| I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. |
我今天很榮幸能夠參加你們的畢業(yè)典禮，斯坦福大學(xué)是世界頂級(jí)名校之一。我大學(xué)沒(méi)有畢業(yè)。說(shuō)實(shí)話，此刻也許是我生命中最貼近大學(xué)畢業(yè)的體驗(yàn)了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個(gè)故事。不是什么大不了的事情，只是三個(gè)故事而已。 |
| The first story is about connecting the dots. |
第一個(gè)故事是關(guān)于如何把生命中的點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴串連起來(lái)。 |
| I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? |
我在里德學(xué)院剛剛讀了六個(gè)月就退學(xué)了，不過(guò)在那之后我還經(jīng)常去學(xué)校旁聽(tīng)，又過(guò)了18個(gè)月左右才真正離開(kāi)。我為什么要退學(xué)呢？ |
| It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. |
故事要從我還沒(méi)出生的時(shí)候講起。我的親生母親是一個(gè)年輕的未婚女研究生，她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我。她堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為收養(yǎng)我的人起碼要有學(xué)士學(xué)位，所以提前安排好了一切，讓我一出世就能被一位律師和他的妻子收養(yǎng)。然而，我剛出生他們就改了主意想要個(gè)女孩。所以我的養(yǎng)父母突然在半夜接到電話：“我們這兒有一個(gè)計(jì)劃外的男嬰，你們想要他嗎？”他們回答道：“當(dāng)然！”但是我親生母親隨后發(fā)現(xiàn)，我的養(yǎng)母從來(lái)沒(méi)有上過(guò)大學(xué)，我的養(yǎng)父甚至連高中文憑都沒(méi)有。于是她拒絕在收養(yǎng)文件上簽字。直到幾個(gè)月以后，我的養(yǎng)父母許諾將來(lái)一定會(huì)讓我讀大學(xué)，她才勉強(qiáng)同意。 |
| And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. |
在十七歲那年，我真的上了大學(xué)。但是我很愚蠢地選擇了一個(gè)幾乎和你們斯坦福大學(xué)一樣貴的學(xué)校。我的養(yǎng)父母都是藍(lán)領(lǐng)，他們把所有積蓄都花在了我的學(xué)費(fèi)上面。而在六個(gè)月后，我發(fā)現(xiàn)這毫無(wú)意義。我不知道我真正想要做什么，我也不知道大學(xué)怎樣能夠幫助我找到答案。但是在這里，我?guī)缀趸ü饬烁改敢惠呑拥姆e蓄。所以我決定退學(xué)，并說(shuō)服自己一切都會(huì)好起來(lái)。不能否認(rèn)，我當(dāng)時(shí)確實(shí)非常的害怕，但是現(xiàn)在回頭看看，那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個(gè)決定。在我做出退學(xué)決定的那一刻，我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了。然后我可以開(kāi)始去修那些看起來(lái)有點(diǎn)意思的課程。 |
| It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5￠ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: |
那段日子一點(diǎn)兒也不浪漫。我失去了我的宿舍，只能在朋友房間的地板上睡覺(jué)；我收集可樂(lè)瓶子去換押金，每個(gè)5美分，以此果腹；每周日的晚上，我需要步行七英里，穿過(guò)整個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)到克利須那神廟（位于紐約布魯克林下城）去吃每周一次的大餐，我喜歡那里的飯菜。我跟著我的直覺(jué)和好奇心走，遇到的很多東西，此后被證明是無(wú)價(jià)之寶。讓我給你們舉一個(gè)例子吧： |
| Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. |
當(dāng)時(shí)里德學(xué)院開(kāi)辦的美術(shù)字課程也許是全美最好的。在這個(gè)大學(xué)里面的每張海報(bào)、每個(gè)抽屜的標(biāo)簽上面全都是漂亮的美術(shù)字。因?yàn)槲彝藢W(xué)了，不必去上正規(guī)的課程，所以我決定去參加這個(gè)課程，學(xué)學(xué)怎樣寫(xiě)出漂亮的美術(shù)字。我學(xué)到了有襯線和無(wú)襯線字體，我學(xué)會(huì)了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空白間距，還有怎么樣才能做出最棒的印刷式樣。那種美好、歷史感和藝術(shù)的精妙，是科學(xué)永遠(yuǎn)不能捕捉到的，我發(fā)現(xiàn)那實(shí)在是太迷人了。 |
