There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an olderfish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’sthe water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually oneof them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
有兩條年輕的魚迎面遇到一條老魚。老魚點(diǎn)頭打招呼道 “早上好呀，孩子們。這水怎么樣？“ 兩條年輕的魚繼續(xù)游了一會(huì)兒，終于其中一條忍不住看看另一條說道 ”到底什么是‘水’呀？“
This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment ofdidactic little parable-ish stories. The story [“thing”] turns out to be one ofthe better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you’re worriedthat I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining whatwater is to you younger fish, please don’t be. I am not the wise old fish. Thepoint of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realitiesare often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an Englishsentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that inthe day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life ordeath importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovelymorning.
美國(guó)大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮演講標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的開場(chǎng)通常是一個(gè)富于教育意義的小故事。這種故事比起畢業(yè)典禮上常見的說教，算是不那么扯淡的。但是請(qǐng)不要以為我視自己為這條老而智慧的魚，來向你們這些小魚兒傳道什么是水。這個(gè)故事只是想說：最明顯、最重要的現(xiàn)實(shí)往往最不易被察覺或討論的。當(dāng)然，這么說出來也只是老生常談。但是事實(shí)是，成年人日復(fù)一日的生活中，老生常談確是關(guān)乎生死。這就是我想在這個(gè)爽快美好的早晨于你們分享的一點(diǎn)想法。
By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in themorning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and youwork hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired andsomewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper andmaybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, youhave to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there’sno food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of yourchallenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive tothe supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be:very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when youfinally get there, th e supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s thetime of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in somegrocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killingmuzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be butyou can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge,over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have tomaneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people withcarts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony)and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out therearen’t enough check-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. Sothe checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But youcan’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, whois overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses theimagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.
舉個(gè)例子，就說這是個(gè)成人平常的一天。你早早起床，去到充滿挑戰(zhàn)的應(yīng)屆生白領(lǐng)工作，努力工作了8到10個(gè)小時(shí)。一天結(jié)束后你累了，壓力有點(diǎn)大，于是你只想回家吃碗熱湯飯，有時(shí)間的話放松1小時(shí)，然后早早上床。因?yàn)槟愕诙煊值迷缙穑冗^相同的一天。但是之后你想起家里沒吃的了。因?yàn)楣ぷ鞣泵δ氵@周還沒來得及買菜，于是下班后現(xiàn)在你還得開車去超市。工作日結(jié)束了（是下班高峰），堵車自然是：一塌糊涂。你花了比平常長(zhǎng)得多的時(shí)間去超市，當(dāng)你好不容易到了，超市非常擁擠，因?yàn)閯e的上班族當(dāng)然也在一天中的這個(gè)時(shí)候擠點(diǎn)時(shí)間買菜。
But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line’s front, and you pay for yourfood, and you get told to “Have a nice day” in a voice that is the absolutevoice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags ofgroceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to theleft, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and thenyou have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive,rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.
但是不管怎樣，你最終還是來到了收銀臺(tái)的最前端，為事物付完賬，然后被一種毫無疑問如同死亡之音的聲音祝福到“祝您一天愉快”。接下來你不得不把那些令人毛骨悚然的，脆弱的，塑料袋裝的食品扔進(jìn)只有一個(gè)輪子的令人抓狂的推車中，向左擠過擁擠的，坑坑洼洼亂七八糟的停車場(chǎng)，然后回家路上永遠(yuǎn)充斥著緩慢、沉重、密密麻麻SUV、交通高峰，等等等等。
Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn’t yet been part of yougraduates’ actual life routine, day after week after month after year.
But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routinesbesides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating craplike this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because thetraffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think,and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to payattention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop.Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like thisare really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire tojust get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else isjust in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at howrepulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed andnonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is thatpeople are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look athow deeply and personally unfair this is.
