读克林顿的自传My life

一两个月前在旧书架上看见厚厚一本克林顿自传才卖两毛五美分，就把像砖头一样厚，957页的书搬回了家，然后开始以每天20到30页的速度读了几个星期。读到第400页，望着剩下的五六百页，突然间就有一种望洋兴叹的感觉。书中的人名太多，叙述太琐碎, 几乎面面俱到。像我这样一个不太关心时政、历史，尤其对这种政治人物知之甚少的读者，读这样的书还是有挑战的。最后决定不给自己压力，后半部分只挑几个章节来读，比如写中国之行，写他与白宫实习生monica Lewinsky性丑闻曝光后的个人感受，然后就此弃书：）

这世界上的书是读不完的，人的时间又这么宝贵，没有必要做到凡事善始善终。但是四百多页的内容还是值得做一下笔记的，否则再过一段时间就会忘得一干二净。以下就是一些笔记整理：

克林顿出生前三个月，他28岁的生父就死于车祸。根据Wikipedia上的资料，克林顿生父在与他母亲结婚时，其实已经有婚姻（第四次婚姻），也就是说生父跟他母亲结婚是属于重婚。他母亲后来再嫁。继父Roger是一位汽车经销商，虽然酗酒打骂老婆被克林顿告发，但是克林顿与继父的关系好像挺不错的。在继父得癌症病重人生的最后时光里，当时在Georgetown University读书的克林顿每星期五从学校开车266英里回家看继父，周日晚上再开回学校。

克林顿的母亲是一位麻醉护士，有过4次婚姻，后来得了乳腺癌，扩散。书中提到，他母亲一直向家人隐瞒着病情的严重性。1994年在克林顿当上美国总统不到一年时间，母亲去世，享年70岁。据克林顿回忆，母亲总是把他的成功归咎于克林顿自身的努力，说克林顿是一个self-made man，而不去提她这个当母亲的付出，包括后来隐瞒她自己病情的严重性，在我一个常人看来挺难得的。

克林顿的童年虽然没有父爱，却享尽了来自外祖父母的爱。在他母亲去新奥尔良学护士课程期间，克林顿由外祖父祖母抚养。在他的成长过程中，外祖父母对他人生观的形成有一定影响。外祖父开有小杂货店，来来往往的有黑人有穷人。外祖父宽厚对待他们，允许他们赊账，不另眼相待。这大概解释了克林顿后来的“黑白通吃”，对黑人没有偏见，对穷人有同理心，当上总统后也致力于减少贫富差距，倡导种族平等，因为他亲眼目睹过底层百姓的挣扎。

书中有一句话，He loved Mother and me more than life)。这里的He指外祖父，也正是在这样有爱的环境中，一个从小没有父亲的克林顿好像并不缺爱。

由此联想到一个人的成长。如果把人比作是一棵树，如果他的主干根须在成长过程不能及时提供充分的养料，那么侧枝旁系提供的营养一样能使小树茁壮成长。和睦的大家庭/大家族就像榕树，枝繁叶茂根须发达，彼此互相供给营养。克林顿外祖父母的爱弥补了克林顿原本缺失的父爱。

也因为他自己的出身经历，所以当克林顿自己做父亲后，他尽其所能陪伴女儿Chelsea，包括放弃1989年的总统竞选，其中的考量之一是为了更多地陪伴女儿的成长。

不像小布什出生官宦世家，克林顿出身寒门，走上从政之路是靠他自身的努力。从Georgetown University，到给议员Fulbright当差做义工，到获得牛津大学的罗德奖学金，到考上哈佛法学院，再到州长到美国总统，克林顿一步一个脚印地走了出来。不过期间也非一帆风顺。1981年在Arkansas州当了两年州长之后，因其执政期间的冒进政策，比如提高公路税汽油税，得罪了大批选民，以致在连任时落选。如果他就此沉沦，那就不是现在我们认识的克林顿了。他沉沦半年后重新振作，两年后再度参加州长竞选，再次当任，一做又近十年。克林顿在Arkansas州总共执政11年11个月，成为Arkansas州任期最二长的一位州长。

正如他自己说的，人生经历失败才能成长成功。

在中美关系上，1997年克林顿在任期间江泽民访美。1998年克林顿携全家回访中国。他是1989年六四以来第一个访华的总统。中国当时的韬光养晦政策和克林顿的全球化战略，让中国进入WTO, 并赢得了三四十年的发展时间。

克林顿无疑是一个伟大的政治家、总统，他在任职期间加强教育科技的投入、改进医疗福利制度等。他凭借着当时的和平大环境和全球化的红利，以及一系列增加税收发展经济的举措，一举成为自1969年以来第一位让美国财政预算实现扭亏为盈的总统，同时奠定了二十一世纪美国在科技、IT和医疗等前沿方面的领先地位。

当然克林顿并非完人。参加总统竞选时，因人格问题（character problem）遭人攻击。后来任职期间诸多性丑闻案又被曝光，遭遇被弹劾。书中有几个章节描写他的压力、心情，提到性丑闻被曝光后，自己被希拉里和女儿冷落，自己睡沙发两个月之久。。。

再则，近一两年公布的萝莉岛名单上也有他的大名。

当然作为一个普通读者，读自传绝非是要去评判一个人。读自传的着眼点更多的是去了解一个（伟）人的真实成长过程和人生轨迹，他/她的童年他们的家庭对他们一生的影响，也希望自己从中能感悟一些东西收获一些东西。这些年陆陆续续读了一些传记，如总统罗斯福（FDR），川普，里根，这次副总统提名万斯的传记，还有Jeff Bezos，Michelle Kwan的传记等。

读别人的故事，装点自己的人生风景：）

另外，在书中读到克林顿这样一句话，特别感慨：人应该在21到35岁间退休，然后再拼命工作到死：） People should retire between the age of 21 and 35, then work like hell till they die. 我们现在是反其向而行之：）

书中有好几次提到parallel lives，平行的人生，无法交织的两种生活轨迹。有待进一步了解克林顿所谓的Parallel lives.

