說真話不易 It Is Not Easy to Tell the Truth

It’s not easy to tell the truth.

說句真話，真不容易。

To tell it, you must first overcome your own fears. Because the truth may offend some people. Even if you just say something like “today’s weather is hahahahaha”, which should not offend anyone, someone will feel offended because he/she may not like you in the first place; and he/she will come to pick on you and say: how dare you say “today’s weather is hahahahaha” when so many people are suffering today?

要講出來，首先得克服自己內心的恐懼。因爲真話可能會冒犯一些人。就算是你只說了句其實應該不會冒犯任何人的「今天天氣哈哈哈哈」之類的，也會有人會覺得受到了冒犯，因爲他/她可能早就看你不順眼，他/她會來挑毛病說：今天還有那麼多人在受苦受難，你居然有心情在這裏說「今天天氣哈哈哈哈」？

If this person is completely unrelated to you, so be it, you can just ignore it.

這個人如果是與你全然無關的人也就罷了，你大可以不必理會。

However, if you happen to think that he/she is actually quite related to you, and may even “represent” you in some sense, and his/her somewhat ridiculous, radical, and incorrect ideas or ways of thinking will hurt him/her, and everything related to him/her, of course, including you, what can you do?

可是，如果你恰好覺得他/她跟你其實挺有關係，甚至可能會把你也「代表」了，而他/她種種有點可笑，有點偏激的，有點不正確的想法或思想方法，會傷害到他/她，及與他/她相關的一切，當然這其中也包括你，你怎麼辦呢？

Maybe you will summon up your courage and say it.

也許你一鼓勁兒就說了。

But anything you say, as I said before, is half up to the speaker and half up to the listener.

但是，任何話吧，正如我之前所說，是一半由說者決定，一半由聽者決定的。

When listeners hear you say this, they will work out what you mean according to their own ideas and imagination. You may not mean what they think you mean, they will say this is what you are and what you mean anyway and throw a bunch of labels on you. They may even go around and ask others to ignore you, not to share your posts, etc. They may even block you and stop listening or talking to you at all.

聽者一看你說這話，就會根據他/她的想法與想像，又給你戴上一堆高帽子，甚至到處去讓別人都不要理你，不要轉發你的東西，拉黑你，等等等等。

But your purpose of getting on social media is to spread what you think is important. If everyone ignores you, does not share your posts, what are you here for?

你上社交媒體混，就是爲了傳播你覺得應該傳播的東西，如果大家都不理你了、不替你轉發了，你還混什麼混？

Of course, you may say, let them go, there are still a lot of people who will care about what you say, and will give you a like.

當然你可能會說，由他們去吧，還是有很多人會理你、會給你點讚的。

However …… are you sure that more people will like you than step on you?

然而……你確定點讚的人會多於點踩的人？

So after a round of “comprehensive measurement”, you may shrink back and not say anything ……

所以「綜合衡量」一圈下來，你可能就又縮回去，不說話了……

Or, like what I am doing now, going around and around, and beating around the bush?

或者，像我這樣，繞個很大很大的圈子來說。

It’s tiring, isn’t it?

真累，是吧？

But this is the real state of the world. We can only accept it, and do our little bit to see if it can be improved, right?