在場(chǎng)的人肯定都有過類似的經(jīng)歷，但是這還沒有成為你們這些畢業(yè)生日復(fù)一日年復(fù)一年的柴米油鹽，但是這種日子離你們不遠(yuǎn)了。而且還有會(huì)變得更枯燥的、煩人的、不確定的、無意義的平淡生活。但這不是重點(diǎn)。重點(diǎn)是，剛剛一堆打擊你們的糟糕的生活場(chǎng)景正是發(fā)揮選擇作用的地方。因?yàn)?，擁堵的交通、熙攘的街道、長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)隊(duì)伍的收銀口給了我思考的時(shí)間。如果我不能利用這些時(shí)間理智地做出決定去思考去關(guān)心一些有意義的事情，那么每次購(gòu)物我都會(huì)發(fā)瘋。我明白人生中遇到的這些事情都是上天注定的。我渴望回家，那些在大街上和我擦肩而過的路人也不都是這么想的么？這些人都是什么樣的人？看看這些在收銀口排隊(duì)的人們：他們大部分看起來讓你厭惡，蠢蠢的體型碩大，眼中沒有一絲生氣。有些則不懂規(guī)矩讓人討厭，在隊(duì)伍中央大聲講電話。瞧瞧這些是多么的讓人覺得不平。
Or, of course, if I’m in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of mydefault setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgustedabout all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV’s and Hummers and V-12 pickuptrucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I candwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seemto be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest[responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think,though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, mostinconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children’schildren will despise us for wasting all the future’s fuel, and probablyscrewing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgustingwe all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.
又或者，如果我存在于自身具有社會(huì)意識(shí)的自由藝術(shù)形態(tài)中，我能將時(shí)間耗費(fèi)在下班時(shí)期當(dāng)中，被那些巨大的、呆蠢的、堵路的燒著它們自私的、浪費(fèi)的四十加侖的汽油SUV、悍馬以及V-12皮卡所惡心，并且我也能接受那些長(zhǎng)得奇丑的司機(jī)開的在汽車保險(xiǎn)杠上貼著愛國(guó)或者有宗教意義貼紙這種事實(shí)[回應(yīng)大家的掌聲](雖然這也是一個(gè)不去思考的例子)，讓人厭惡的汽車，被長(zhǎng)相奇異、不考慮他人、易動(dòng)肝火的人開著。我也能想象出我們孩子的孩子將會(huì)對(duì)我們浪費(fèi)他們的能源表露出的的失望，也有可能我們還弄糟了全球的氣溫。我們是如此的自私、愚蠢、討人嫌，現(xiàn)代文明下的消費(fèi)者是如此的糟糕。
You get the idea.
你明白了吧。
If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of usdo. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’thave to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It’s the automatic waythat I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’moperating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of theworld, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine theworld’s priorities.
如果我選擇了在商店里或高速公路上用這種方式來考慮問題，那很好。我們中的很多人會(huì)這么想。這么想雖然非常簡(jiǎn)單且自然，但是并不是必然的選擇。這是我默認(rèn)的自然形態(tài)。這種自然的想法，使我在自發(fā)且無意識(shí)地相信自己是世界的中心時(shí)，經(jīng)歷了成人生活的枯燥，沮喪和擁塞那部分。并且，使我緊接下來的需求和感覺是，想知道什么才是決定這個(gè)世界的先決條件。
The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think aboutthese kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped andidling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s havebeen in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifyingthat their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so theycan feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybebeing driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next tohim, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger,more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.
當(dāng)然，事實(shí)是，總會(huì)有完全不同的思路去考慮不同的情形。在交通中，所有的停在或者閑逛擋在我的路上的車輛，有可能有一部分開SUV的人過去曾經(jīng)經(jīng)歷過嚴(yán)重車禍，他們覺得開車是一件非常恐怖的事情，以至于他們的（心理）醫(yī)生為了使他們開車時(shí)有安全感，勸說他們弄一輛龐大且笨重的SUV?；蛘?，剛才是一位父親開的Hummer越線超車，因?yàn)樗退赃呑簧』蛘呤軅暮⒆尤メt(yī)院。因此他是在這種更合理的急迫條件下才需要開得比我快：實(shí)際上是我擋了他的路。
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone elsein the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, andthat some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful livesthan I do.
