第一篇：J.K.羅琳談失敗的額外收益(雙語)

Topic: The Benefits of Failure

Questions for reference: 1.Most people hate failure, what do you think of it? 2.Have you ever failed in something? If yes, think about what you have got from your failure.3.What is the right attitude toward failure?

You may get some ideas from the two passages below.What is success? Some people seem to sail easily through life, overcoming every obstacle they encounter with ease.Then there are those who manage to avoid most difficulties, by limiting their experience to what?s familiar and easy, and never trying anything new.Are these people successful? The texts you’re going to read takes a different approach to success and failure.J.K.Rowling Talks about the 1)Fringe Benefits of Failure

J.K.羅琳談失敗的額外收益

英式發(fā)音 適合精聽 聽2說1讀3寫3詞

2這是J.K.羅琳在哈佛大學(xué)2008年畢業(yè)典禮上的演講。這位全球最著名的當(dāng)代魔幻小說家在臺(tái)上講述的是其親身經(jīng)歷的故事，同時(shí)也是幾經(jīng)磨難、走出黑暗日子后發(fā)自內(nèi)心的感慨。她曾同時(shí)經(jīng)受感情與經(jīng)濟(jì)的雙重打擊；她說，在座的高材生們大抵不會(huì)經(jīng)歷像她那般的巨大失敗，但漫漫人生，偶然的失敗無可避免。失戀、考試落敗、比賽落選??有人因失敗一蹶不振，有人奮而再起，羅琳是后者的榜樣。

伴讀小Tips：

盡管后面講到的都是嚴(yán)肅的話題，但一個(gè)幽默的開場(chǎng)白必不可少，一來緩解演講者的緊張情緒，二來能迅速抓住聽眾的注意力并獲得好感。羅琳的演講有著與政客演講完全不一樣的風(fēng)格，沒有慷慨激昂的論調(diào)，但卻帶著作家的平實(shí)、儒雅，請(qǐng)仔細(xì)品味。

President Faust, members of the Harvard 2)Corporation and the Board of 3)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 4)nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this 5)commencement address have made me lose weight.A win-win situation!Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, 6)squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world?s largest 7)Gryffindor reunion.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.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.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 8)impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal 9)quirk that could never pay a 10)mortgage, or secure a 11)pension.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.I would like to make it clear, in 12)parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.There is an 13)expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to 14)take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.What is more, 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 15)ennobling experience.Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.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 16)resolution.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the 17)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.Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged.I was set free, because my greatest fear had 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.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 the price of rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone?s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its 18)vicissitudes.浮士德主席，哈佛大學(xué)校務(wù)委員會(huì)和監(jiān)察委員會(huì)的各位成員，全體教員，自豪的父母?jìng)儯钪匾?，還有今天的主角——所有的畢業(yè)生們。首先我想說的是“謝謝”。哈佛不僅給了我非比尋常的榮譽(yù)，還贈(zèng)予了我數(shù)周因要作畢業(yè)演講而產(chǎn)生的恐懼和惡心，使得我因此減肥成功。好一個(gè)雙贏的局面！現(xiàn)在我需要做的就是深呼吸，瞇著眼睛看著紅色的橫幅，然后令自己相信正身處在世界上最大的格蘭芬多學(xué)院聚會(huì)中。

其實(shí)，為了準(zhǔn)備今天該講的話，我已絞盡腦汁、費(fèi)勁心思。我問自己，希望當(dāng)年畢業(yè)時(shí)就該懂得的是什么，和由畢業(yè)那一天到此時(shí)的過去21年間所學(xué)到的重要教訓(xùn)。

在這美好的日子里，我們相聚一堂，慶祝你們學(xué)有所成，而我決定和你們談?wù)勈〉暮锰帯?/p>

追溯到半載人生以前，我正在努力尋求自我內(nèi)心追求與至親對(duì)我的期望這兩者間的一個(gè)難得的平衡。我當(dāng)時(shí)深信自己唯一想做的事就是寫小說。但是，我的父母都出身貧寒，也沒有上過大學(xué)，他們認(rèn)為我異?；钴S的想象力是一個(gè)有趣的個(gè)人怪癖，但卻絕不可用來支付房屋按揭或保證我得到一份退休金。我已不記得我有否告訴父母自己是在讀古典文學(xué)專業(yè)，他們很可能是在我畢業(yè)那天才頭一回發(fā)現(xiàn)的。

