Chapter 9: Confront Your Dark Side 面对你的黑暗面
The Law of Regression 退化的法则
People are rarely who they seem to be. Lurking beneath their polite, affable exterior is inevitably a dark, shadow side consisting of the insecurities and the aggressive, selfish impulses they repress and carefully conceal from public view. This dark side leaks out in behavior that will baffle and harm you. Learn to recognize the signs of the Shadow before they become toxic. See people’s overt traits—toughness, saintliness, et cetera—as covering up the opposite quality. You must become aware of your own dark side. In being conscious of it you can control and channel the creative energies that lurk in your unconscious. By integrating the dark side into your personality, you will be a more complete human and will radiate an authenticity that will draw people to you.
人鲜少表裡合一。潜伏在他们礼貌与和善的外表下，无可避免地会是阴影中的黑暗面，当中存在着不安全感与攻击性、存在着他们小心压抑著而不被公众目睹的自私街动。此一黑暗面一旦外泄，就会展现为让你百思不得其解且对你造成伤害的行为。学著去看懂阴影人格的特徵，让这些人格在产生毒性之前就能为你所避免。看著人的各种外显特色如强悍、圣光等等，你要警觉到那可能是反面特质的障眼法。你也要留意到自身的黑暗面。只要能意识到自身的黑暗面，你就能对其进行控制，并将潜伏在你无意识中的创造性能量加以疏导。将黑暗面融入到你的人格中，你就能出落为一个更完整的人，并由此散发出一种具诚而诱人的吸引力。
Your task as a student of human nature is to recognize and examine the dark side of your character. Once subjected to conscious scrutiny, it loses its destructive power. If you can learn to detect the signs of it in yourself (see the following sections for help on this), you can channel this darker energy into productive activity. You can turn your neediness and vulnerability into empathy. You can channel your aggressive impulses into worthwhile causes and into your work. You can admit your ambitions, your desires for power, and not act so guiltily and stealthily. You can monitor your suspicious tendencies and the projection of your own negative emotions onto others. You can see that selfish and harmful impulses dwell within you as well, that you are not as angelic or strong as you imagine. With this awareness will come balance and greater tolerance for others.
你作为人性学生的功课，就是要确认出自己人格的黑暗面，并加以细究。只妥经过一番有意识的审视，其杀伤力就会消失殆尽。只要学着去观察黑暗面在你身上存在的迹象，你就能把这股黑暗的能量引导到具有建设性的活动上。你可以把自己的需求与脆弱升化为同理。你可以把那股积极的冲动投入到值得的理念上，投入到工作上。你可以坦承不讳自己的野心，你对权力的欲望，然后不要一副好像做错事或偷偷摸摸的模样。你可以用客观的立场去观察自身的疑神疑鬼与投射到他人身上的負面情绪。你可以看出自私与攻击性也存在与你的心里，所以你也不如自己所想像的那么天使、那么坚强。有了這样的自觉，你自处起來内心會比较平衡，对外也會比较能宽以待人。
It might seem that only those who project continual strength and saintliness can become successful, but that is not at all the case. By playing a role to such an extent, by straining to live up to ideals that are not real, you will emit a phoniness that others pick up. Look at great public figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. They possessed the ability to examine their flaws and mistakes and laugh at themselves. They came across as authentically human, and this was the source of their charm. The tragedy of Nixon was that he had immense political talent and intelligence; if only he had also possessed the ability to look within and measure the darker sides to his character. It is the tragedy that confronts us all to the extent that we remain in deep denial.
