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Early on in every life, a child will look up and - implicitly - ask the world:
在每个人生的早期，孩子都会抬起头——含蓄地——问这个世界:
Am I OK? Do I deserve goodwill and sympathy? Am I on track?
我还好吗?我值得你的善意和同情吗? 我在正轨上吗?
And, most commonly, the person who first answers these questions is a parent.
而且，最常见的是，第一个回答这些问题的人是父母。
Perhaps this parent happens to be generous and sympathetic, they are warm and understanding of the challenges of being alive - in which case the child develops an easy conscience.
也许这对父母碰巧是慷慨的，富有同情心的，他们是温暖的，理解生活的挑战-在这种情况下，孩子内心会轻松自在、没有那么多的愧疚。
In the years to come, they appraise themselves with benignancy, they don’t continuously have to wonder whether they have a right to exist.
在未来的岁月里，他们会以仁慈的态度来评价自己，他们不会一直怀疑自己是否有存在的权利。
They are comfortably on their own side.
他们舒服地站在自己这一边。
But if the parent is more punitive, the picture grows darker: approval is always uncertain, there is a constant fear of being called arrogant or of being upbraided for something one hadn’t thought about.
但如果家长对孩子更严厉，情况就会变得更糟:孩子得到的任何总是不确定的，他们总是害怕被人说成傲慢，或者因为自己没有想到的事情而受到责备。
What’s tricky is that consciences don’t stay neatly identified with those who kickstarted them.
棘手的是，良心并不完全是由那些启动它们的人识别的。
It’s rare to find an adult who actively still wonders what their parents think.
很少有成年人还在积极思考父母的想法。
But that isn’t to say that we aren’t wondering about our value in more general terms.
但这并不是说我们不考虑更一般的价值。
It’s just that we may, without noticing, have taken the question somewhere else - and very often, to particularly harsh modern figure of authority: media and social media.
只是我们可能在没有注意到的情况下，把这个问题带到了别的地方——而且经常是带到了一个特别严厉的现代权威人物身上:媒体和社交媒体。
To this pitiless arena, the self-doubting person now directs all their fears of unworthiness and panicked desire for reassurance.
在这个无情的舞台上，自我怀疑的人现在把他们所有的无价值的恐惧和寻求安慰的恐慌欲望导向了这个舞台。
To a system set up to reward sadism and malice, they constantly raise their phones and implicitly ask:
在一个奖励施虐狂和恶意的系统里，他们不断地举起手机，含蓄地问:
Do I deserve to exist? Am I OK? Am I beautiful or respectable enough？
我是否值得存在?我还好吗? 我够漂亮吗? 够体面吗?
And, because social media is built on the troubles of the individual soul, the verdict is never a reliable yes.
而且，因为社交媒体是建立在个体灵魂的烦恼之上的，所以这个结论永远不会是一个可靠的“是”。
One is never done with cycles of fear and reassurance-seeking.
恐惧和寻求安慰的循环永远不会结束。
Every time their spirits sink (which is often), the self-doubting sufferer picks up their phone and begs to know whether they have permission to go on.
每当他们情绪低落(这是常有的事)时，这些遭受自我怀疑折磨的人就会拿起电话，问自己是否得到了继续下去的许可。
If this might be us, we should grow curious about, and jealous of, people who are free.
如果我们也是这样，我们会对免受此事困扰的人产生好奇和嫉妒。
They are so because someone long ago settled the question of what they were worth and the answer has seemed solid ever since.
他们之所以如此，是因为很久以前就有人解决了它们价值多大的问题，从那以后，答案似乎就很可靠了。
Social media is a roar in the next valley, not a mob in their own mind.
社交媒体是下一个山谷里的喧嚣，而不是他们心中的暴民。
Learning from these calm souls won’t just involve deleting a few apps,
从这些拥有平静灵魂的人中学习，不仅仅是删除一些应用程序，
we will have to go further upstream, back to the baby self, whose alarmed enquiries we must quiet once and for all with ample doses of soothing, and till-now absent kindness.
我们还必须进一步追溯，回到婴儿的自我，我们必须用大量的安慰和迄今为止没有感受到的善意，来彻底平息婴儿时的不安询问。
