2009年10月30日 星期五

台灣獨立紀念日


The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music.
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.

註:梭羅於1845年三月底起造湖邊小屋,7月4日(美國獨立紀念日)正式入厝。


當我讀到這裡時,很不幸的,台灣正處於近幾年來最不獨立的年代,最令人氣餒的年代。雖然我希望像梭羅一樣,學公雞在清晨引頸高啼,試圖喚醒我的國人:盡可能的作一個自由自在的人,不要委身於任何東西 -- 不論是美國,日本,還是中國。並不是如憤青一般高唱台灣民族主義,只是站在一個台灣人的立場,真誠地喜愛他的國家與國內的事物。但是要聽的耳朵太少。



2009年10月27日 星期二

補充詩:庚戍歲九月中於西田穫早稻


I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this?
He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. — Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."

莫留心於短暫無常之事物 --
因為繁華過盡,逝水如斯。

若是你家道殷實,要如棗樹般慷慨大方;
若是你囊篋俱乏,應似柏樹般了無罣礙。


註:
《Flower Garden》,真境花園,13世紀阿拉伯著名穆斯林詩人、蘇菲主義學者薩迪 (Sadi,1213—1291)著。


補充詩:庚戍歲九月中於西田穫早稻

人生歸有道,衣食固其端.孰是都不營,而以求自安.

開春理常業,歲功聊可觀.晨出肆微勤,日入負耒還.

山中饒霜露,風氣亦先寒.田家豈不苦?弗獲辭此難.

四體誠乃疲,庶無異患干.盥濯息簷下,斗酒散襟顏.

遙遙沮溺心,千載乃相關.但願長如此,躬耕非所歎.

-- 陶 潛


經濟問題可以是枝微末節的事,但卻不可以因之棄之不顧。

如果開春就按步就班的下田,一年下來的收獲也會很可觀.

透早就出門,到了日落才回家;山中的霜露讓氣候冷得早.

(甭怕田水冷酸酸)

作田的豈不艱苦?但是這是免不了的.

雖然四肢疲憊,至少心安理得,不用害怕意外的麻煩.

在簷下洗濯乾淨,就可小酌一番,散盡一天的辛勞.

古代先賢的心,竟然就在此時向我揭露,告訴我他們就是這樣想的.

希望可以一直這樣下去,而不是說有什麼遺憾才這麼做.



The holiest son of God


I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.


梭羅臨終前他的姨媽來看望他,她說:「亨利,你同上帝講和了嗎?」梭羅睜開眼說:「我好像從來也沒有和他吵過嘴呀。我從沒和他爭吵過。」

他的姨媽大概從來沒有好好看過梭羅寫的東西。梭羅爭吵的對象不是上帝,是上帝的兒子。



2009年10月24日 星期六

華 品


I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? Under what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send light? Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even — for that is the seat of sympathy — he forthwith sets about reforming — the world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers — and it is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it — that the world has been eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet and wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.


《法句經》第54偈:

奇草芳花,不逆風熏;近道敷開,德人逼香。


此偈意謂道德的香氣更勝於花香能遍及於各個方向,不似花香會受風向的影響。梭羅說,他不以慈悲和正直來衡量一個人,他認為那只是人的莖和葉 -- 他要的是人的花和果!與充滿花果香的「德人」交往應是如沐春風,或似春風化雨;給人勇氣而非悲情,給人健康及輕快(ease)而非病恙(disease)。若是我們的慈善團體多的是這樣的人,吳念真的妹妹也不會覺得無處可逃,寧可一個人忍受痛苦。台灣佛教徒所強調的大悲心,其實只是佛教教義的莖和葉。讓這些在世界各地救苦救難的菩薩們最痛心的不在苦難的世人,而在他們自己的病恙。若是有一天他的病體得癒,春天走向他、晨光重臨他的床榻,他會毫不猶豫地向他的同修道別,連一聲抱歉也沒有。




2009年10月22日 星期四

慈濟的慈善事業


There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me — some of its virus mingled with my blood. No — in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good
man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much.