要么我可以強(qiáng)迫自個(gè)兒去考慮這種可能性：每個(gè)在超級(jí)市場(chǎng)收銀臺(tái)前排隊(duì)的都和我一樣無聊沮喪，甚至有些人過的日子比我更艱難、更繁瑣、更痛苦。
Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m sayingyou are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to justautomatically do it. Because it’s hard. It takes will and effort, and if youare like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’twant to.
再次地，請(qǐng)不要覺得我是在給你們什么道德上的建議，或者覺得我是再說你們應(yīng)該這么想，或者覺得有人在期待你這么做。因?yàn)檫@很難。這樣做需要決心和努力。如果你和我一樣堅(jiān)持，總會(huì)有一天你會(huì)堅(jiān)持不了，或者你會(huì)感到疲憊而放棄。
But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can chooseto look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamedat her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’sbeen up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying ofbone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicledepartment, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific,infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It justdepends what you what to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you knowwhat reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, likeme, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are otheroptions. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot,slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on firewith the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical onenessof all things deep down.
但是大多數(shù)時(shí)候，假如你足夠清醒給自己一個(gè)機(jī)會(huì)，你可以選擇試著用另外一種眼光重新審視一下這位肥胖的、眼睛無神的、畫了濃妝、對(duì)著自己小孩大喊大叫排在收銀隊(duì)伍中的這位婦女。也許她平常不是這樣。也許她連續(xù)三個(gè)晚上陪在罹患骨癌的丈夫病床旁邊，緊緊的握著他的手。也許這個(gè)女士是汽車銷售處拿著低薪的店員，昨天你的妻子還靠著她的官腔解決了一個(gè)令人恐怖、手續(xù)繁縟的讓人大怒的問題。當(dāng)然，這些都沒有相似之處，但是也不見得不可能。這僅僅取決于你怎么考慮。假如你很自然的認(rèn)為就是這么滴，并且你天生就會(huì)這么想，那么你就像我一樣，大概不會(huì)考慮這些可能性一點(diǎn)都不神奇或者讓人厭煩。但是如果你真的學(xué)會(huì)了怎么去關(guān)心，那么你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)其實(shí)還有其他的選擇。這其實(shí)也會(huì)增強(qiáng)你的能力讓你體驗(yàn)一個(gè)擁擠、悶熱、緩慢、極度消費(fèi)的境況，并且這不光光有意義，而且神圣，就如同創(chuàng)造星星的力量一樣讓你全身火熱：博愛、友誼、所有事物最深層次的神秘根源（oneness，統(tǒng)一性，意譯了一下好接下文）(學(xué)習(xí)了！)。
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’scapital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.
This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to bewell-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.You get to decide what to worship.
這神秘的根源并不一定是真實(shí)的。唯一真實(shí)的東西是，你會(huì)決定你自己怎么去嘗試看到它。因此我主張，這才是真正學(xué)習(xí)如何良好地適應(yīng)環(huán)境所帶來的自由。你自己有意識(shí)地決定哪些東西有意義而哪些沒有。你自己決定信仰什么。
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day of adultlife, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as notworshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. Andthe compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-typething to worship — be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess,or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — isthat pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worshipmoney and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you willnever have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship yourbody and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when timeand age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieveyou. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths,proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. Thewhole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
因?yàn)檫@還有其他古怪但是真實(shí)的東西：在日復(fù)一日成年人生活的“戰(zhàn)壕”中，并沒有所謂的美學(xué)。沒有所謂的不信仰。每個(gè)人都有自己的信仰。唯一可以選擇的是信仰什么。也許，選擇某些類似上帝或者精神上的事物來信仰的有說服力的原因是——無論你選擇JC（耶穌）還是Allah（阿拉真主）,或者我打賭它是YHWH（以色列某個(gè)時(shí)代的上帝）或威卡教的圣母，或者說是四圣諦，或者其他的不可違背的道德準(zhǔn)則——如果你選擇其他的東西來信仰的話你會(huì)被吞掉。如果你信仰金錢或者具體的事物，如果你真的把你的信仰放在那上面的話，那么你永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)有足夠的錢或其他東西，你永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)覺得滿足。這就是事實(shí)。（如果）信仰你的身體，你的美貌，你的性吸引力，你永遠(yuǎn)都會(huì)覺得你很丑。而且，當(dāng)時(shí)光和歲月開始展示力量時(shí)，在哀悼（失去他們）之前你就已經(jīng)死了一百萬次。在某個(gè)層面上，我們都知道了這些道理。這些道理已經(jīng)被編纂成神話故事，諺語，陳詞濫調(diào)，警句，寓言了；這已經(jīng)成為了每個(gè)美好故事的骨架。因此總的秘訣是把事實(shí)擺在日常覺悟之上。
哇曬！鼓掌鼓掌
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need evermore power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect,being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on theverge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worshipis not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They aredefault settings.
