九月的高跟鞋

            YOUTH      Samuel Ullman (塞缪爾·厄爾曼)

　 Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

青春不是生命裡的一段時間，而是心境，他不只是粉頰、紅唇、柔膝，而是我們的意念，宏觀的想像，炙熱的戀情，他是生命深處的清泉。

　Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

青春是五彩繽紛，勇敢勝於怯弱，進取壓倒苟安。這種特質在60歲人的身上多過20歲的小伙子，年歲的數字並非表示逐漸老了，只有失去理想的人才真的老了。

　Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust.

歲月也許在你臉上刻下皺紋，但是放棄熱忱更使得內在的靈魂頹喪，擔憂、害怕、失去自信，會扭曲我們的心靈，將所有美好都化成灰。

　Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

不管你是60還是16，每個人心中都有些不知的誘惑，像孩童般的渴望新奇的事物，你我心中都有一台無線電，只要一直從無際的人群裡接收到美好、希望、歡愉、勇氣和力量，你就永遠年輕。

　When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

一旦你把天線降下來，無法再與外界溝通，整個人便像被冰雪覆蓋，變得自嘲而悲觀，那麼你就老了，即使你才20歲，而只要你豎起天線捕捉快樂的信號，那麼即使在80歲告別塵寰時，仍是年輕的。

最近到社區關懷探視獨居老人，又聽聞同學跟家人間溫馨的互動的故事，孩子的純真老人的睿智，構築美好世界，因此想到很久以前看到的這篇文章"Youth"

「青春」是德裔美籍作家塞缪爾·厄爾曼於70多歲時寫的，充滿哲理，和同學分享。