微软联合创始人比尔盖茨今天撰文《并非每件事都事出有因》，称我成天在问“为什么”。人们为什么陷入贫困？蚊子为什么传播疟疾？保持好奇心并试图解释我们周围的世界能让生活变得有趣一些。这对世界也有好处——科学发现就是源于有人坚持要解开一些谜团。但有些“为什么”的问题无法通过事实得到满意的答案。
下面是全文：
我成天在问“为什么”。人们为什么陷入贫困？蚊子为什么传播疟疾？保持好奇心并试图解释我们周围的世界能让生活变得有趣一些。这对世界也有好处——科学发现就是源于有人坚持要解开一些谜团。这是人类的天性，任何被一个五岁好奇宝宝缠着无休止地提问的人，都会这样告诉你。
但正如凯特·鲍勒（Kate Bowler）在她的最新回忆录《“事出皆有因”及其他一些我喜爱过的谎言》（Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved，中文名暂译）中所说的那样，有些“为什么”的问题无法通过事实得到满意的答案。鲍勒嫁给了高中时的恋爱对象，育有一子，然后在35岁时被诊断出四期结肠癌。在她得病后，她不想知道是什么造成她身体细胞的疯狂变异和繁殖。她有更深的问题：为什么是我？这是对我品格的考验吗？
这本书讲的是她对答案的探求，她想要找到与她笃信的宗教信仰一致的答案。她是北卡罗来纳州杜克神学院的一名教授，在门诺派家庭中长大，写过一本讲“成功神学”历史的书。“成功神学”的观念在一些基督徒中很流行，他们认为上帝会将健康和财富赏赐给虔诚的信徒。在她生病之前，鲍勒并不怎么相信“成功神学”，但也没有完全抗拒。“我曾相信自己的‘成功神学’，如同草上的花，与其他所有事物一起成长。”她写道，“我相信上帝会为我开路。”后来她拿到了自己的诊断结果。“我再也不相信那些了。”
由于话题本身的原因，我对鲍勒书里有时出现令人心碎的内容并不感到意外，但我没想到这本书还能这么有趣。有时，这两种感觉竟然在读同一段话时出现。书中有这样一个场景，鲍勒发现3%该类型的癌症患者有可能接受实验性治疗。几个星期后，她的医生打电话来报告了一个好消息：她是那3%中的一员。“我开始大喊大叫。我得了神奇的癌症！我得了神奇的癌症！”她转向她的丈夫：“‘我可能还有机会’，我努力在抽泣的间隙把话说完。他紧紧抱住我，下巴抵在我头上。然后他放开我，好让我唱《老虎的眼睛》，一边唱还一边在空中挥拳，因为我就是这样的人。”
这本书的核心问题引起了我的真切共鸣。一方面，如果认为任何结果仅仅是随机产生的，就犯了虚无主义错误。我必须相信，当我们的行为符合道德时，世界会变得更美好。平均来说，做好事的人比不做好事的人有更好的命运。
但是如果你对此看得过于极端，这种对因果关系的看法可能会对人造成伤害。鲍勒讲述了一些心怀善意的人对她说的一些伤人的话，例如：“这是一个考验，它会让你变得更强大。”我也体会过这种思维方式如何影响到我自己的家族成员。我的四个祖父母都是同一个基督教宗派的虔诚信徒，他们相信如果你生病了，那一定是因为你做了一些值此报应的事。当我一个祖父病得很重时，他极力想弄明白自己到底做错了什么。可他什么也想不出来，所以就责怪妻子。他去世时依旧认为，他之所以生病是因为妻子犯了不为人知的罪。
鲍勒以一种令人信服的方式回答了“为什么”的问题：拒绝接受假设。正如标题所暗含的那样，她反对我们需要一个理由来解释所发生的一切，但她也反对虚无主义者的选择。她在一次电视采访中说道：“如果要我说出一个教训，那就是每个人都别急着为他人的痛苦做出解释，带上爱就够了。”她甚至还在书里加了一个附录，向你介绍帮助生病的朋友或爱人的六种方法。这值得仔细研读，将来可以用来作参考。
这本书应当与其他讨论生死课题的佳作放在一起，比如保罗·卡拉尼特（Paul Kalanithi）的《当呼吸化为空气》（When Breath Becomes Air）和阿图·葛文德（Atul Gawande）的《最好的告别》（Being Mortal）。鲍勒的写作直接，不情绪化。她没有讲生活不公或她理应过得更好之类的话，她只是告诉你发生了什么。
我不会剧透结局，但还是要说鲍勒作为一个作家太过正直，所以没有提供简单或神奇的解决方案。在读完这本书以后，我上网搜索想知道她现在过得如何。我很高兴地发现她仍在更新一个关于信仰、道德和死亡的博客。看到这位思想丰富的女性以诚实和幽默的态度面对如此沉重的话题，这真令人鼓舞。
下面是英文全文：
Not everything happens for a reason
I spend my days asking“Why?” Why do people get stuck in poverty? Why do mosquitoes spread malaria? Being curious and trying to explain the world around us is part of what makes life interesting. It’s also good for the world—scientific discoveries happen because someone insisted on solving some mystery. And it’s human nature, as anyone who’s fielded an endless series of questions from an inquisitive 5-year-old can tell you.