吳念真有一次上談話性節目時談到他因重度憂鬱而過世的妹妹。他的妹妹生前曾經打電話拜託吳念真,要他去跟那些宗教慈善事業團體說,不要再打電話或到家裡來安慰她了,因為她實在沒有能力應付這些人。梭羅說,腐敗的善有著最難忍受的臭味。他說,並不是人家餓時你給他飯吃,冷時你給他衣服穿,你就是好人;一隻訓練有素的狗也可以做到這個。即使有上千百個慈濟團體,你覺得世界就會變得比現在好嗎?令慈濟人最悲哀的不是他們對世人苦難的大悲心,而是他們自己的無明。




2009年10月21日 星期三

如何選擇職業?


For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what is called a good business. When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice — for my greatest skill has been to want but little — so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of Admetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even to the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.

As I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not wish to spend my time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate cookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If there are any to whom it is no interruption to acquire these things, and who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish to them the pursuit. Some are "industrious," and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as hard as they do — work till they pay for themselves, and get their free papers. For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.

One young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me that he thought he should live as I did, if he had the means. I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.


  1. 工作的時間要儘量的少,除非你不知道如何運用閒暇的時間。
  2. 在衣著和交通無需額外的費用。
  3. 不要賠上了你的思想及信仰。
  4. 無需分散太多心力於其上,而可專心於自己想做的事物。
  5. 最好不要從商;因為交易的行為會在交易的物品中下符咒。
  6. 考慮自己的自由。
  7. 不要把時間花在賺取豪宅名車,除非獲取這些東西的過程並不違背上述的原則。
  8. 維生只是消遣,如何生活的更單純更藝術才是人生最重要的職業。
  9. 過自己想過的生活方式;如果你不知自己想過怎樣的生活,想想北極星如何指引人們方向。

2009年10月18日 星期日

圓明園「鼠、兔獸首」


I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects, for his life had not been ineffectual: —

"The evil that men do lives after them."
As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.


    "It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.”


”我們最好從一開始就遠離邪惡。”梭羅連別人好意送他一個腳踏墊他都拒絶,因為根據莎士比亞的名言,『人之過惡,雖死猶存』,所以人死後最好什麼也別留下來。然而梭羅的這段文字還把輪迴的概念用上了。他說在一個拍賣會場上,那些東西是賣家的父親就開始累積的。梭羅認為這些東西都該送到梵化爐燒個乾淨,結果卻由買家買去,等到有一天讓故事重新來過。

台灣的「故宮」拒收圓明園「鼠、兔獸首」,看來是我們政府難得正確的決定,最好連「故宮」的東西都送回去,和「萬惡」的共匪斷的乾乾淨淨。可是你看這有多難,這就是梭羅之所以這麼說的原因:


    "It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.”

2009年10月13日 星期二

OS/2


人從農夫墮落為工人正像人從人墮落為農夫一樣值得紀念。

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was concerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get clothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a farmer's family — thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for I think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable as that from the man to the farmer; — and in a new country, fuel is an encumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat, I might purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I cultivated was sold — namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it was, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on it.


在梭羅的時代都很難在商家買得到甜美的粗麵粉,更何況是現在呢!