在此，我想順帶澄清一點(diǎn)，我并不責(zé)怪我父母的觀點(diǎn)。埋怨父母給你導(dǎo)錯(cuò)航是有期限的；從你成長到能夠自己做出決定的那一刻起，責(zé)任就要靠你們自己去承擔(dān)了。再說，我不能因?yàn)楦改赶Ｍ也辉俳?jīng)受貧窮而去責(zé)怪他們。他們自己曾經(jīng)歷過窮日子，我也曾貧窮過，所以對(duì)于他們認(rèn)為貧窮并不受景仰的觀點(diǎn)，我十分認(rèn)同。通過自己的努力擺脫貧困是值得引以為傲的事，只有傻瓜才會(huì)把貧窮本身浪漫化。

今天，我并不打算站在這里跟你們說失敗是一件好玩的事。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗時(shí)期，我也不知道會(huì)出現(xiàn)后來媒體稱為童話般的美滿結(jié)局。

那我為何要談失敗的好處呢？很簡(jiǎn)單，因?yàn)槭∫馕吨鴦冸x一切多余的事物。我不再偽裝自己，并開始把所有精力集中于完成唯一一件對(duì)我很重要的工作上。要是我在其它事情上曾獲成功，我也許就永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)有這樣的決心，在深信真正屬于自己的舞臺(tái)上取得成功。我獲得了自由，因?yàn)槲易詈ε碌氖虑橐呀?jīng)發(fā)生，而我還活著，還有一個(gè)可愛的女兒、一部舊打字機(jī)和一個(gè)宏大的夢(mèng)想。我的谷底成為了重建生活的堅(jiān)實(shí)基礎(chǔ)。

失敗給了我一種內(nèi)心的安全感，是以前通過考試也沒有的安全感。失敗教我認(rèn)識(shí)自己，舍此別無他法。我發(fā)現(xiàn)，自己有堅(jiān)強(qiáng)的意志，自律性比我想象中更強(qiáng)；我還發(fā)現(xiàn)，我擁有一些比寶石更可貴的朋友。從挫折中獲得的知識(shí)使你更明智更堅(jiān)強(qiáng)，也就是說，你比以往任何時(shí)候更具備生存的能力。

生活是困難的、復(fù)雜的，并超出任何人的絕對(duì)控制；謙恭地明白這事實(shí)將助你度過人生的滄海桑田。翻譯：Sylvia

1)fringe [frIndV] a.額外的。Fringe benefits 附加福利。2)corporation [7kC:pE5reIFEn] n.（大學(xué)的）校務(wù)委員會(huì) 3)overseer [5EJvE5si:E] n.督學(xué)；監(jiān)工 4)nausea [5nC:sjE] n.反胃, 惡心

5)commencement [kE5mensmEnt] n.畢業(yè)典禮 6)squint [skwInt] v.半瞇著眼睛看 7)Gryffindor 格蘭芬多，《哈利．波特》系列中主人公就讀的霍格沃茨魔法學(xué)校中四個(gè)學(xué)院之一。

8)impoverished [Im5p?vErIFt] a.貧困的 9)quirk [kw:k] n.奇想；怪癖

10)mortgage [5mC:^IdV] n.抵押（借款）11)pension [5penFEn] n.養(yǎng)老金

12)parenthesis [pE5renWIsIs] n.插入語；附帶

13)expiry date 有效期

14)take the wheel 掌控方向盤；主宰

15)ennoble [I5nEJbl] v.使高貴；使受尊敬 16)resolution [7rezE5lju:FEn] n.解決，結(jié)局 17)inessential [5InI5senFEl] a.無關(guān)緊要的

18)vicissitude [vI5sIsItju:d] n.變遷興衰，常作復(fù)數(shù)。

Life Bar

Three Steps to Get Out from the Failure 三步走出失敗的陰霾

（只要懂得拾起希望并付諸行動(dòng)，沒有人能阻止你前進(jìn)的腳步?。?/p>

Step 1

別再怨天尤人

There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction.Step 2

肯定每一分回報(bào)

Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.Step 3

激起破釜沉舟的信心

Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.Turning Failure into Success

Fredelle Maynard Vicky — beautiful, talented, very bright, voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in college — got a promising job with a large company after graduation.Then, after two years without promotions, she was fired.She suffered a complete nervous breakdown.“It was panic,” she told me later.“Everything had always gone so well for me that I had no experience in coping with rejection.I felt I was a failure.” Vicky?s reaction is an extreme example of a common phenomenon.2 Our society places so much emphasis on “making it” that we assume that any 1 failure is bad.What we don?t always recognize is that what looks like failure may, in the long run, prove beneficial.When Vicky was able to think coolly about why she was fired, for example, she realized that she was simply not suited for a job dealing with people all the time.In her new position as a copy editor, she works independently, is happy and once again “successful.” People are generally prone to what language expert S.I.Hayakawa calls “the two-valued orientation”.We talk about seeing both sides of a question as if every question had only two sides.We assume that everyone is either a success or a failure when, in fact, infinite degrees of both are possible.As Hayakawa points out, there?s a world of difference between “I have failed three times” and “I am a failure.” Indeed, the words failure and success cannot be reasonably applied to a complex, living, changing human being.They can only describe the situation at a particular time and place.4 Obviously no one can be brilliant at everything.In fact, success in one area often precludes success in another.A famous politician once told me that his career had practically destroyed his marriage.“I have no time for my family,” he explained.“I travel a lot.And even when I?m home, I hardly see my wife and kids.I?ve got power, money, prestige —

but as a husband and father, I?m a flop.” Certain kinds of success can indeed be destructive.The danger of too early success is particularly acute.I recall from my childhood a girl whose skill on ice skates marked her as “Olympic material”.While the rest of us were playing, bicycling, reading and just loafing, this girl skated — every day after school and all weekend.Her picture often appeared in the papers, and the rest of us envied her glamorous life.Years later, however, she spoke bitterly of those early triumphs.“I never prepared myself for anything but the ice,” she said.“I peaked at 17 — and it?s been downhill ever since.”

Success that comes too easily is also damaging.The child who wins a prize for a carelessly-written essay, the adult who distinguishes himself at a first job by lucky accident faces probable disappointment when real challenges arise.Success is also bad when it?s achieved at the cost of the total quality of an experience.Successful students sometimes become so obsessed with grades that they never enjoy their school years.They never branch out into tempting new areas, because they don?t want to risk their grade-point average.8

Why are so many people so afraid of failure? Simply because no one tells us how to fail so that failure becomes a growing experience.We forget that failure is part of the human condition and that “every person has the right to fail.” Most parents work hard at either preventing failure or shielding their children from the knowledge that they have failed.One way is to lower standards.A mother describes her child?s hastily made table as “perfect!” even though it?s clumsy and unsteady.Another way is to shift blame.If John fails math, his teacher is unfair or stupid.The trouble with failure-prevention devices is that they leave a child unequipped for life in the real world.The young need to learn that no one can be best at everything, no one can win all the time — and that it?s possible to enjoy a game even when you don?t win.A child who?s not invited to a birthday party, who doesn?t make the honor roll or the baseball team feels terrible, of course.But parents should not offer a quick consolation prize or say, “It doesn?t matter,” because it does.The youngster should be allowed to experience disappointment — and then be helped to master it.11 Failure is never pleasant.It hurts adults and children alike.But it can make a positive contribution to your life once you learn to use it.Step one is to ask, “Why did I fail?” Resist the natural impulse to blame someone else.Ask yourself what you did wrong, how you can improve.If someone else can help, don?t be shy about inquiring.12 When I was a teenager and failed to get a job I?d counted on, I telephoned the interviewer to ask why.“Because you came ten minutes late,” I was told.“We can?t afford employees who waste other people?s time.” The explanation was reassuring(I hadn?t been rejected as a person)and helpful, too.I don?t think I?ve been late for anything since.13 Success, which encourages repetition of old behavior, is not nearly as good a teacher as failure.You can learn from a disastrous party how to give a good one, from an ill-chosen first house what to look for in a second.Even a failure that seems total can prompt fresh thinking, a change of direction.14 A friend of mine, after 12 years of studying ballet, did not succeed in becoming a dancer.She was turned down by the ballet master, who said, “You will never be a dancer.You haven?t the body for it.” In such cases, the way to use failure is to take stock courageously, asking, “What have I left? What else can I do?” My friend put away her toe shoes and moved into dance therapy, a field where she?s both competent and useful.15

