dónde me llevaba pero igual la seguí en un merodeo con todas miss nostalgias en la mano

era un atlas del alma / la conciencia de lo que cometí y lo que me espera en el suelo vi huellas que eran propias así que era una senda ya corrida

阿尔玛地图集 / La conciencia de lo que cometí y lo que me espera en el suelo vi huellas que eran propias así queera una Senda ya Corrida

el piélago de antes ya no estaba todo era más fuerte más seguro de pronto me encontré con la ribera de ese río que siempre fue mi anhelo

以前的一切都已经过去了，我很快就会遇到我的安赫洛河里的河边

sólo entonces me aconsejé a mí mismo en el bolsillo volví a poner la ruta y allí quedó esperando otro mañana

独自一人让我明白了我的错误和博尔西洛的旋转，以及所有关于其他语言的想法

I found it in my pocket / it was a roadmap I knew not where it led but I followed it anyway in aimless wanderlust with all my nostalgias in hand

我在口袋里发现了它/它是一张路线图，我不知道它通向何方，但我还是带着我所有的怀旧之情，漫无目的地漫游着，遵循着它

it was an atlas of the soul / of consciousness of what I have committed and what awaits me on the ground I saw footprints that were my own and so it was a path already trodden

这是一本灵魂/意识地图集，关于我所犯下的罪行以及在地面上等待着我的东西我看到了我自己的脚印，所以这是一条已经走过的路

the vastness of before had vanished everything was stronger, surer suddenly I landed on the riverbank the river that had always been my longing

以前的浩瀚消失了，一切都变得更加强烈，更加确定，突然我降落在河岸上，那条一直是我向往的河

only then did I heed my own advice I tucked the path into my pocket once more and there it remained, awaiting another tomorrow

直到那时，我才听从自己的建议，我再次把路塞进口袋，它就留在那里，等待另一个明天。

Couple with Benedetti’s clarion call to stop waiting and start living , then revisit C.S.

再加上贝内代蒂呼吁停止等待并开始生活的号角，然后重温 C.S.

Lewis on what we long for in our existential longings .

刘易斯谈我们存在主义的渴望中所渴望的是什么。