有人会以为人一定要无时无刻不投射出力量与圣光，才有可能走到成功的最后一步，但事實完全不是如此。角色扮演到這这种程度，逼著自己一定要随时随地都當当个完人去符合不切实际的理想，你只会让人感觉你假。大人物里像是林肯与丘吉尔，都具有省察自身缺陷与错误，外加自嘲的能力。他们都予人以真诚的感受，而真诚正是他们魅力的源头。
相形之下，尼克森的悲剧就在于他兼具政治长才而且聪明过人，但就是少了反躬自省并评估自身人格黑暗面的能力。同样的悲劇，也横在我们面前，逃避是我们每个人都在做的事情。
See the Shadow, Embrace the Shadow, Explore the Shadow
看见阴影，拥抱阴影，探索阴影
This is the most difficult step in the process. The Shadow is something we deny and repress. It is so much easier to dig up and moralize about the dark qualities of others. It is almost unnatural for us to look inward at this side of ourselves. But remember that you are only half a human if you keep this buried. Be intrepid in this process.
这是整个过程里最困难的一步。阴影原本就是我们否认跟压抑的东西。要挖掘出并道德化他人的黑暗面，相比之下要容易许多，但要我们去看进自己的内心，则几乎是一种反直觉、不自然的事情，所以要记住一件事情：要是你不把自己的黑暗面挖出来，那你永远都不会是完整的人，你会永远都缺了一半。所以面对这个过程一定得勇敢。
Look at moments in your youth (late teens, early twenties) in which you acted in a rather insensitive or even cruel manner. When you were younger, you had less control of the Shadow and it came out more naturally, not with the repressed force of later years.
想想你年轻的时候是不是曾经表现得很自私、甚至有些残酷。这是因为小时候我们对阴影或黑暗面的控制力较弱，所以它们会自然而然地常跑出来活动，这时的阴影还不具有其日后被压抑的力量。
Your natural reaction in uncovering and facing up to your dark side is to feel uncomfortable and maintain only a surface awareness of it. Your goal here must be the opposite—not only complete acceptance of the Shadow but the desire to integrate it into your present personality.
你对于发现与面对自身黑暗面的自然反应，会是觉得不舒服，会是只想要蜻蜓点水地知悉其存在就好。但你的目标应该要正好与此相反：你不仅要彻底接受阴影的存在，而且还要有意愿将之整合进你现行的人格。
You pay a greater price for being so nice and deferential than for consciously showing your Shadow. First, to follow the latter path you must begin by respecting your own opinions more and those of others less, particularly when it comes to your areas of expertise, to the field you have immersed yourself in. Trust your native genius and the ideas you have come up with. Second, get in the habit in your daily life of asserting yourself more and compromising less. Do this under control and at opportune moments. Third, start caring less what people think of you. You will feel a tremendous sense of liberation. Fourth, realize that at times you must offend and even hurt people who block your path, who have ugly values, who unjustly criticize you. Use such moments of clear injustice to bring out your Shadow and show it proudly. Fifth, feel free to play the impudent, willful child who mocks the stupidity and hypocrisy of others.
Finally, flout the very conventions that others follow so scrupulously. For centuries, and still to this day, gender roles represent the most powerful convention of all.
当一个处处配合人的滥好人，比起有意识地展现出你的阴影，前者会护你付出更大的代价。
首先， 你踏出的第一步就得是多一点对自己选择的尊重，少一点被别人的意见所迷惑， 尤其如果争论的内容是你的专业、你的主场、你长年在其中打滚的地方。相信你与生俱来的才华，还有你发想出的点子。
第二，在日常中养成习惯不要动不动就妥协，在你有主控权且时机适当时尽量有主见点。
第三，从今天开始别那么在意别人的想法，你会突然懂得什么叫做解放。
第四，认清人不可能都不得罪人，都不伤害人的事实。有时候你就是得说该说的话，做该做的事，才能让人知道它们在挡路、它们丑陋的价值是一种错误，以及他们对你的批评你一点都不认同。利用这种你明显受到不公待遇的时候，大大方方让你的阴影出来透透风。
“Unfortunately there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as a whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.
—Carl Jung”
很可惜关于身为人，我们有一点无法否认，那就是我们整体而言，都不如自己想象中或者希望中的那么好。是个人都带着阴影在生活，而这阴影越是没能在有意识的生活中表现出来，它就会变得越发黑暗、越发稠地化不开。- 卡尔·荣格
Source:
The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene, 2018
繁体版译者 郑焕升, 2020
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