Though we may envy the assurance that comes with success, most of us are attracted by courage in defeat.There is what might be called the noble failure — the special heroism of aiming high, doing your best and then, when that proves not enough, moving bravely on.As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “A man?s success is made up of failures, because he experiments and ventures every day, and the more falls he gets, moves faster on...I have heard that in horsemanship — a man will never be a good rider until he is thrown;then he will not be haunted any longer by the terror that he shall tumble, and will ride whither he is bound.”

Failure? No!Just Temporary Setbacks

Dottie Walters If you could come to my office in California to visit with me today, you would see that one side of the room is occupied by a beautiful old-fashioned soda fountain with nine leather-covered seats.Unusual? Yes.But if that soda fountain could speak, it would tell you a story about the day I almost lost hope and gave up.It was a recession period after World War II and jobs were scarce.My husband had purchased a small dry cleaning business with borrowed money.We had two darling babies, a tract house, a car and all the usual monthly payments.Then the bottom fell out.There was no money for the house payments or anything else.3 I felt that I had no special talent, no training, no college education.I didn?t think much of myself.But I remembered someone in my past who had thought I had a little ability — my high school English teacher.She had inspired me to take a course in journalism and named me advertising manager and feature editor of the school paper.I thought, “Now if I could write a ?shoppers Column? for the small weekly newspaper in our rural town, maybe I could earn that house payment.4 I had no car and no one to look after my two children.So I took them with me to the newspaper office, pushing them before me in an old broken-down baby stroller with a big pillow tied in the back.The wheel kept coming off, but I hit it back on with the heel of my shoe and kept going.I was determined that my children would not lose their home as I often had as a child.But at the newspaper office, there were no jobs available.Recession.So I got an idea.I asked if I might buy advertising space at wholesale and sell it at retail as a “shoppers Column.” They agreed.The newspaper column idea worked.I made enough money for the house payment and to buy an old used car.Then I hired a high school girl to look after my children from three to five each afternoon.When the clock struck three, I grabbed my advertising samples and flew out of the door to drive to my appointments.7 But on one dark rainy afternoon every advertising prospect I had worked on turned me down when I went to pick up their ads.8 “Why?” I asked.They said they had noticed that Ruben Ahlman, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the owner of a big drugstore, didn?t advertise with me.His store was the most popular in town.They respected his judgment.“There must be something wrong with your advertising,” they explained.My heart sank.Those four ads would have been enough for the monthly house payment.Then I thought, I?ll try to speak with Mr.Ahlman one more time.Everyone loves and respects him.Surely he?ll listen.Every time I?d tried to approach him in the past, he had refused to see me.But I knew that if he advertised with me, the other merchants in town would follow his lead.10 As I walked into Mr.Ahlman?s drugstore, he was there at the prescription counter.I smiled my best smile and said, “Everyone respects your opinion, Mr.Ahlman.Would you just look at my work for a moment so that I can tell the other merchants what you think?”

