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Many things make people think artists are weird.
許多事情讓人們覺得藝術家很古怪。
But the weirdest may be this: artists'only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.
最古怪可能是：藝術家的唯一工作就是尋找情感，然而他們所關注的對象大多是那些不幸的人。
This wasn't always so.
當然不總是那樣。
The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy.
藝術的最早形式，像繪畫和音樂，都是最適合表達快樂的。
But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring,
但在19世紀的某個時期，更多的藝術家開始把快樂看成無意義的，假冒的，甚至是最糟的。
as we went from Wordsworth's daffodils to Baudelaire's flowers of evil.
我們可以從 Wordsworth 的《黃水仙》到 Baudelaire 的《罪惡之花》看出這種變化。
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen so much misery.
你可能會爭論藝術變得對幸福如此懷疑是因為在現代看到了這樣的苦難。
But it's not as if earlier times didn't know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents.
但這并不是因為在早期不了解持久的戰(zhàn)爭, 災難和大規(guī)模的屠殺無辜。
The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.
事實上，原因可能與之相反：現在世界上有太多快樂要去譴責。
After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising.
歸根結底，幾乎完全致力于描寫快樂的那種現代表現方式是什么呢？廣告。
The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media,
反快樂藝術的興起幾乎完全與大眾傳媒同步出現，
and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.
而隨之興起了一種商業(yè)文化，在這種文化中，快樂不僅是一個抽象概念，而是一種意識形態(tài)。
People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery.
早期的人們被悲痛之使者所縈繞。
They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young.
他們工作到筋疲力盡，生活幾無保障，年紀輕輕就命喪黃泉。
In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church,
在西方，在大眾傳媒和文學普及之前，最有效的大眾媒體是教堂，
which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms.
它提醒信徒們，他們的靈魂處于危險之中，他們總有一天會成為蛆蟲的食物。
Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.
在這種信仰下，他們對此已十分了然，無須其藝術再表現這種失落感。
Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy.
今天，你們普通西方人面對的圍繞我們四周的信息不是宗教的，而是商業(yè)的，而且一直讓人快樂。
Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling.
快餐食客、新聞主播、發(fā)短信的人，都在笑啊笑啊。
Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes.
我們的雜志突出刊登滿面春風的名人和美滿幸福的家庭。
And since these messages have an agenda -- to lure us to open our wallets
這樣的消息都有一項任務——即引誘我們打開錢包
-- they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable.
使這些看起來并不可靠的快樂變得真實起來。
“Celebrate!” commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.
“歡慶吧！”宣傳關節(jié)炎良藥西樂葆的廣告這樣號召道，隨后我們卻發(fā)現它能增加心臟病的發(fā)病率。
But what we forget -- what our economy depends on us forgetting -- is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain.
但是我們所忘記的是――我們的經濟依賴著我們的遺忘――經過痛苦得來的快樂比沒有經過痛苦得來的快樂好得多。
The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment.
帶給我們最大快樂的事件，同時也暗含著巨大的損失和失望。
Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori:
現在，在耳邊充斥著能輕易得到快樂的承諾時，我們需要有人告訴我們，正如宗教曾經所做，死亡警示：
remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it.
記住你會死，一切將會終結， 快樂雖然到來，但是它不能消除苦難，而是與其共存。
It's a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.
這可能比抽煙更加毒害人的健康，然而，不知為何，也許會帶來一股清新的氣息。
