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It sounds absurd when stated baldly, but we do not always – at some deep level – understand that we need to speak to those whom we so badly wish would understand us.
坦率地说，这听起来很荒谬，但在某种深层次上，我们并非总是明白，我们需要和那些我们非常希望能理解我们的人说话。
We long for our intentions to be known, for our moods to be honoured, for our states of mind to be read
我们渴望我们的意图被了解，我们的心情被尊重，我们的思想被读懂读
– but we do not for that matter want to speak or particularly see an urgent need to do so.
-但是，我们不愿就此问题发言，也不认为有这样做的迫切需要。
We want to be guessed at, intuited, read by a kind of magic we don’t realise we believe in.
我们希望被一种我们没有意识到的自己相信的魔法，凭直觉就能猜透心思、解读心声。
We want people to know what we have not bothered to tell them.
我们想让人们知道我们懒得告诉他们的事情。
We may even, in certain moods, suspect that they know full well what we think and want
在某些情绪下，我们甚至会觉得他们完全知道我们想要什么
– but are deliberately frustrating us in order to score points and humiliate us.
——但他们故意让我们沮丧，以赢过我们，羞辱我们。
The only explanations for them not having guessed already is rudeness, a lack of love or extreme stupidity.
他们没有猜到我们的心声，对此唯一解释是粗鲁无礼、缺乏关爱或极度愚蠢。
We think like this not because we are evil; we are stubbornly mute because we were, for a short, but profound length of time infants.
我们这样想并非因为我们是邪恶的; 我们之所以固执地沉默，是因为我们曾经一小段时间是婴儿，但这段时间的影响却足够深远。
In other words, for a significant stretch, we were in the odd position that we could not utter a word.
换句话说，在相当长的一段时间里，我们处于一个奇怪的状态，一句话也说不出来。
Others had to guess what was on our minds.
其他人不得不猜测我们在想什么。
And most importantly, for a while, they more or less got it right.
最重要的是，在一段时间内，他们或多或少是对的。
They listened to our crying, they witnessed our angry faces, they saw our outstretched arms; they had a shot at guessing and they got it right.
他们听到了我们的哭声，看到了我们愤怒的面庞，看到了我们张开的双臂; 他们试着猜测，而且猜对了。
They were not geniuses at interpersonal understanding, they guessed correctly because it was easy.
他们不是理解人际关系的天才，但他们猜对了，因为这很容易。
The things we needed back then were so uncomplicated and so limited: food and drink, clean clothes, sleep, hygiene and reassurance.
那时候我们需要的东西是那么简单，那么有限: 可能是食物、饮料、干净的衣服、睡眠、卫生、安全感。
It is this ancestral memory of successful mind-reading that has the paradoxical effect of making us more isolated and intemperate than we need to be in later life.
正是这种成功读心术的祖先记忆产生了一种矛盾的效果，使我们比以后的生活更孤立、更过激。
We keep expecting that a process which unfolded successfully when we were young might continue to occur
我们一直期待着，在我们年幼时就已经经历过的过程可能会继续发生
– even though we have grown infinitely more sophisticated in what we need to be understood for.
——尽管我们在需要被理解的方面已经变得无限复杂。
We don’t just need the milk and a cuddle, we now need people to understand how our diary is looking next week,
我们不仅需要牛奶和拥抱，我们现在还需要人们了解我们下周的日记是什么样子，
what the hand we put around them in bed means, how the kitchen should be left, where the towels need to hang,
我们在床上握住他们的手意味着什么，厨房应该怎么布置，毛巾需要挂在哪里，
how the document should get back to the NY office, who should have the remote control and how we feel about their mother.
文件应该如何送回纽约的办公室，谁应该拥有遥控器，以及我们对他们母亲的感觉。
And we want them to know all this, not on the basis of careful and slow instructions and eloquent, patient and playful disquisitions, but immediately, just like that, on the basis that they are intelligent and that they care for us.
我们希望他们知晓这一切，而非建立在仔细而缓慢的教导与辩解、耐心而诙谐的详尽解释的基础上，而是立即，就像那样，应该建立在他们是聪明的，他们关心我们的基础上。
And if they don’t understand, then there might be cause to shout, to accuse them of laziness or a lack of affection or to fire them.
如果他们不理解，那么就有理由大喊大叫，指责他们懒惰或缺乏爱心，或者开除他们。
We are terrible communicators because we refuse to accept the dignity, necessity and complexity of the act of communication.
我们是糟糕的沟通者，因为我们拒绝接受交流行为的尊严性、必要性和复杂性。
We wander the earth with the problems of sophisticated adults insisting on believing that we are as easy to understand as infants.
我们带着老练的成年人的问题在地球上徘徊，坚持认为我们像婴儿一样容易理解。
