【散文】青春（Samuel Ullman，德国）

青春并不是生命中的某一个时段，而是脑子里的一种状态。她不是玫瑰色的脸庞，艳红的鲜唇和柔软的膝盖，她是一种意念，一种超凡的想象力，一种澎湃的激情。她是生命之泉的活力和涌动。

青春意味着超越孺弱的非凡勇气，意味着克服儿女情长和贪图享受的探险精神。往往一个六十岁的人比一个二十岁的人更具备这种气质。人不会仅仅因为岁数的增加而变老。我们变老是因为我们放弃了理想。

岁月的沧桑可能在我们的皮肤上留下皱纹，但激情的丧失会使我们灵魂衰败。焦虑，恐惧，和丧失自信会压垮我们的心脏，让精神回归尘土。

不论你是六十岁还是十六岁，每个人的心里都充满了好奇，对未来童贞般的憧憬，和渴望对生活的享受。在你和我的心中都有一部无线电台。只要它不停顿地接受美好、希望、欢乐、勇气和力量的信号，你就会永远年轻。

如果天线弯折了，精神上覆盖了愤懑和悲观的冰雪，你就老了，哪怕你只有二十岁。但如果你的天线一直耸立着接受乐观的电波，你会一直年轻到八十岁逝世的那一天。

2012.06.14

YOUTH       Samuel Ullman
    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.
    Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
    Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like 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.
    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 twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.