崇拜權(quán)力，最終會(huì)讓你感到無力和恐懼，你將需要更多凌駕于他人的權(quán)力來麻醉自己的恐懼。
自視聰明，并讓自己看上去很聰明，你最終將感到自己的愚蠢，謊言最終總會(huì)被識(shí)破。可是這些崇拜的隱患并非因?yàn)樗麄兪切皭夯蛘哂凶?，他們只是無意識(shí)的，來自于慣性。
They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day,getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure valuewithout ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
你將逐漸陷入這樣的崇拜之中，日復(fù)一日，越來越有選擇的去看和判斷價(jià)值，而無視你所做的事情。
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on yourdefault settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and powerhums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving andworship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in waysthat have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. Thefreedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centerof all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of coursethere are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most preciousyou will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wantingand achieving and [unintelligible — sounds like “displayal”]. The reallyimportant kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, andbeing able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over andover in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
這所謂的真實(shí)的世界，并不阻礙你慣性思維去處事。因?yàn)樗^的真實(shí)世界中的人、金錢和權(quán)力都源自一種來自自己的恐懼、憤怒、沮喪、渴望和崇拜。我們當(dāng)今的文化把這些力量演變成了過度的財(cái)富、舒適和個(gè)人自由。這些自由成為了我們這個(gè)不大的國(guó)家的主人，成為了一切創(chuàng)造的唯一核心。當(dāng)然他們有很多理由可以稱道，不過，也還有其他一些類型的自由，而這些，是之前你很少聽到過的，外界世界需要、實(shí)現(xiàn)并(聽上去不太合理)展現(xiàn)它們。這真正重要的自由包括了關(guān)注、認(rèn)識(shí)和自律，每天，會(huì)真正去關(guān)心他人，在無數(shù)的瑣碎、無趣的事情上貢獻(xiàn)出自己的力量
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, theconstant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
這是真正的自由。這是受過教育，并且明白怎樣去思考。反面即無意識(shí)，慣性思維，你死我活的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，對(duì)得到和失去永恒的痛苦，這些無限的事情。
I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandlyinspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is,as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetoricalniceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever youwish. But please don’t just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laurasermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or bigfancy questions of life after death.
我知道，可能這些聽上去并不有趣、令人愉快，也沒有一個(gè)畢業(yè)演講該有的那樣啟迪心靈。就我看，它只關(guān)于大寫的T，即實(shí)在，而去掉了一大堆華麗的詞藻。當(dāng)然，你怎樣想是你的自由。但是，請(qǐng)不要無視它，僅僅晃晃手指(Dr. Laura sermon?)。這些跟美德、信仰、信條或者死后的任何重大問題都無關(guān)。
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
大寫的T，即實(shí)在，關(guān)乎的是生前的事。
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to dowith knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of whatis so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time,that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
關(guān)于的是真正的教育中真正的價(jià)值，幾乎跟知識(shí)毫無關(guān)系，僅僅是簡(jiǎn)單的常識(shí)，明白什么是真實(shí)的和必要的，他們無形的隱藏在我們周圍，無時(shí)無刻。我們需要做的，就是不斷的提醒自己，
“This is water.”
“This is water.”
”這是水“
”這是水“
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adultworld day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to betrue: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.
想保持清醒，在成人的世界中日日夜夜的生活會(huì)有超乎想象的艱難。這意味著，另外一句老話也是對(duì)的：教育實(shí)際上是一輩子的事，它始于當(dāng)下。
I wish you way more than luck.
祝福你們，不止是好運(yùn)。