Without saying a word he firmly shook his head “no”.Suddenly all of my enthusiasm left me.I made it as far as the beautiful old soda fountain at the front of the drugstore, feeling that I didn?t have the strength to drive home.I didn?t want to sit at the soda fountain without buying something, so I ordered a Coke.I wondered desperately what to do.Would my babies lose their home as I had so many times when I was growing up? Was my English teacher wrong? My eyes filled with tears.A soft voice beside me said, “What?s the matter, dear?” I looked up into the sympathetic face of a lovely gray-haired lady.I poured out my story to her, ending it with, “But Mr.Ahlman, who everyone respects so much, refuses to look at my work.” 14 “Let me see that Shoppers Column,” she said.She took my marked issue of the newspaper in her hands and carefully read my column all the way through.Then she stood up, looked back at the prescription counter and in a commanding voice, said, ”Ruben Ahlman, come here!” The lady was Mrs.Ahlman!She told Ruben to buy some advertising from me.His mouth turned up in a big grin.Then she asked me for the names of the four merchants who had turned me down.She went to the phone and called each one.She gave me a hug and told me they were waiting for me.Ruben and Vivian Ahlman became our dear friends, as well as steady advertising customers.I learned that Ruben was a darling man who bought from everyone.He had promised Vivian not to buy any more advertising, and in turning me down he was just trying to keep his word to her.If I had only asked others in town, I might have learned that I should have been talking to Mrs.Ahlman from the beginning.That conversation at the soda fountain was the turning point.My advertising business thrived and grew into four offices, with 285 employees serving 4,000 businesses.17 Later when Mr.Ahlman modernized the old drug store and removed the soda fountain, my husband bought it and installed it in my office.If you were here, we?d sit at the soda fountain together.I?d pour you a Coke and remind you to never give up, to remember that help is always closer than we know.Then I would tell you that if you can?t communicate with a key person, search for more information.Try another path.Look for someone who can communicate for you.And, finally, I would offer you the sparkling, refreshing words of Bill Marriott of the Marriott Hotels: “Failure? I?ve never encountered it.All I ever met were temporary setbacks.”

第二篇：J.K.羅琳在哈佛大學(xué)XX年畢業(yè)典禮上的演講（范文）

Ｊ.Ｋ.羅琳在哈佛大學(xué)XX年畢業(yè)典禮

上的演講

對(duì)于我這樣一個(gè)已經(jīng)42歲的人來說，回頭看自己21歲大學(xué)畢業(yè)時(shí)的情景，并不是一件舒服的事情。那時(shí)，我一直在自己內(nèi)心的追求與親人對(duì)我的要求之間，進(jìn)行抗?fàn)帯?/p>

我曾確信自己唯一想做的事情是寫小說，但我的父母都來自貧窮的家庭，他們希望我去讀一個(gè)能學(xué)到專業(yè)技能的學(xué)位，而我想去攻讀英國文學(xué)。最后，達(dá)成了一個(gè)雙方都不甚滿意的妥協(xié)：我改學(xué)外語?？墒堑雀改敢浑x開，我立刻報(bào)名學(xué)習(xí)古典文學(xué)。

我忘了自己是怎么把學(xué)古典文學(xué)的事情告訴父母的了，他們也可能是在我畢業(yè)那天才第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)。在這個(gè)星球上的所有科目中，他們很難再發(fā)現(xiàn)一門比希臘文學(xué)更沒用的課程了。

我想說明，我并沒有因?yàn)楦改傅倪@些觀點(diǎn)而抱怨他們。他們希望我能擺脫貧窮，因?yàn)樨毟F會(huì)引起恐懼、壓力，有時(shí)候甚至是沮喪。這意味著心胸狹窄、卑微低下和很多艱難困苦。通過自己的努力擺脫貧窮，確實(shí)是件很值得自豪的事，只有傻瓜才對(duì)貧窮本身夸夸其談。

可以說，僅僅在我畢業(yè)７年后，我經(jīng)歷了一次巨大的失敗。我突然間結(jié)束了一段短暫的婚姻，失去了工作。作為單身媽媽，而且在這個(gè)現(xiàn)代化的英國，除了不是無家可歸，你可以說我要多窮就有多窮。父母對(duì)我的擔(dān)心以及我對(duì)自己的擔(dān)心，都成了現(xiàn)實(shí)，從任何一個(gè)通常的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來看，這都是我的最大失敗。

我不是站在這里和你們說“失敗”很好玩。那么我為什么還要談?wù)撌〉氖找婺?？那是因?yàn)槭『笪艺业搅俗晕遥议_始把所有的精力都放在我關(guān)心的工作上。如果我在其他方面成功過，我可能就不會(huì)下決心在自己喜歡的領(lǐng)域獲得成功。我變得從容，因?yàn)槲乙呀?jīng)歷過最大的恐懼。而且我還活著，我有一個(gè)值得自豪的女兒，一個(gè)陳舊的打字機(jī)和很不錯(cuò)的寫作靈感。我在失敗堆積而成的硬石般的基礎(chǔ)上，開始重筑我的人生（此后，j.k.羅琳寫就了風(fēng)靡全球的《哈利?波特》系列——編者注）。