梭羅在他那個時代偏偏去作已經很少人在做的事,自己種吃的、做傢俱,凡是能自己動手做的,很少假手他人;我由於從小只被要求要讀書,什麼都不作也沒關係,所以到現在想要學學做點什麼也沒力了。當我用OS/2這種已經很少人在用的作業系統播放mp3時,是不是可以美其名為Walden 2.0呢?一般來說,2.0好像表示比較先進的意思。但是,從梭羅的觀點來看,也許是另一回事吧!他也許會說,從1.0墮落到2.0就像人從工人墮落到上班族一樣值得紀念。


這台裝載OS/2及Windows 98中文版的機器是我在1999年買的,到現在滿10年了。幾年前曾經換了一顆硬碟,其他運作一切尚稱平順。前陣子去海盜灣下載了OS/2 Warp 4.52來玩,把我原先裝載的德文版Windows98刪了,之後又安裝了兩三次,到現在才完全滿意。


最近也是最後一次的安裝正是我在牙痛的時候。當時,牙痛難耐,只好找事情轉移注意力;也是在那時才發現自以為是的修行是多麼不堪考驗。作業系統安裝完成後,必須自行安裝音效卡驅動程式。因為我有一個老舊的英文電子字典要用到Win-OS/2的模式,所以也作了一番設定。


正像梭羅的時代的他並不完全孤單,現在還是有不少人在用OS/2。所以這個在mp3還沒開始流行時就有的作業系統,現在也有人為它設計了播放mp3的程式;也有人為它寫了fat32檔案系統的驅動程式,也因此我才能讀取存放在Windows 98 硬碟分割區的檔案。

2009年9月20日,發現螢幕開始有閃爍的情形。於是我將她收起來,也許日後接上外接螢幕再用。沒多久,11月10日,因為幫朋友作了一些木工,他拿了500釦來給我當工資。我心想這是意外之財,正好日前在一間電腦維修店的櫥窗看到一台17吋的CRT二手螢幕,標價也是500釦,便去買回來接上。自此我又可以用她來聽mp3及學英文單字;我在想,是不是也應該好好學一下REXX電腦語言...

她是梭羅失去的那隻斑鳩。



2009年10月12日 星期一

西元前的麵包食譜


Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe-cakes, which I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to get smoked and to have a piny flavor, I tried flour also; but have at last found a mixture of rye and Indian meal most convenient and agreeable. In cold weather it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves of this in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and they had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths. I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such authorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to "good, sweet, wholesome bread," the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the soul of bread, the
spiritus which fills its cellular tissue, which is religiously preserved like the vestal fire — some precious bottleful, I suppose, first brought over in the Mayflower, did the business for America, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in cerealian billows over the land — this seed I regularly and faithfully procured from the village, till at length one morning I forgot the rules, and scalded my yeast; by which accident I discovered that even this was not indispensable — for my discoveries were not by the synthetic but analytic process — and I have gladly omitted it since, though most housewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without yeast might not be, and elderly people prophesied a speedy decay of the vital forces. Yet I find it not to be an essential ingredient, and after going without it for a year am still in the land of the living; and I am glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket, which would sometimes pop and discharge its contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. Neither did I put any sal-soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread. It would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ. "Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu." Which I take to mean, — "Make kneaded bread thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have kneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover," that is, in a baking kettle. Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this staff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw none of it for more than a month.

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel or two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest land, and the latter does not require the best, and grind them in a hand-mill, and so do without rice and pork; and if I must have some concentrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could make a very good molasses either of pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to set out a few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these were growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have named. "For," as the Forefathers sang, —

"we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips."
Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it altogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that the Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.
(此段話在梭羅1845年12月25日的日記中第一次寫到。)

有機會可以試試看:

  • 買黑麥及玉米並用磨咖啡機將之磨成粉(或直接買黑麥粉及玉米粉)
  • 把手及用來揉麵粉的槽洗乾淨
  • 將黑麥粉及玉米粉放入槽中,慢慢加水,仔細徹底地揉
  • 揉好後和成麵團
  • 放入烘麵包機(不是烤麵包機)中烘焙


2009年10月10日 星期六

大悲湖


By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two years — not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on hand at the last date — was


Rice ................ $1.73½
Molasses ............. 1.73 Cheapest form of the saccharine.
Rye meal ............. 1.04¾
Indian meal .......... 0.99¾ Cheaper than rye.
Pork ................. 0.22

All experiments which failed:

