二十世紀愛爾蘭詩人 William Butler Yeats 的自傳《Reveries Over Childhood and Youth》裡有這段話:

It is not that I have accomplished too few of my plans, for I am not ambitious; but when I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens.

上面這段話的最後一句「我的一生似乎都是為永遠不會發生的事情做預備」引出我的興趣. 我對 Yeats 所知不多, 不過我很喜愛的美國作家 Joan Didion 2021年去世, 有人製作了一部紀念紀錄片《Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold》, 我因此知道 Yeats 在第一次世界大戰後環顧世局極端悲觀寫了下面這一句詩:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

自傳是 1916 年出版的, 詩是 1919 年寫的, 我不在此做深入的探討, 只是覺得江山易改本性難移, Yeats 忘了自己不久前才有的領悟竟又產生「萬物分崩離析, 核心無法維持」的憂心.