第5页 警惕空隙

原文
as a boy, I belonged to that subculture among children whose members are passionately interested in space travel and dinosaurs. Only late in puberty did I realise that there were thousands upon thousands of children, spread thinly across the modern world, who had been in exactly the same situation as myself: they were bored by the tedious routines of school, they were below-average performers in sports, and were for these reasons easily tempted by various forms of imaginative escape from reality, frequently spending their days among knights and dragons in societies of the generic J.R.R Tolkien kind, or at recently founded space colonies in the Andromeda region or on the moon, or else in the no less marvellous universe of natural science and technology.

原译
当我还是个孩童时，我属于儿童这个亚文化群，对于太空旅行和恐龙充满强烈的好奇心。到了青春期末尾，我才明白现代社会有数千万的孩子，处境几乎和我一模一样：他们厌倦学校刻板的作息时间，在体育运动中往往低于平均水平，很容易受到各种逃离现实的虚构性是的诱惑，常常花费整天的时间，想想中世纪奢华社会中的武士，最近则幻想在仙女座星系或月亮上创立殖民地，抑或关注其他神秘宇宙的自然科技 。

自译
男孩时的我属于这样一个亚文化群体： 它的成员狂热地喜欢太空旅行和恐龙。到了青春期快结束时我才意识到，这个世界上零星分布着成千上万的孩子，处境和我一模一样：他们讨厌沉闷的学校，也不擅长体育。由于这些原因，他们很容易受到幻想世界的诱惑而逃离现实，经常会整天沉浸在托尔金风格的、骑士与龙的世界里，在仙女座或月球的新兴太空殖民地上，或是在科学技术构成的同样不可思议的宇宙中。