吉尔默：作为一个硬汉，三十年来我一直坚持不哭，大封锁改变了这一点，而我也在哭泣中再次有了同感的能力。



Until I was nine years old, I used to cry — not excessively, but the upper lip wobbled in the right circumstances. Then I saw a boy crying in assembly. Bawling, to be precise — red face, tears, snot. And I was disgusted. Above all, I thought he was an idiot for exposing himself so shamefully. 6park.com
在我九岁以前，我是会哭的，不会太频繁，但条件对了上唇就会抽搐。然后在我九岁时，我看见一个男孩在晨会上哭泣。确切地说是嚎啕大哭，哭得满脸通红，鼻涕眼泪一大把。我当时被恶心坏了。主要我觉得他是个白痴，居然这么丢脸地把自己暴露在大庭广众之下。 6park.com
I vowed to quit crying altogether after that and broadly I did well. There was the odd blip — at 15, I wept watching Baywatch in front of all my friends (Mitch’s girlfriend died of cancer). But such blips were rare. And that’s the way I like it now, at 40. I know it isn’t healthy but bottling it up seems like a small price to pay for self-respect. I am quite proud of my heartless exterior. 6park.com
自那之后我发誓再也不哭了，总体来说我做得很好。期间出过一次岔子——15岁时我看《海滩救护队》(Baywatch)看到米奇(Mitch)的女朋友死于癌症时，我当着所有朋友的面掉了眼泪。但这样的岔子少之又少。我今年40岁了，这就是我喜欢的表达方式。我知道这样不健康，但为了自尊，压抑情感似乎只是一个小小的代价。我为自己冷酷无情的样子感到骄傲。



Or I was. Because now the taps have been turned back on and it’s very confusing. I have not started crying about my son, who is extremely ill, or coronavirus — that would be fine. What’s been getting me lately is an ad on Sky TV for the current Test cricket series between England and Pakistan. 6park.com
或者说，我曾经如此。因为现在水龙头又被拧开了，我对此很困惑。儿子病重我都没哭过，新冠病毒也没让我落泪——要真是为此哭泣倒还好了。最近让我又开始掉眼泪的是天空电视台(Sky TV)的一条广告，是为正在进行的英格兰和巴基斯坦板球对抗赛(Test Cricket)做的广告。 6park.com
It goes like this. Haunting shot of a stadium without fans. “Nobody is watching,” the voiceover goes in Urdu (the world’s best language, based on this). “But everybody is watching.” Cut to some boys smiling in Pakistan. 6park.com
这条广告是这样的。开头是一个令人难忘的镜头：一座没有球迷的体育场。“没有人在看，”画外音说的乌尔都语，就这条广告而言，这是世界上最好的语言。“但每个人都在看。”镜头切换到一群面带微笑的巴基斯坦男孩。 6park.com
You’re probably crying already. The first time it broke my heart, I couldn’t believe what was happening. I felt like my body was no longer mine and the best I could do was step back and watch it go awol. I felt excited. The second time, I went downstairs and described the ad to my wife. And cried. 6park.com
你可能已经哭了。我第一次被这条广告击中心脏时，不敢相信发生了什么。我感觉我的身体不再是我的了，我所能做的就是退后，看着它自作主张。我感到兴奋。第二次是我下楼跟我的妻子描述这条广告，然后又哭了。 6park.com
It has happened several times since. It’s not unpleasant; it’s quite blissful, in a way. It’s the beauty of it that does for me — the fact that those boys are watching the same match as me thousands of miles away, the connection, the brotherhood . . . You should see the ad. 6park.com
之后这种事发生了好几次。我没有感到不快，某种程度上还感到极度幸福。我是被这里面的美所感动，是那些男孩在千里之外和我观看着同一场比赛，那种联系感，那种兄弟情谊……你应该看看这条广告。



The obvious interpretation is that I have reached breaking point. “Every man has got a breaking point,” says General Corman in Apocalypse Now. “You and I have. Walt Kurtz has reached his. And, very obviously, he has gone insane.” Me too. Not quite like Kurtz — I have not invaded Cambodia — but close enough. Except, I don’t buy it. What if it’s the opposite? I am increasingly smitten with the idea that lockdown has brought out a sensitive side in me that had lain dormant, at best, for 30 years and this recent – rather touching – habit of crying at adverts on TV is a natural and healthy expression of a born-again sense of fellow feeling. 6park.com
一个显而易见的解释是我已经到了临界点。“每个人都有临界点，”《现代启示录》(Apocalypse Now)里的科尔曼将军(General Corman)这么说，“你和我都有。沃尔特•库尔茨(Walt Kurtz)已经到了他的临界点。很明显，他已经疯了。”我也是。与库尔茨不太一样的是我没有入侵柬埔寨，但也差不多了。我们唯一的区别是，我不相信这套。如果情况正相反呢？我现在越来越沉迷一个说法：这场大封锁带出了我内心敏感的一面，30年来这一面其实顶多是处于休眠状态，而最近这一对着电视广告哭泣的感人习惯，其实是我内心重新萌生的同感的一种自然而健康的表达。 6park.com
Everyone is in love with their neighbours at the moment and I am no exception. Neighbours who had shown limited potential have turned out to be among Hackney’s finest, which puts them in the running for world’s finest. I have even developed a certain fellow feeling for the slugs who eat my beetroot. It doesn’t stop me boiling them alive several times a week but these days I feel like a murderer when I do it. 6park.com
当下，每个人都爱自己的邻居，我也不例外。那些以前看起来没什么潜力的邻居其实是哈克尼区(Hackney)最好的邻居，有资格参加全球最好邻居的角逐。我甚至对那些偷吃我甜菜根的鼻涕虫产生了某种同感。这并不能阻止我一周把它们活煮几次，不过近来我煮它们的时候有种谋害生命的感觉。 6park.com
I spoke to my mother-in-law about the whole thing, which was brave because a) she’s my mother-in-law and b) she’s a psychotherapist. She suggested that life under lockdown had been simpler in some ways. We had to stay safe and get through it — we had to “be”. And, yes, of course crying is healthy. 6park.com
我和我岳母谈了整件事，这很勇敢，因为第一，她是我岳母；第二，她是一个心理治疗师。她说封锁时期生活在某种程度上变得更简单。我们必须保证安全，熬过去——我们必须“做到”。所以是的，哭泣当然是健康的。 6park.com
I want to continue, for now. There is obviously a limit to how far it should be taken — I don’t feel ready to cry in front of shopkeepers or my boss, for example. Besides, I am still a work in progress. I tried to cry about something genuinely sad just this morning and it sort of worked but it was very strangled and deeply unrewarding. 6park.com
现阶段我想继续。不过关于应该哭到什么份上显然还是要有个限度的，比如我不觉得自己已经准备好在店主或老板面前哭泣。而且，我还在继续努力。就在今天早上，我试着为一些真正悲伤的事情哭泣，似乎是有点用，但哭得不痛快，而且非常、非常没有成就感。 6park.com
I need to get back to Sky. 6park.com
我需要回去看天空电视台。