幻想为什么总让人趋之若鹜？

原文

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.

We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

翻译

幻想为什么总让人趋之若鹜？是因为它让我们免受痛苦，带来了愉悦。

因此，当幻想与现实碰撞，然后碎落一地时，我们必须毫无怨言地接受。

出处

《关于战争与死亡的思考（Reflections on War and Death）》，西格蒙德·弗洛伊德（Sigmund Freud，1856~1939），奥地利心理学家、精神分析学家、哲学家，精神分析学的创始人，二十世纪最有影响力的思想家之一。

解读

也许幻想，是人类独有的一种能力，即使不是，那我们也一定是地球上将这种能力发展至极致的物种。

普通的动物有着简单的欲望，直接被痛苦与愉悦所驱使，追求愉悦并逃避痛苦；而我们能通过幻想，扭曲、重组、塑造自己的欲望，在面对痛苦时，不一定是逃避，也有可能是忍受，甚至是愉悦；在面对愉悦时，不一定是享受，也有可能是自律，甚至是恐惧。

但在大多数时候，我们利用幻想隔离自我与现实，就如同在黑暗的丛林里为自己点上一盏明灯。当点亮明灯的人越来越多，我们开始把这连绵的火光，叫做文明。

于是，我们渐渐忘记自己身处丛林深处，忘记了火光之外是无边的黑暗冰冷。我们当时时警醒，终有一日现实与幻想发生碰撞，火光渐熄、黑暗重新降临，那时，愿我们感谢幻想的庇护，如同感谢一位无微不至的母亲，然后平静地走进这片黑暗的丛林。

我们在幻想的温暖世界里生长，在现实的冰冷世界里成熟。黑暗与冰冷是一切的背景，光明与温暖只是精心营造的偶然。

它如同无尽寒夜之中的一丛篝火，有人围坐一旁取暖，有人自丛林里带来祡薪，还有人深入丛林冒险，甚至有人妄图举起火把，点燃这整片丛林。

我们燃起篝火，是为了度过漫漫寒夜；我们拥有幻想，是为了更好地面对现实。

总结

穿梭幻想与现实。

拓展阅读

Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures.
There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.
生活，对我们来说太艰难了，它给我们带来了太多的痛苦、失望和无法完成的任务，为了忍受这种生活，我们不能免除缓解措施。
这样的方法大概有三种：第一是彻底自欺欺人，使自己无视自己的痛苦；第二是替代性满足，通过找到替代品减轻痛苦；第三是用麻醉物品，让自己对痛苦失去感觉。
《文明与缺憾（Civilization and Its Discontents）》西格蒙德·弗洛伊德（Sigmund Freud）

What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only possible as an episodic phenomenon. When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it only produces a feeling of mild contentment. We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things. Thus our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution.
Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other. We tend to regard it as a kind of gratuitous addition, although it cannot be any less fatefully inevitable than the suffering which comes from elsewhere.
我们所说的最严格意义上的幸福，来自于需求的满足（最好是突然的），而且是始终未被满足的需求，幸福本身决定了幸福只能是暂时的。当快乐原则所要求的某种情况被延长时，只能带来一种微弱的满足感。我们天生就只能从对比中获得强烈的快感，从某一状态本身只能获得很少的快乐。因此我们幸福的可能性已经被我们的体质所限制。
生活中，我们更容易经历不幸。苦难从三个方面威胁着我们：肉体上，我们注定要衰败、腐烂，且从来都是疼痛、焦虑这些警告信号相伴；外部世界方面，它会向我们施加巨大的、难以平息的、破坏性的压力；最后是人际关系。人际关系可能给我们带来的比前两者更大的痛苦。尽管我们倾向于把这种苦难看作是额外附加的，但它或许与源自其他方面的苦难一样，无法避免。
《文明与缺憾（Civilization and Its Discontents）》西格蒙德·弗洛伊德（Sigmund Freud）

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
宗教是被压抑生灵的叹息，失心世界之心，无魂境遇之魂，是人民的鸦片。
《黑格尔法哲学批判（Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right）》卡尔·马克思（Karl Marx）

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.
没有什么比自我欺骗更容易。一个人所期望的，也是他深信不疑的。
《Third Olynthiac》德摩斯梯尼（Demosthenes）