喪游。怒刨

心情鬱悶，我跟Y說，一定要為低落的情緒定一個止蝕位。

於是，晚飯後，我去游泳，來來回回不住游了四十五分鐘，末了，上水的一刻，覺得自己方才直是「喪游」。

也可以是激游、憤游、勁游、怒游。當這堆字詞湧上心頭，我知道，不管我以為自己有多清醒，這個社會還是影響了我。

我也讀書，想借閱讀來平息心底裡的煩燥。拿起最近「怒刨」的Freakonomics，我翻到了bonus material。那是一篇非常有趣而立體的人物特寫，特寫對象，不用說，當然是傾倒了不少讀者的Steven Levitt。其中有一段頗能說明我當下的心情，容許我抄錄如下：

（Steven Levitt修畢博士後，瓣數多但看來無專長的他，一時想不出要幹什麼，就去申請哈佛的Society of Fellows計劃，計劃讓年輕學者可以在無任何附帶條件的情況下做三年研究。）
Freakonomics, P.205-6

Finally - disquietingly - one of them said: "I'm having a hard time seeing the unifying theme of your work. Could you explain it?"

Levitt was stymied. He had no idea what his unifying theme was, or if he even had one.

Amartya Sen, the future Nobel-winning economist, jumped in and neatly summarized what he saw as Levitt's theme.

Yes, Levitt said eagerly, that's my theme.

Another fellow then offered another theme.

You're right, Levitt said, that's my theme.

And so it went, like dogs tugging at a bone, until the philosopher Robert Nozick interrupted. If Levitt could have been said to have an intellectual hero, it would be Nozick.

"How old are you, Steve?" he asked.

"Twenty-six."

Nozick turned to the other fellows: "He's twenty-six years old. Why does he need to have a unifying theme? Maybe he's going to be one of those people who's so talented he doesn't need one. He'll take a question and he'll just answer it, and it'll be fine."

讀完這本書，對這位四十出頭的芝大才子教授，由衷佩服。他的精采，在於他總能提出表面上毫無關連的問題，例如墮胎合法化對降低罪案數字的影響。

他以這個題目寫的論文，受到了非常大的質疑和非議，有人認為，這無疑等於把墮胎看成滅罪的手段。社會由人所組成，有不同意見，實屬正常，但當事情涉及「道德」，問題就複雜起來，最安全的做法，或許是把題目掉了，再去發掘其他題目，但Levitt沒有這樣做，他鑽進相關的數據，尋找關聯，有所發現。


「怒刨」完畢，我掩卷，回味Levitt機智的言辭、幽默的筆鋒，更重要的是，他無意間揭示了的海闊天空。