The Island Test
Paul Graham proposes a thought experiment: if you were stranded on a small island off the coast of Maine for a weekend, with no shops and no way to leave, what would you make a point of packing besides clothes? That item is what you're addicted to. His own list: earplugs (for guaranteed quiet to think), a notebook and pen (to wick ideas rather than archive them), and books (as distraction insurance against boredom). He admits his dependence on books is not virtuous – they are jam when he should be eating fruit. He recalls a hike where he carried no books and found that having ideas could entertain himself. The essay is a personal reflection on habits and the tools of creativity.
July 2006
I've discovered a handy test for figuring out what you're addicted to. Imagine you were going to spend the weekend at a friend's house on a little island off the coast of Maine. There are no shops on the island and you won't be able to leave while you're there. Also, you've never been to this house before, so you can't assume it will have more than any house might.
What, besides clothes and toiletries, do you make a point of packing? That's what you're addicted to. For example, if you find yourself packing a bottle of vodka (just in case), you may want to stop and think about that.
2006年7月
我发现了一个有用的测试，用来弄清楚你对什么上瘾。想象一下，你将在缅因州海岸附近的一个小岛上朋友家度过周末。岛上没有商店，在你逗留期间也无法离开。而且，你以前从未去过这所房子，所以你不能假设它会有比任何房子都可能有的更多东西。
除了衣服和洗漱用品，你特别打包了什么？那就是你上瘾的东西。例如，如果你发现自己打包了一瓶伏特加（以防万一），你可能要停下来思考一下。
For me the list is four things: books, earplugs, a notebook, and a pen.
对我来说，清单上有四样东西：书、耳塞、笔记本和一支笔。
There are other things I might bring if I thought of it, like music, or tea, but I can live without them. I'm not so addicted to caffeine that I wouldn't risk the house not having any tea, just for a weekend.
还有其他东西，如果我想起来可能会带，比如音乐或茶，但没有它们我也能过。我对咖啡因并没有上瘾到不敢冒险房子里没有茶，毕竟只是一个周末。
Quiet is another matter. I realize it seems a bit eccentric to take earplugs on a trip to an island off the coast of Maine. If anywhere should be quiet, that should. But what if the person in the next room snored? What if there was a kid playing basketball? (Thump, thump, thump... thump.) Why risk it? Earplugs are small.
安静是另一回事。我意识到去缅因州海岸附近的小岛旅行带耳塞似乎有点古怪。如果有什么地方应该是安静的，那应该是那里。但是，如果隔壁房间的人打鼾呢？要是有个孩子打篮球呢？（咚、咚、咚……咚。）为什么要冒险呢？耳塞很小。
Sometimes I can think with noise. If I already have momentum on some project, I can work in noisy places. I can edit an essay or debug code in an airport. But airports are not so bad: most of the noise is whitish. I couldn't work with the sound of a sitcom coming through the wall, or a car in the street playing thump-thump music.
And of course there's another kind of thinking, when you're starting something new, that requires complete quiet. You never know when this will strike. It's just as well to carry plugs.
有时我能在噪声中思考。如果我在某个项目上已经有了势头，我可以在嘈杂的地方工作。我可以在机场编辑文章或调试代码。但机场还不是那么糟糕：大多数噪声是白噪声。我无法忍受墙那边传来情景喜剧的声音，或者街上汽车播放的咚咚音乐。
当然，还有另一种思考——当你开始新东西时，需要完全的安静。你永远不知道这种时候什么时候会来。随身带着耳塞总没错。
The notebook and pen are professional equipment, as it were. Though actually there is something druglike about them, in the sense that their main purpose is to make me feel better. I hardly ever go back and read stuff I write down in notebooks. It's just that if I can't write things down, worrying about remembering one idea gets in the way of having the next. Pen and paper wick ideas.
笔记本和笔可以说是专业装备。但实际上它们有点类似药物，因为它们的主要目的是让我感觉更好。我几乎从不回过头去读笔记本里写的东西。只是如果我不能把东西写下来，担心忘记一个想法会妨碍我产生下一个想法。纸笔可以引出想法。
The best notebooks I've found are made by a company called Miquelrius. I use their smallest size, which is about 2.5 x 4 in. The secret to writing on such narrow pages is to break words only when you run out of space, like a Latin inscription. I use the cheapest plastic Bic ballpoints, partly because their gluey ink doesn't seep through pages, and partly so I don't worry about losing them.
我发现最好的笔记本是由一家名为 Miquelrius 的公司生产的。我用的是他们最小的尺寸，大约 2.5 x 4 英寸。在这么窄的页面上写字的秘诀是，像拉丁铭文一样，只有空间不够时才换行。我使用最便宜的塑料 Bic 圆珠笔，部分原因是它们粘稠的墨水不会渗透到纸页，部分原因是我不用担心丢失它们。
I only started carrying a notebook about three years ago. Before that I used whatever scraps of paper I could find. But the problem with scraps of paper is that they're not ordered. In a notebook you can guess what a scribble means by looking at the pages around it. In the scrap era I was constantly finding notes I'd written years before that might say something I needed to remember, if I could only figure out what.
我大约三年前才开始随身带笔记本。在那之前，我用我能找到的任何纸片。但纸片的问题是它们没有顺序。在笔记本里，你可以通过查看周围的页来猜测一个潦草的字是什么意思。在纸片时代，我经常发现多年前写的笔记，可能写着一些我需要记住的东西，前提是能弄清楚到底是什么。
As for books, I know the house would probably have something to read. On the average trip I bring four books and only read one of them, because I find new books to read en route. Really bringing books is insurance.
I realize this dependence on books is not entirely good—that what I need them for is distraction. The books I bring on trips are often quite virtuous, the sort of stuff that might be assigned reading in a college class. But I know my motives aren't virtuous. I bring books because if the world gets boring I need to be able to slip into another distilled by some writer. It's like eating jam when you know you should be eating fruit.
至于书，我知道房子里很可能会有阅读材料。平均每次旅行我会带四本书，但只读了其中一本，因为我在路上会发现新的书要读。带书实际上是一种保险。
我意识到对书的依赖并不完全是好事——我需要它们是为了消遣。我在旅行中带的书通常很有价值，是大学课堂上可能布置的阅读材料。但我知道我的动机并不高尚。我带书是因为如果世界变得无聊，我需要能够溜进某个作家提炼的另一个世界。这就像明明应该吃水果，却吃果酱。
There is a point where I'll do without books. I was walking in some steep mountains once, and decided I'd rather just think, if I was bored, rather than carry a single unnecessary ounce. It wasn't so bad. I found I could entertain myself by having ideas instead of reading other people's. If you stop eating jam, fruit starts to taste better.
So maybe I'll try not bringing books on some future trip. They're going to have to pry the plugs out of my cold, dead ears, however.
在某种情况下，我也能没有书。有一次我在陡峭的山路上行走，决定如果无聊，我宁愿只是思考，也不愿意多带一盎司不必要的东西。效果还不错。我发现我可以通过产生想法来娱乐自己，而不是阅读别人的想法。如果你停止吃果酱，水果就会开始变得更好吃。
所以也许我将来某次旅行会尝试不带书。不过，耳塞是别想从我冰冷的、死去的耳朵里拔出来的。