失敗給了我內(nèi)心的安寧，這種安寧是不會(huì)從一帆風(fēng)順的經(jīng)歷中得到的。失敗讓我認(rèn)識(shí)自己，這些無法從其他地方學(xué)到。我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己有堅(jiān)強(qiáng)的意志，而且，自我控制能力比自己想象的還要強(qiáng)，我也發(fā)現(xiàn)自己擁有比紅寶石更珍貴的朋友。

除非遭受磨難，你不會(huì)真正認(rèn)識(shí)自己，也無法知道你和朋友之間的關(guān)系有多鐵。這些才是失敗饋贈(zèng)給你的真正的禮物。

（本文是《哈利?波特》的作者羅琳在哈佛大學(xué)XX年畢業(yè)典禮上的演講辭）

第三篇：JK羅琳哈佛畢業(yè)演講——不要害怕失?。ㄗ罱K版）

http://ares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.每一天，我都能看到更多有關(guān)惡人的證據(jù)，他們?yōu)榱双@得或維持權(quán)力，對(duì)自己的同胞犯下暴行。我開始做噩夢(mèng)，真正意義上的噩夢(mèng)，全都和我所見所聞?dòng)嘘P(guān)。

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.同時(shí)在這里我也了解到更多關(guān)于人類的善良，比我以前想象的要多很多。Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have.The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners.Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet.My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and

http://ares than I do.Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors.I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters.They are often more afraid.我可能會(huì)受到誘惑，去嫉妒那樣生活的人。但我不認(rèn)為他們做的噩夢(mèng)會(huì)比我更少。選擇生活在狹窄的空間，可以導(dǎo)致不敢面對(duì)開闊的視野，給自己帶來恐懼感。我認(rèn)為不愿展開想像的人會(huì)看到更多的怪獸，他們往往更感到更害怕。

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters.For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.更甚的是，那些選擇不去同情的人，可能會(huì)激活真正的怪獸。因?yàn)楸M管自己沒有犯下罪惡，我們卻通過冷漠與之勾結(jié)。

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.我18歲開始從古典文學(xué)中汲取許多知識(shí)，其中之一當(dāng)時(shí)并不完全理解，那就是希臘作家普魯塔克所說：我們內(nèi)心獲得的，將改變外在的現(xiàn)實(shí)。

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives.It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside

http://004km.cn/kaoyan/ 那是一個(gè)驚人的論斷，在我們生活的每一天里被無數(shù)次證實(shí)。它指明我們與外部世界有無法脫離的聯(lián)系，我們以自身的存在接觸著他人的生命。

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.Even your nationality sets you apart.The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower.The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders.That is your privilege, and your burden.但是，哈佛大學(xué)的2008屆畢業(yè)生們，你們多少人有可能去觸及他人的生命？你們的智慧，你們努力工作的能力，以及你們所受到的教育，給予你們獨(dú)特的地位和責(zé)任。甚至你們的國籍也讓你們與眾不同，你們絕大部份人屬于這個(gè)世界上唯一的超級(jí)大國。你們表決的方式，你們生活的方式，你們抗議的方式，你們給政府帶來的壓力，具有超乎尋常的影響力。這是你們的特權(quán)，也是你們的責(zé)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 to change.We do not need magic to transform the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.http://004km.cn/kaoyan/ 僅與強(qiáng)者為伍，還會(huì)同情幫扶弱者；如果你會(huì)設(shè)身處地為不如你的人著想，那么你的存在，將不僅是你家人的驕傲，更是無數(shù)因?yàn)槟愕膸椭淖兠\(yùn)的成千上萬人的驕傲。我們不需要改變世界的魔法，我們自己的內(nèi)心就有這種力量：那就是我們一直在夢(mèng)想，讓這個(gè)世界變得更美好。