书中摘录 （Quotes)：

“I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can’t be judged by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only response to pain.

Perhaps most important, I learned that everyone has a story – of dreams and nightmares, hope and heartache, love and loss, courage and fear, sacrifice and selfishness. All my life I’ve been interested in other people’s stories. I wanted to know them, understand them, feel them. When I grew up into politics, I always felt the main point of my work was to people a chance to have better stories.

 “Psychologically, we’re all a complex mixture of hopes and fears. Each day we wake up with the scales tipping a bit one way or the other. If they go too far toward hopefulness, we can become naïve and unrealistic. If the scales tilt too far the other way, we can get consumed by paranoia and hatred.”

 “And to the memory of my grandfather, who taught me to look up to people others looked down on, because we’re not so different after all”

“We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have not done so; instead, we have drifted. And that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence.”

“The idea that power was an end in itself, rather than a means to provide the security and opportunity necessary for the pursuit of happiness, seemed to him stupid and self-defeating." (about Senator Fulbright)”

“According to Becker, as we grow up, at some point we become aware of death, then the fact that people we know and love die, then the fact that someday we, too, will die. Most of us do what we can to avoid it. Meanwhile, in ways we understand only dimly if at all, we embrace identities and the illusion of self-sufficiency. We pursue activities, both positive and negative, that we hope will lift us beyond the chains of ordinary existence and perhaps endure after we are gone. All this we do in a desperate push against the certainty that death is our ultimate destiny. Some of us seek power and wealth, others romantic love, sex, or some other indulgence. Some want to be great, others to do good and be good. Whether we succeed or fail, we are still going to die. The only solace, of course, is to believe that since we were created, there must be a Creator, one to whom we matter and will in some way return.”

 “Our job is to live as well and as long as we can, and to help others to do the same. What happens after that and how we are viewed by others is beyond our control.”

“I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.”

“a lot of your life is shaped by the opportunities you turn down as much as those you take up.”

“After being married for nearly thirty years and observing my friends’ experiences with separations, reconciliations, and divorces, I’ve learned that marriage, with all its magic and misery, its contentments and disappointments, remains a mystery, not easy for those in it to understand and largely inaccessible to outsiders.”婚姻是一个谜，城外的人看不懂城内的风景。

In politics, when you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging, if you’re blind to the possibility of error or determined not to admit it, you just look for a bigger shovel. The more difficulties we had in Vietnam, the more protests mounted at home, the more troops we sent it.

If he could only have faced life with the same courage and sense of humor with which he faced death, he would have been quite a guy. (Roger, his stepfather)

He believed in civil rights for all and special privileges for none, in giving poor people a hand up rather than a handout: work was better than welfare.

I was against the war and the police brutality, but growing up in Arkansas had given me an appreciation for the struggle of ordinary people who do their duty every day, and a deep skepticism about self-righteous sanctimony on the right or the left.

We had set the bar high. When you set a high bar and reach for it, even if you fall short, you wind up well ahead of where you started.

We’ll spend whatever we have to spend to get whoever we have to get to say whatever they have to say to take you out. And we’ll do it early.

It was a girl with “no make-up, Coke-bottle glasses, and brown hair with no apparent style.” (Hillary)

I told Chelsea and her classmates that on this day their parents’"pride and joy are tempered by our coming separation from you… We are remembering your first day in school and all the triumphs and travails between then and now. Though we have raised you for the moment of departure and we are very proud of you, a part of us longs to hold you once more as we did when you could barely walk, to read to you just one more time Good Night Moon or Curious George or The Little Engine that Could,  I said that an exciting world beckoned and they have almost limitless choices, and I reminded them of Eleanor Roosevelt’s adage that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission: “Do not give them permission.”养儿育女终有一别

I was trying to protect myself and my family from intrusive questions in a politically inspired lawsuit that had been dismissed. I also said that Starr’s investigation had gone too long, cost too much, and hurt too many people… I hope we could repair the fabric of our nation’s life by stopping the pursuit of personal destruction and prying into private lives, and moving on. I believe every word I said, but my anger hadn’t worn off enough for me to be as contrite as I should have been.

It was the happiest moment of my life, one my own father never knew. I talked to her and sung to her. I never wanted that night to end. 做父亲的喜悦

If I was lucky enough to have a child, she would never grow up wondering who her father was.

I loved her enough both to want her and to want the best for her. (her: Hillary)

Most people have their hands full raising their kids, doing their jobs, and paying the bills.

An A’s worth of knowledge was hidden in the bush of an F presentation, flawed by things he hadn’t learned going all the way back to elementary school.

If I hadn’t been defeated, I probably never would have become President. It was a near-death experience, but an invaluable one, forcing me to be more sensitive to the political problems inherent in progressive politics: the system can absorb only so much change at once, no one can beat all the entrenched interests at the same time; and if people think you’ve stopped listening, you’re sunk.

Without a high pain threshold, you can’t be a successful president anyway.

The Cherokees believe a man does not reach full maturity until he is 51.

I loved that day in Selma. Once again, I was swept back across the year to my boyhood longing for our belief in an America without a racial divide. Once again, I returned to the emotional core of my political life in saying farewell to the people who had done so much to nourish it: As long as Americans are willing to hold bonds, we can walk with any wind, we can cross any bridge. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome.

People should retire between the age of 21 and 35, then work like hell till they die.