Notes on the Danger of Notebooks
By Kay Ryan
【1】Memory is only necessary for those who insist upon novelty, I wrote on a small piece of paper as a note to myself some weeks ago, beginning to think about the danger of notebooks. Now I don’t quite know what I meant. By memory I probably meant notebooks, documents kept in order to hold onto thoughts and experiences, documents intended to create an exomemory like an exoskeleton—notebooks as a shell to protect us from loss. I no longer know exactly what I meant by my epigram at the moment I was writing it to my future self; I have lost it in spite of itself. I imagine that it was an intense and provocative idea at the time, welding many loose stars into a single constellation. Otherwise I wouldn’t have jotted it down. Also I must have believed I would know what I meant later. This is an interesting idea: Notes such as mine are actually promissory notes—when I write them to myself, I can enjoy the feeling that I have something wonderful to express, but I don’t have to spell it out yet. The balloon payment lies far off in the future. This is a nice thing about notes, this promising feeling they give us with no work.【2】But for the purposes of stimulating or focusing thoughts, anything else works just as well as a note. All you really need is a little nick to the brain. Everyone has experienced this: When you are hungry, everything starts smelling good; when you have an idea, everything collaborates. In short, notes are no more useful than the words on a matchbook—to the prepared mind. Because thinking wants only the tiniest bit of novelty, the tiniest little bit of new per old. Our novelty-obsessed culture disturbs the new-to-old ratio in our minds and therefore makes it almost impossible to think. It is because people are so in the grip of this novelty that they feel the desperate need to keep notebooks against loss; they are convinced they have so much to lose. If people were doing the same thing over and over, rocked in the meditative arms of repetition, they could have some real fun.【3】Real fun reminds me of the fun-loving British poet Stevie Smith, who celebrated the novelty-free life. Well, not quite novelty-free; it is a great pleasure to say no (“Le Plaisir aristocratique de déplaire”) though you must also occasionally say yes, “or you will turn into an Oblomov. He stayed in bed all day and was robbed by his servants. There was little enjoyment there.” A great celebrator of the “regular habits” which “sweeten simplicity,” she says, “In the middle of every morning I leave the kitchen and have a glass of sherry with Aunt. I can only say that this is glorious.” And because of her life of regular habits, the rare interruption is almost hallucinogenic. She reports seeing The Trojan Women on a friend’s television. She is nearly undone with amusement at the hash it makes of Euripides: “What an earthshaking joke this is. Yet, if my life was not simple, if I looked at television all the time, I might have missed it.”【4】Memory as a job, as a notebook to be kept, is only necessary for those who insist upon novelty. If you delight in habit as Stevie Smith did, if it is your pleasure to do things in the same way without inviting change, you don’t have to write much down. And when things do change, as they will even without invitation, then you will really notice the change. Your memory will be deep, quiet, undifferentiated as a pool. Change will enter and twist like a drop of ink, the tiniest bit of new per old.漫谈笔记本的危害
文/凯·瑞安
译/肖爽
【1】“只有刻意求新的人才会依赖记忆”，几周前我在一张小纸条上写下这句话，思考笔记本的危害，而现在我已记不太清楚当时想要表达的是什么。提起“记忆”，我大概指的是“笔记本”，那些记录想法和经历的文档，它们构成了人类的“外部记忆”，就像动物的外骨骼一样，是我们抵御失忆的盔甲。我已经记不清楚当初写下的这句“金玉良言”是什么意思，虽然是写给未来的自己，但还是无可奈何地遗忘了。或许那时我的脑海里诞生了一个精辟而深刻的思想，将零星的想法串成了一片智慧的星云，否则也不会写下这样一句话。当然，我肯定相信自己今后会明白这句话有何意义。说起来挺有趣：我写的这种笔记其实是一种“期票”——写给自己的时候，很享受妙笔生花的感觉，但不必当即一挥而就，最终的“大额尾款”在遥远的未来。这就是记笔记的好处，轻轻松松就有了对未来的期待。
【2】如果只是为了启发思考或集中思绪，其实别的工具也可以替代笔记，所需的无非是对大脑的一点刺激。你我都有过这样的经历：饥饿的时候，闻什么都很香；灵感降临的时候，做什么都顺畅。总之，对于成竹在胸的人而言，笔记本上的字并不比火柴盒上的字更有用，因为思考其实只需要一丁点儿新奇的刺激，在每一份“旧”里纳入一丝丝“新”就可以。而如今的猎奇文化打乱了思想的“新旧比例”，使人们几乎丧失了思考的能力。正因为现在的人过度追求标新立异，才迫切地需要记笔记来抵抗遗忘，以为自己有很多东西可以失去。倘若我们只是不断地重复一件事情，在周而复始的遐想与沉思中荡荡悠悠，兴许才能找到一点真正的乐趣。
【3】这样的乐趣让我想起了英国诗人丝蒂薇·史密斯（Stevie Smith），她就喜欢过平常的日子。当然，日子也不能完全平平无奇，拒绝猎奇自然是一大乐事（波德莱尔所说的“默默寡欢的贵族式消遣”），但偶尔也需要尝试新鲜事物，“否则就会成为奥勃洛摩夫（Oblomov）那样的懒骨头，终日躺在床上，被仆人洗劫，毫无乐趣可言。”丝蒂薇坚持规律的生活习惯，把平常的日子过得恬静舒适，她说：“每天上午，我出了厨房，和姨妈喝一杯雪丽酒，实在是太美好。”由于她的生活极为规律，偶尔打乱一下几乎令她过于兴奋。她声称在朋友家的电视上看了《特洛伊妇女》，这部剧把欧里庇得斯（Euripides）的原著翻拍得一塌糊涂，她对此津津乐道：“真是个天大的笑话。不过，如果我的日子不这么平淡，如果我天天对着电视机看，可能就不觉得有什么好笑了。”
【4】只有那些刻意求新的人才会把记忆当成劳作，当成需要储存的笔记。如果你喜欢丝蒂薇那样的规律生活，如果你享受风平浪静的日复一日，那么你无需记录太多。变化往往不期而至，而当它真正来临时，你定会有所察觉。人的记忆是深邃、静谧、浑然一体的池塘，变化如同一滴墨渗入其中，游离萦绕，化为每一份“旧”里的那一丝丝“新”。
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