JK罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲.pdf

JK罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲 失败的好处和想象的重要性(The Fringe Benefits of Failure,and the Importance of Imagination)。她几乎没有谈到哈里波特,而是说了年轻时的一些经历。虽然JK罗琳现在很有钱,是英国仅次于女皇的最富有的女人,但是她曾经有一段非常艰辛的日子,30 岁了,还差点流落街头。她主要谈的是,自己从这段经历中学到的东西。二、她首先回忆了自己大学毕业的情景:I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do,ever,was to write novels.However,my parents,both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college,took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage,or secure a pension.当时,我只想去写小说。但是,我的父母出身贫寒,没有受过大学教育。他们认为,我那些不安分的想象力只是一种怪癖,根本不能用来还房贷,或者挣来养老金。They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree;I wanted to study English Literature.A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody,and I went up to study Modern Languages.Hardly had my parents car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.他们希望我再去读个专业学位,而我想去攻读英国文学。最后,达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协:我改学外语。可是等到父母一走开,我立刻报名学习古典文学。I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.Of all subjects on this planet,I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.我不记得将这事告诉了父母。他们可能是在毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想,在全世界的所有专业中,他们也许认为,不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了,根本无法换来一间独立的宽敞卫生间。I would like to make it clear,in parenthesis,that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty.They had been poor themselves,and I have since been poor,and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience.Poverty entails fear,and stress,and sometimes depression;it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts,that is indeed something on which to pride yourself,but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.我要申明,我并不责怪父母。他们只是希望我不要过穷日子,我不能批评他们。他们自己很穷,我后来一度也很穷,所以我很理解他们,贫穷是一种悲惨的经历。它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有抑郁。它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷,确实让人自豪,但是只有傻瓜才会将贫穷本身浪漫化。接着,她谈到了自己那些最悲惨的日子:A mere seven years after my graduation day,I had failed on an epic scale.我毕业后只过了 7 年,就失败得一塌糊涂。An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded,and I was jobless,a lone parent,and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain,without being homeless.The fears my parents had had for me,and that I had had for myself,had both come to pass,and by every usual standard,I was the biggest failure I knew.短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂,我还失业了,成了一个艰难的单身母亲。除了流浪汉,我是当代英国最穷的人之一,真的一无所有。我父母对我的担忧,我对自己的担忧,都变成了现实。用平常人的标准,我是我所知道的最失败的人。That period of my life was a dark one.I had no idea how far the tunnel extended,and for a long time,any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月。我不知道还要在黑暗中走多久,很长一段时间中,我有的只是希望,而不是现实。但是,J.K.罗琳认为,没有那段日子的失败,就不会有后来的她。So why do I talk about the benefits of failure?Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was,and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.为什么我说失败是有好处的?因为失败将那些非本质的东西都剥离了。我不再伪装自己,我找到了真正的我,我将自己所有的精力,投入完成对我最重要的唯一一项工作。Had I really succeeded at anything else,I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.要是我以前在其他地方成功了,那么我也许永远不会有这样的决心,投身于这个我自信真正属于我的领域。I was set free,because my greatest fear had already been realised,and I was still alive,and I still had a daughter whom I adored,and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.我自由了,因为我最大的恐惧已经成为现实,而我却还依然活着,依然有一个深爱着的女儿,我还有一台旧打字机和一个大大的梦想。我生命中最低的低点,成为我重建生活的坚实基础。Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.I discovered that I had a strong will,and more discipline than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.失败使我的内心产生一种安全感,以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败让我看清自己,以前我从没认识到自己是这样的。我发现,我比自己以为的,有更强的意志和决心。我还发现,我有一些比宝石更珍贵的朋友。You will never truly know yourself,or the strength of your relationships,until both have been tested by adversity.Such knowledge is a true gift,for all that it is painfully won,and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.只有到逆境来临的那一天,你才会真正了解你自己,了解你结识的人。这种了解是真正的财富,虽然是用痛苦换来的,但是它比我以前得到的任何证书都有用。三、我要重点谈的,是演说的结尾部分。一般来说,在演讲结束时,嘉宾将对毕业生提出期望。我们可以看到,在这种场合,几乎所有嘉宾,都没有说祝愿同学们取得个人成功,而是说希望同学们努力去减轻人类的苦难。比尔盖茨去年说:Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the worlds worst inequities?Should Harvard students learn about the dept h of global poverty the prevalence of world hunger the scarcity of clean water the girls kept out of school the children who die from diseases we can cure?哈佛是否鼓励她的老师去研究解决世界上最严重的不平等?哈佛的学生是否从全球那些极端的贫穷中学到了什么世界性的饥荒清洁的水资源的缺乏无法上学的女童死于非恶性疾病的儿童哈佛的学生有没有从中学到东西?Should the worlds most privileged people learn about the lives of the worlds least privileged?那些世界上过着最优越生活的人们,有没有从那些最困难的人们身上学到东西?These are not rhetorical questions you will answer with your policies.这些问题并非语言上的修辞。你必须用自己的行动来回答它们。When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given in talent,privilege,and opportunity there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.想一想吧,我们在这个院子里的这些人,被给予过什么天赋、特权、机遇那么可以这样说,全世界的人们几乎有无限的权力,期待我们做出贡献。J.K.罗琳今年说:the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.Indeed,your conception of failure might not be too far fr om the average persons idea of success,so high have you already flown academically.你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实,说明你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望成功,所以非常害怕失败。说实话,你们眼中的失败,很可能就是普通人眼中的成功,毕竟你们在学业上已经很成功了。But how much more are you,Harvard graduates of 2008,likely to touch other peop les lives?Your intelligence,your capacity for hard work,the education you have earned and received,give you unique status,and unique responsibilities.That is your privilege,and your burden.但是,所有各位哈佛大学 2008 届毕业生,你们对其他人的生活了解多少?你们的智慧、你们的能力、你们所受的教育,给了你们独一无二的优势,也给了你们独一无二的责任。你们的优势就是你们的责任。If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice;if you choose to identify not only with the powerful,but with the powerless;if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages,then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence,but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.你们要用自己的地位和影响,为那些被忽略的人们说话;你们不仅要看到那些有权有势者,也要看到那些无权无势者;你们要学会设想,那些条件不如你们的人们是如何生活的;那样的话,不仅你们的亲人们将为你们感到自豪,而且千千万万的人们将因为你们的帮助而生活得更好。We do not need magic to change the world,we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already:we have the power to imagine better.我们不需要改变世界的魔法,我们自己的体内就有这样的力量:那就是我们一直在梦想,让这个世界变得更美好。