Flour ................ 0.88 Costs more than Indian meal,
both money and trouble.
Sugar ................ 0.80
Lard ................. 0.65
Apples ............... 0.25
Dried apple .......... 0.22
Sweet potatoes ....... 0.10
One pumpkin .......... 0.06
One watermelon ....... 0.02
Salt ................. 0.03

Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field — effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say — and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to
$8.40¾
Oil and some household utensils ....... 2.00

So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received — and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world — were


House ................................ $28.12½
Farm one year ........................ 14.72½
Food eight months .................... 8.74
Clothing, etc., eight months ......... 8.40¾
Oil, etc., eight months .............. 2.00
In all ............................... $61.99¾

I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get. And to meet this I have for farm produce sold

$23.44
Earned by day-labor .................. 13.34
In all ........................... $36.78,

which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21¾ on the one side — this being very nearly the means with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred — and on the other, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.

These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they may appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value also. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account. It appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water. It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who love so well the philosophy of India. To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a comparative statement like this.


簡單的說,梭羅在1845年7月4日到1846年3月1日,8個月的期間,共花掉了將近62美元。他的農作物賣了23.44元,作散工賺了13.34元,一共是$36.78。透支的25元,差不多是他原本預估要發生的。當時一美元相當於今日100美元,所以梭羅渡了8個月的假所花的代價為2,500美元,每個月大約新台幣壹萬元。當然這還包括他自己蓋的湖濱小屋。我因為住在父母親的房子,所以花費應該可以更省。



2008年,520的早上,外頭飄著毛毛細雨,雖是五月天,卻微有涼意。我一個人騎了我的川崎125(相當於梭羅所失去的栗色馬)來到大貝湖,真的是一時心血來潮,因為起床後無心看書。可能由於開始工作讓心變得有些散亂,不聽使喚。大貝湖其實是一個人工湖,湖面面積103公頃,由於遊客不多,非常清幽,甚至比天然的湖泊還有韻味;如果華爾騰湖是「神之滴」(God's Drop),那大貝湖就是「人之滴」。大貝湖本只是曹公圳的一條支流,用來供應農田灌溉用水。後因太平洋戰爭爆發,日軍乃將之改為蓄水池,供應工業用水。之後又由自來水公司經營擴張,乃有今日之規模。



5月23日一早,政府又派人來對街的巷子裡敲打路面,依照我父親的說法是國民黨的白色恐怖幽靈又在蠢蠢欲動了。但這應該是綠色執政的高雄市政府幹的好事,不能把帳算在國民黨頭上。梭羅能夠把一切過手的東西都多多少少作成記錄「Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account.」, 他是這麼說來著。我曾經試過多次都失敗了。但是希望有一天我也能像他一樣,口袋空空一個多月,依然還能過活。莊子曾經說過這麼一個故事:


  子輿和子桑是好朋友。有一次連續下了十天的雨,子輿就說:「我看子桑必定是餓壞了!」於是就包了些飯菜過去看他。果然在門外就聽到子桑在哭爸哭母。子輿進了他家,問道:「哪Aㄚ奶?」回說:「我想攏無為何我會落到這款地步。甘講我的父母會希望我沒錢嗎?天和地哪會管我有窮嘸?按怎想嘛想無是ㄚ哪卡會這慘。可能著是命吧!」



五月下旬,台灣就進入了梅雨季。六月初高雄連續下了一個禮拜的雨,雖然處於M型化社會中比較沒有多餘的那一塊,所幸我並沒有餓到肚子。雨停後,小狗卻因天氣潮濕得了皮膚病一直沒有好轉。蹓狗的同好中有人告訴我可以帶去泡泡海水自然就會好。我想這倒是去海邊一個不錯的理由,於是挑了一個早晨載著小狗到西子灣坐渡輪去旗津,一直玩到將近中午,喝了杯咖啡,學著齊天大聖在如來佛的掌中撒了泡尿,才又搭船回來。