Book 3   Unit 7

          Text A  So What's So Bad about Being So-So?
                                                  Lisa Wilson Strick

The other afternoon I was playing the piano when my seven-year-old walked in. He stopped and listened for a while, then said: "You don't play that thing very well, do you, Mom?"

No, I don't. My performance would make any serious music student weep, but I don't care. I've enjoyed playing the piano badly for years.

I also enjoy singing badly and drawing badly. I'm not ashamed of my incompetence in these areas. I do one or two other things well and that should be enough for anybody. But it gets boring doing the same things over and over. Every now and then it's fun to try something new.

Unfortunately, doing things badly has gone out of style. It used to be a mark of class if a lady or a gentleman sang a little, painted a little, played the violin a little. You didn't have to be good at it; the point was to be fortunate enough to have the leisure time for such pursuits. But in today's competitive world we have to be "experts" even in our hobbies. 

You can't tone up your body by pulling on your gym shoes and jogging around the block a couple of times anymore. Why? Because you'll be laughed off the street by the "serious runners"-- the ones who run twenty miles or more a week in their sixty-dollar running suits and fancy shoes.The shoes are really a big deal.If you say you're thinking about taking up almost any sport, the first thing the “serious” types will ask is what you plan to do about shoes. Leather or canvas? What type of soles? Which brand? This is not the time to mention that the gym shoes you wore in high school are still in pretty good shape. As far as sports enthusiasts are concerned, if you don't have the latest shoes you are hopelessly committed to embarrassing yourself.

The runners aren't nearly so snobbish as the dancers, however. In case you didn't know, "going dancing" no longer means putting on a pretty dress and doing a few turns around the dance floor with your favorite man on Saturday night. "Dancing" means squeezing into tights and leg warmers, then sweating through six hours of warm-ups, five hours of ballet and four hours of jazz classes. Every week. Never tell anyone that you "like to dance" unless this is the sort of activity you enjoy.

Have you noticed what this is doing to our children? "We don't want that nerd on our soccer team," I overheard a ten-year-old complain the other day. "He doesn't know a goal kick from a head shot." As it happens, the "nerd" that the boy was talking about was my son, who did 
not -- like some of his friends -- start soccer instruction at age three. I'm sorry, Son, I guess I blew it. In my day, when we played baseball, we expected to give a little instruction to the younger kids who didn't know how to play. It didn't matter if they were terrible; we weren't out to slaughter the other team. Sometimes we didn't even keep score. To us, sports were just a way of having a good time.

I don't think kids have as much fun as they used to. Competition keeps getting in the way. The daughter of a neighbor is a nervous wreck worrying about getting into the best tennis school. "I was a late starter," she told me, "and I only get to practice five or six hours a week, so my technique may not be up to their standards." The child is nine. She doesn't want to be a tennis player when she grows up; she wants to be a nurse. I asked what she likes to do for fun in her free time. She seemed to think it was an odd question. "Well, I don't actually have a lot of free time," she said. "Homework and tennis and piano lessons kind of eat it all up. I have piano lessons three times a week now, so I have a good shot at getting into the all-state orchestra."

Ambition, drive and the desire to excel are all great within limits, but I don't know where the limits are anymore.I know a woman who's been omplaining for years that she hasn't got the time to study a foreign language. I've pointed out that an evening course in French or Italian would take only a couple of hours a week, but she keeps putting it off. I suspect that what she hasn't got the time for is to become completely fluent within one year -- and that any lower level of accomplishment would embarrass her. Instead she spends her evenings watching TV and tidying up her closets -- occupations at which no particular expertise is expected. 

I know lots of other people, too, who avoid activities they might enjoy because they lack the time or the energy to tackle them "seriously." It strikes me as so silly. We are talking about recreation. I have nothing against self-improvement. But when I hear a teenager muttering 
"practice makes perfect" as he grimly makes his four-hundred-and-twenty-seventh try at hooking the basketball into the net left-handed, I wonder if some of us aren't improving ourselves right into the insane asylum(精神病院). 

I think it's time we put a stop to all this. For sanity's sake, each of us should vow to take up something new this week -- and to make sure we never master it completely. Sing along with grand opera. Make peculiar-looking objects out of clay. I can tell you from experience 
that a homemade cake still tastes pretty good even if it doesn't look perfect. The point is to enjoy being a beginner again; to rediscover the joy of creative fooling around.If you find it difficult, ask any two-year-old to teach you. Two-year-olds have a gift for tackling the impossible with enthusiasm; repeated failure hardly discourages them at all.

As for me, I'm getting a little out of shape, so I'm looking into golf. A lot of people I know enjoy it, and it doesn't look too hard. Given a couple of lessons, I should be stumbling gracelessly around the golf course and playing badly in no time at all.


