My twenties were so lacking in 1)creature comforts that I could have been in a 2)Dickens novel. What a “3)bedraggled4)waif” I was， living in a 5)grimy New York City apartment with no dishwasher， no air conditioner and no 6)on-site laundry facilities. Like most Manhattanites， I didn’t have a car， nor did I have a television set. In those days I was indulged in7)Ibsen plays and I was incredibly 8)pretentious and I was the kind of person who spent all evening—often， alas， at the 9)Laundromat—reading Ibsen plays. That was how I spent my days and those days are over. Now， I have an array of household conveniences. Instead of dragging my laundry along block after block of 10)filthy sidewalks， I can take my clothes directly off my body and deposit them into my very own w ashing machine (and then， in a magnificent 11)coda， my very own dryer). I also have a dishwasher， a cell phone， wireless Internet and satellite cable service that’s so advanced that accidentally sitting on the remote can cause entire air traffic control systems to reset. And the Internet gives me the opportunity to live a life without Dickens and Ibsen. I can embrace a more colorful life just by one click.

It sounds like the days in heaven. But I couldn’t help but wonder: Is this how we are supposed to lead our life?

The other day， I read a column arguing the point that young people spend so much of their time indoors that they are deprived of the chance to catch frogs or throw rocks at 12)wasp nests. The writer says when he was a kid， being 13)cooped up inside was called “14)juvenile 15)detention”; now it’s called “l(fā)eisure.” Actually， in an era where a 16)stray 17)gripe about your boss can 18)land you on an industry blog， where waking up 19)hungover can 20)frantically send you to 21)Facebook to untag your name from photos of the previous night’s 22)frosting-wrestling contest， where shots of you in 23)unflattering jeans become part of your permanent Google search results， “off the keyboard” means being deprived of the right of “l(fā)eisure.”

Part of what’s so 24)perverse about people nowadays is that we are not allowed to have a normal life. Who has made us more and more reliant on the modern devices? Unfortunately， we put ourselves into that hot seat. Just because those modern devices have brought us more convenience than we had thought doesn’t mean we are supposed to convince ourselves that we’ll die without them. In a telephone survey of 1，003 people conducted recently， 35% said a dishwasher was a necessity， and 83% said a clothes dryer was a necessity. Acquiring things we don’t need and then coming to rely on them as though they were as essential as air and water isn’t just about affluence， it’s about being a 25)moron. Believe it or not， it’s something that makes us who we are. Physical， even mental， attachment to the modern conveniences puts us into a dangerous position: we would not do anything in the absence of them. And it is sad that we thought we were using modern conveniences to make our life better. Instead we fail to realize that we are lost in these modern conveniences. We might even forget the color of the sky， the smell of the rain.

It’s time to 26)pry yourself and your family off the modern “necessity”. In the same way that you recharge your 27)BlackBerry from time to time， you also should recharge your soul—by spending part of your time disconnected from the modern “necessity” and reconnected with the universe. Spend seven days without the Web and 28)NBC or 29)CBS. Read Ibsen and Dickens before bedtime. Follow 30)Robert Frost and take the path less traveled， for that makes all the difference.

我二十來歲的時候，物質貧乏得很，就像是生活在狄更斯小說的時代。那時候我住在紐約市一個臟兮兮的公寓里，沒有洗碗機，沒有空調，房間里更沒有洗衣機，我根本就是個“邋遢浪子”。就像大多數曼哈頓人一樣，我既沒有車，也沒有電視機。在那些日子里，我沉浸在易卜生的戲劇中，相當地自命不凡。我就是那種會用整晚來讀易卜生戲劇的人——當然，唉，通常都是整晚在洗衣房里讀。那時候我就是這樣子過日子的，而那樣的日子已經一去不復返了。現在，我有了一整套家庭便利設備。我不用再像從前那樣沿著臟兮兮的人行道，拖著大堆臟衣服穿街過巷拿去洗衣店洗，如今，我可以把衣服一脫就直接扔進自己的洗衣機里(接著，再放進我自己的干衣機，這就算畫上極好的句點了)。我還有洗碗機、手機、無線上網、有線電視(衛(wèi)星傳送)服務， 這一切先進得很，要是萬一不小心坐在了遙控器上，恐怕整個空中交通控制系統(tǒng)都得重啟。而互聯(lián)網則讓我有機會過上沒有狄更斯和易卜生影子的日子。輕觸一下鼠標，我便能擁抱更多姿多彩的生活。

這日子聽起來就如天堂般地美好。但我卻忍不住思考:這就是我們應該過的生活嗎?

有一天我讀到了一篇專欄文章，其觀點是:現在的年輕人躲在室內的時間太長了，根本沒機會去抓抓青蛙或向黃蜂巢扔扔石子。作者說，在他小的時候，關在室內叫做“少年禁閉”，而現在則被叫做“休閑”。事實上，你私下對老板的幾句無心怨言會讓你登上某個行業(yè)博客，當你宿醉剛醒還感到難受之際，你就發(fā)了瘋似地打開“臉譜網”，為的就是從前一晚的“糖霜摔跤大戰(zhàn)”這個標簽里(編者注:“泥漿摔跤”的改良版——穿著性感或裸體女子在糖霜、巧克力糖漿里扭打)的照片中為自己除名;當你穿著不甚美觀的牛仔褲拍照，這些照片會永久地留在網上，而日后在谷歌搜索欄一輸入你的名字就會被看到;就是在這樣一個時代里，“離開鍵盤”就意味著“休閑”權被剝奪。

我們沒過上正常的生活，這就是讓這個時代的人如此荒謬反常的原因之一。是誰令我們越來越依賴現代設備?不幸的是，是我們把自己放在了那尷尬的處境之中。那些現代設備給我們帶來預想之外的方便，并不意味著我們就應該說服自己，相信離開了它們我們就活不下去。在最近一份對1003人進行的電話調查中，35%的人說洗碗機是必不可少的，而83%的人說干衣機是不可或缺的。得到我們本來就不需要的東西，然后對其依賴性越來越大，覺得其有如空氣和水一樣重要，這并不是說明我們的生活有多富足，而是說明我們有多白癡低能。信不信由你，我們之所以成為現在的樣子是由某些東西導致的。從身體上，甚至精神上依賴這些現代的便利設施將會使得我們陷入危險的境地:我們離開了它們就什么都干不了。而可悲的是，我們卻認為自己在借助這些現代手段改善生活，而沒有意識到我們正是在這些現代便利設施之中迷失了自我。我們甚至可能會忘記了天空的顏色，雨絲的氣味。

是時候將你自己和家人與這些現代“必需品”分開了。就像你時不時需要給你的黑莓手機充電一樣，你也需要給你的靈魂充電——在某些時候與現代“必需品”斷開連接，而同宇宙重新連接。過上7天遠離網絡和NBC或CBS電視臺的生活。睡前讀讀易卜生和狄更斯。跟隨著羅伯特·弗羅斯特的腳步，走上行人寥寥的幽徑，這會讓一切變得不同。