学到的英语有用处才有趣，不是吗？
而阅读原版书就是让英语“物尽其用”的好方法哦！
今天就要与大家一起分享一本书中的一个片段，
这本书叫 Being Mortal，是美国亚马逊的一本畅销书，作者Atul Gawande是一个医生。
下面这个片段探讨的是：
既然人必有一死，那人活一生的意义究竟在哪里。
阅读之前你需要知道：
1)别因为是外国人写的文章，就望而却步，其实用词并不难，而且我会一边读一边讲解。
2)讲解的时候尽量按照原文语句的顺序翻译了，为的是让大家好理解，可能有时会不符合中文的语法习惯哦！
点下方音频可以边听讲解边看原文
讲解版：
Being mortal (MORT)
In 1908, a Harvard philosopher named Josiah Royce wrote a book with the title The philosophy of loyalty./ Royce was not concerned with the trials of aging. But he was concerned with a puzzle that is fundamental to anyone contemplating his or her mortality./ Royce wanted to understand why simply existing—— why being merely housed and fed and safe and alive—— seems empty and meaningless to us. / What more is it that we need in order to feel that life is worthwhile?
The answer, he believed, is that we all seek a cause beyond ourselves. / This was, to him, and intrinsic human need. / The cause could be large (family, country, principle) or small (a building project, the care of a pet). /The important thing was that, in ascribing value to the cause and seeing it as worth making sacrifices for, we give our lives meaning.
Royce called this dedication to a cause beyond oneself loyalty./ He regarded it as the opposite of individualism./ The individualist puts self-interest first, seeing his own pain, pleasure, and existence as his greatest concern. / For an individualist, loyalty to causes that have noting to do with self-interest is strange. When such loyalty encourages self-sacrifice, it can even be alarming—— a mistaken and irrational tendency that leaves people open to the exploitation of tyrants. / Noting could matter more than self-interest, and because when you die you are gone, self-sacrifice makes no sense.
Royce had no sympathy for the individualist view. In fact, he argued, human being need loyalty. / It doesn’t necessarily produce happiness, and can even be painful, but we all need devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. / Without it, we have only our desires to guide us, and they are fleeting, capricious, and insatiable. They provide, ultimately, only torment.
The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. If you don't, mortality is only a horror. But if you do, it is not. / Loyalty, said Royce, “solves the paradox of our ordinary existence by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves the will which delights to do this service, and which is not thwarted but enriched and expressed in such service.
以下是不带讲解的纯朗读版：
别忘了，任何讲解都代替不了你自己的思考。
如果你能自己看一遍文章，一定能有更多收获。
如果你有什么感想、疑问或者建议，都可以在回复中提出来哦！
联系客服