                      水平一般又何妨
           莉萨· 威尔逊· 斯特里克

    几天前的一个下午我正在弹钢琴，我七岁的儿子走了进来。他停下脚步，听了一会儿，然后说：“那玩意儿你弹得不怎么样，是吧，妈妈？”

    是的，我是弹得不怎么样。我的弹奏会让任何一位认真的学音乐的学生伤心，但我不在乎。我弹得不好，但我自得其乐，这已经许多年了。

    我歌唱得不好，画也画得不好，但我自得其乐。我对自己在这些方面水平不高并不感到惭愧。我能把一两件其它事情做好，这对于任何人来说都应该是足够的了。但同样的事情做了一遍又一遍就会乏味。时不时地尝试某种新东西是很有趣的。

    遗憾的是，“不好”的做法已经不时兴了。过去如果一位女士或先生会一点唱歌、画画、拉拉小提琴，那是一种地位的标志。你不必很出色；问题是你要有幸有这一份闲情逸致。但是在今天充满竞争的世界里，即使业余爱好也必须是“专家”才行。

    你再也不能穿上运动鞋绕着街区慢跑几圈来锻炼身体了。为什么呢？因为你会受到那些“认真的跑步者”的嘲笑而不敢上街--这些人穿着60美元一套的跑步装和高级跑鞋每周要跑20多英里。鞋子真的是件大事。如果你说你打算开始从事某项运动，几乎无论是哪一项，那些“认真”型的人问的第一件事就是你打算买什么样的鞋。皮的还是帆布的？哪种鞋底？哪个品牌？如今可不能说你高中时穿的那双运动鞋现在还挺好的呢。对运动迷来说，如果你没有最新款式的鞋，你不免将使自己陷入难堪的窘境。

    不过，比起跳舞的人来跑步的人还算不得自命不凡。也许你还不知道，现在，“去跳舞”已不再是指周六晚上穿一身漂亮的衣服同你喜爱的男人在舞池里转上几圈了。“跳舞”意味着硬套上紧身衣和暖腿套，然后大汗淋漓地做六小时的热身运动，跳五小时的芭蕾，上四小时的爵士课。每个星期都如此。千万别对任何人说你“喜欢跳舞”，除非这就是你喜欢的那种活动。

    你是否注意到这一切正对我们的孩子产生什么影响吗？“我们足球队不要那个笨蛋，”前几天我无意中听到一个十岁的孩子在抱怨。“他连球门球和头球都分不清楚。”真巧，那个男孩谈论的“笨蛋”就是我的儿子，他没有象他的一些朋友那样从三岁起就开始学踢足球。对不起，儿子，我想是我害了你。在我们那个时候，打棒球时总会教年纪小不会打球的孩子。即使他们打得不好也没关系；我们并非想把对手杀得一败涂地。有时候我们甚至不记分。对我们来说，体育运动只是一种玩得开心的方式。

    我觉得现在孩子们不如以前玩得开心。竞争老是妨碍他们玩耍。一个邻居的女儿神经极度脆弱，她老是担心能否进入最好的网球学校。“我起步晚，”她告诉我，“我一星期只练五六个小时，所以我的技术可能达不到他们的标准。”这个孩子九岁。她长大后并不想当网球运动员；她想当一名护士。我问她在空闲的时候喜欢玩什么。她似乎认为这是个怪问题。“这个，实际上我并没有很多空闲时间，”她说。“家庭作业、练网球、上钢琴课差不多把时间都用光了。现在我每星期上三次钢琴课，所以我真想试试进入州管弦乐队。”

    在一定的限度之内，雄心勃勃、干劲冲天和出类拔萃的欲望都是好的，但我现在已经不知道限度在哪儿了。我认识一位女士，她多年来一直在抱怨没有时间学一门外语。我已经向她指出法语或意大利语的夜校课程每周只需几个小时，但她却一拖再拖。我猜想她没有时间做的是在一年内学会说一口非常流利的外语----任何低一点的成绩都会让她惴惴不安。于是她便在晚上看电视、整理壁橱----都是些不要求有专门技能的日常事务。

    我还认识许多别的人，他们没有去做他们可能会喜欢的事，因为他们缺少“认真”去做这些事的时间或精力。我认为这非常愚蠢。我们说的是娱乐。我并不反对自我完善。但是当我听到一个十几岁的孩子嘴里念着“熟能生巧”在一本正经第427次练习左手钩手投篮时，我怀疑我们有些人真想把自己完善到进入精神病院的地步。

    我认为现在是我们结束所有这一切的时候了。为了保持神志健全，我们每个人都应该决心在本周就开始从事一项新的活动----并保证永远不会完全掌握。随着大歌剧一起引吭高歌。用黏土制作奇型怪状的物件。凭我的经验我可以告诉你，自己家里做的蛋糕，即使样子不好看，味道照样鲜美。关键是要乐于再从第一次开始；重新发现创造性地瞎摆弄的乐趣。如果你觉得这很困难，那就请任何一个两岁的孩子来教你。两岁的孩子们有一种以满腔的热情去做不可能的事情的天赋；一次次的失败也难以使他们泄气。

    至于我，近来身体开始有点不好，所以我打算学打高尔夫球。我认识的许多人都喜欢打，而看上去也不那么难学。只要上几次课，要不了多久，我就应该能在高尔夫球场上跌跌撞撞、奔奔跑跑了，样子难看，打也打得不好。