The Fringe Benefits of Failure,and the Importance of Imagination Harvard University Commencement Address J.K.Rowling Copyright June 2008 As prepared for delivery President Faust,members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers,members of the faculty,proud parents,and,above all,graduates,The first thing I would like to say is thank you.Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour,but the weeks of fear and nausea Ive experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight.A win-win situation!Now all I have to do is take deep breaths,squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the worlds best-educated Harry Potter convention.Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility;or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation.The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one,because it turns out that I cant remember a single word she said.This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently 不注意 influence you to abandon promising careers in business,law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.You see?If all you remember in years to come is the gay wizard joke,Ive still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals:the first step towards personal improvement.Actually,I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today.I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation,and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.I have come up with two answers.On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success,I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called real life,I want to extol 赞美the crucial importance of imagination.These might seem quixotic 空想的 or paradoxical 矛盾的 choices,but please bear with me.Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation,is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become.Half my lifetime ago,I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself,and what those closest to me expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do,ever,was to write novels.However,my parents,both of whom came from impoverished贫困的 backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college,took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk 扭曲that could never pay a mortgage 按揭,or secure a pension 养老.They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree;I wanted to study English Literature.A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody,and I went up to study Modern Languages.Hardly had my parents car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.Of all subjects on this planet,I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.I would like to make it clear,in parenthesis 插入语,that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.There is an expiry 满期 date on blaming your parents for steering 指引 you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to take the wheel,responsibility lies with you.What is more,I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty.They had been poor themselves,and I have since been poor,and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling好的 experience.Poverty entails fear,and stress,and sometimes depression;it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts,that is indeed something on which to pride yourself,but poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty,but failure.At your age,in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university,where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories,and far too little time at lectures,I had a knack 能力 for passing examinations,and that,for years,had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.I am not dull 乏味的 enough to suppose that because you are young,gifted and well-educated,you have never known hardship or heartbreak.Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice 任性 of the Fates,命运 and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled 平静的 privilege and contentment.However,the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted 熟悉 with failure.You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.Indeed,your conception of failure might not be too far from the average persons idea of success,so high have you already flown academically.Ultimately,we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure,but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria 准则if you let it.So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure,a mere seven years after my graduation day,I had failed on an epic scale.An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded,and I was jobless,a lone parent,and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain,without being homeless.The fears my parents had had for me,and that I had had for myself,had both come to pass,and by every usual standard,I was the biggest failure I knew.Now,I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.That period of my life was a dark one,and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.I had no idea how far the tunnel 隧道 extended,and for a long time,any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure?Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential 无关紧要的.I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was,and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Had I really succeeded at anything else,I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.I was set free,because my greatest fear had already been realized,and I was still alive,and I still had a daughter whom I adored,and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.You might never fail on the scale I did,but some failure in life is inevitable 不可避免.It is impossible to live without failing at something,unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all in which case,you fail by default.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.I discovered that I had a strong will,and more discipline than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are,ever after,secure in your ability to survive.You will never truly know yourself,or the strength of your relationships,until both have been tested by adversity 不幸.Such knowledge is a true gift,for all that it is painfully won,and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.Given a time machine or a Time Turner,I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.Your qualifications,your CV,are not your life,though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.Life is difficult,and complicated,and beyond anyones total control and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes 变迁.You might t