But as Kate Bowler shows in her wonderful new memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved, some“why”questions can’t be answered satisfactorily with facts. Bowler was 35 years old, married to her high-school sweetheart, and raising their young son when she was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. When she got sick, she didn’t want to know what was making her body’s cells mutate and multiply out of control. She had deeper questions: Why me? Is this a test of my character?
The book is about her search for answers that align with her deeply held religious beliefs. A professor at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina, she grew up in a family of Mennonites and wrote a history of the prosperity gospel, the idea popular among some Christians that God rewards the faithful with health and wealth. Before she got sick, Bowler didn’t subscribe to the prosperity gospel, but she didn’t exactly reject it either.“I had my own prosperity gospel, a flowering weed grown in with all the rest,”she writes.“I believed God would make a way.”Then came her diagnosis.“I don’t believe that anymore.”
Given the topic, I wasn’t surprised to find that Bowler’s book is heartbreaking at times. But I didn’t expect it to be funny too. Sometimes it’s both in the same passage. In one scene, Bowler learns there’s a 3 percent chance that her cancer might be susceptible to an experimental treatment. A few weeks later, her doctor’s office calls with good news: She’s among the 3 percent.“I start to yell. I have the magic cancer! I have the magic cancer!”She turns to her husband:“‘I might have a chance,’I manage to say between sobs…He hugs me tightly, resting his chin on my head. And then he releases me to let me sing 'Eye of the Tiger’and do a lot of punching the air, because it is in my nature to do so.”
The central questions in this book really resonated with me. On one hand, it’s nihilistic to think that every outcome is simply random. I have to believe that the world is better when we act morally, and that people who do good things deserve a somewhat better fate on average than those who don’t.
But if you take it to extremes, that cause-and-effect view can be hurtful. Bowler recounts some of the unintentionally painful things that well-meaning people told her, like:“This is a test and it will make you stronger.”I have also seen how this line of thinking affected members of my own extended family. All four of my grandparents were deeply devout members of a Christian sect who believed that if you got sick, it must be because you did something to deserve it. When one of my grandfathers became seriously ill, he struggled to figure out what he might have done wrong. He couldn’t think of anything, so he blamed his wife. He died thinking she had caused his illness by committing some unknown sin.
Bowler answers the“why”question in a compelling way: by refusing to accept the premise. As the title suggests, she rejects the idea that we need a reason for everything that happens. But she also rejects the nihilist alternative. As she said in one TV interview:“If I could pick one thing, it would be that everyone simmers down on the explanations for other people’s suffering, and just steps in with love.”She even includes an appendix with six ways you can support a friend or loved one who’s sick. It’s worth dog-earing for future reference.
Everything Happens belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi’s. When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. Bowler’s writing is direct and unsentimental. She's not saying her life is unfair or that she deserved better. She’s just telling you what happened.
I won’t spoil the ending, except to say that Bowler has too much integrity as a writer to offer pat answers or magic solutions. When I was done with the book, I went online to see how she was doing. I was happy to find that she was still keeping a blog about faith, morality, and mortality. It’s inspiring to see this thoughtful woman face such weighty topics with honesty and humor.
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