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Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau's idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one's perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.
為擁有而擁有或者為了與鄰里相互攀比而擁有，這屬于梭羅心目中的低層次。他心目中的高層次是這樣一種積極向上的律條，即要使自己對自然界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。他可將從低層次上節省下來的時間和精力用于對高層次的追求。當然，梭羅不贊成忍饑挨餓，但他在食物方面投入的精力只是為了讓自己得以從事更為重要的活動。
Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfactions we get from a lifetime depend on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of "The pleasure of taking pains." The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.
努力奮斗是獲取幸福的關鍵所在。我們如果不終生與困難較量，便無幸福可言。正如葉芝所言，除卻某些不可能的情形，我們人生中所獲取的滿足皆取決于我們在多高的境界中選擇 我們所愿意面對的艱難困苦。羅怕特•弗羅斯特論及“以苦為樂”時，他內心所思，大體如此。商業廣告中所鼓吹的幸福觀，其致命的謬誤在于它標榜一切幸福唾手可得，不費吹灰之力。
We demand difficulties even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When the spoilsport ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.
即便于游戲之中，我們也需要有艱難困苦。之所以需要它，是因為若沒有困難，便無游戲可言。游戲就是為了享受其中的樂趣而人為地使事情變得不那么輕而易舉。游戲中的種種規則，便是將困難強加于人。有些掃興的人會使游戲變得索然無味、毫無樂趣可言，往往是因為不遵循游戲規則。下象棋時,如果你可以隨心所欲，根據自己的意愿修改那些完全是任意賦予的游戲規則，獲勝會更容易，然而下棋的樂趣就在于在規則內獲勝。無困難，便亦無樂趣。
