Ｙｏｕ　Ｃａｎ　Ｔａｋｅ　Ｉｔ　Ｗｉｔｈ　Ｙｏｕ（节选）.docVIP

Ｙｏｕ　Ｃａｎ　Ｔａｋｅ　Ｉｔ　Ｗｉｔｈ　Ｙｏｕ（节选） 　　Attention is asymmetric(不均匀的) at times. It can flow out of the system, as when the living pay attention to the dead. I was very painfully reminded of this just recently.Ten days ago, a very close friend of mine died by her own hand; six days after that I found myself driving down the hill on which I live heading for the cemetery at which I would help choose a plot for her. It was a beautiful day. I could not help mentally yelling, “Stacey, you fool! Why didn’t you stay alive long enough to enjoy this?” Even if I had yelled aloud, phoned, e-mailed or written to her, of course I could not have gotten through. 　　Yet memories of her crowded my attention. Earlier times, when she was very much alive, notes she left, and the sheer act itself. Why did she do it? I tried to understand, and of course, what were her last moments like? Both these remain bewildering, beyond reach, but it is hard not to try, to seek an alignment of mind that might only truly be possible for those similarly inclined, and possibly not even then. Beyond that of course, we cannot know what it is like to be dead, because it is probably not like anything, and non-existence seems literally unimaginable(不可思议的)―at least as an experience. We cannot literally pay attention to a dead person, since we cannot mirror or align with nothing. 　　Still, we retain memories of the person, and can keep on paying attention to all sorts of things she said, did or expressed in some other way during her life. Even after death that attention is still associated with her, her name, her face and other attributes, in our minds. The mere fact of death does not quickly alter that attention. 　　Of course we pay attention to countless dead who did not die that way: Homer, Buddha, Aeschylus, Aristotle, the old Testament prophet Isaiah, Confucius―the writings―perhaps transcribed(转录)―of all of these have been preserved for well over two millennia and are still much read today. Since print was invente