I am nearly finished.I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life.They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of real trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters.At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.我的演講要接近尾聲了。對(duì)你們，我有最后一個(gè)希望，也是我21歲時(shí)就有的。畢業(yè)那天坐在我身邊的朋友現(xiàn)在是我終身的摯交，他們是我孩子的教父母，是在我遇到麻煩時(shí)愿意伸出援手，在我用他們的名字給哈利波特中的 “食死徒”起名而不會(huì)起訴我的朋友。我們?cè)诋厴I(yè)典禮時(shí)坐在了一起，因?yàn)槲覀冴P(guān)系親密，擁有共同的永遠(yuǎn)無法再來的經(jīng)歷，當(dāng)然，也因?yàn)榧傧胍俏覀冎械娜魏稳烁?jìng)選首相，那照片將是極為寶貴的關(guān)系證明。So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships.And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

http://004km.cn/kaoyan/ 得我說的任何一個(gè)字，你們還能記得哲學(xué)家塞內(nèi)加的一句至理明言。我當(dāng)年沒有順著事業(yè)的階梯向上攀爬，轉(zhuǎn)而與他在古典文學(xué)的殿堂相遇，他的古老智慧給了我人生的啟迪： As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.生活就像故事一樣：不在乎長短，而在于質(zhì)量，這才是最重要的。I wish you all very good lives.我祝愿你們都有美好的生活。Thank you very much.非常感謝大家。

第四篇：雙語J·K·羅琳在哈佛大學(xué)08年畢業(yè)典禮上的演講

她的演講題目是《失敗的好處和想象的重要性》（The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination）。

她幾乎沒有談到哈里波特，而是說了年輕時(shí)的一些經(jīng)歷。雖然J·K·羅琳現(xiàn)在很有錢，是英國僅次于女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾經(jīng)有一段非常艱辛的日子，30歲了，還差點(diǎn)流落街頭。她主要談的是，自己從這段經(jīng)歷中學(xué)到的東西。

我只找到了一部分中文翻譯，有興趣的朋友可以看下面的原文和視頻。

二、她首先回憶了自己大學(xué)畢業(yè)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.當(dāng)時(shí)，我只想去寫小說。但是，我的父母出身貧寒，沒有受過大學(xué)教育。他們認(rèn)為，我那些不安分的想象力只是一種怪癖，根本不能用來還房貸，或者掙來養(yǎng)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.他們希望我再去讀個(gè)專業(yè)學(xué)位，而我想去攻讀英國文學(xué)。最后，達(dá)成了一個(gè)雙方都不甚滿意的妥協(xié)：我改學(xué)外語。可是等到父母一走開，我立刻報(bào)名學(xué)習(xí)古典文學(xué)。

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.我不記得將這事告訴了父母。他們可能是在畢業(yè)典禮那一天才發(fā)現(xiàn)的。我想，在全世界的所有專業(yè)中，他們也許認(rèn)為，不會(huì)有比研究希臘神話更沒用的專業(yè)了，根本無法換來一間獨(dú)立的寬敞衛(wèi)生間。

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，我并不責(zé)怪父母。??他們只是希望我不要過窮日子，我不能批評(píng)他們。他們自己很窮，我后來一度也很窮，所以我很理解他們，貧窮是一種悲慘的經(jīng)歷。它帶來恐懼、壓力、有時(shí)還有抑郁。它意味著許許多多的羞辱和艱辛。靠自己的努力擺脫貧窮，確實(shí)讓人自豪，但是只有傻瓜才會(huì)將貧窮本身浪漫化。

接著，她談到了自己那些最悲慘的日子：

A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.我畢業(yè)后只過了7年，就失敗得一塌糊涂。

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.短命的婚姻閃電般地破裂，我還失業(yè)了，成了一個(gè)艱難的單身母親。除了流浪漢，我是當(dāng)代英國最窮的人之一，真的一無所有。我父母對(duì)我的擔(dān)憂，我對(duì)自己的擔(dān)憂，都變成了現(xiàn)實(shí)。用平常人的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，我是我所知道的最失敗的人。

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歲月。我不知道還要在黑暗中走多久，很長一段時(shí)間中，我有的只是希望，而不是現(xiàn)實(shí)。

但是，J.K.羅琳認(rèn)為，沒有那段日子的失敗，就不會(huì)有后來的她。

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.為什么我說失敗是有好處的？因?yàn)槭⒛切┓潜举|(zhì)的東西都剝離了。我不再偽裝自己，我找到了真正的我，我將自己所有的精力，投入完成對(duì)我最重要的唯一一項(xiàng)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，那么我也許永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)有這樣的決心，投身于這個(gè)我自信真正屬于我的領(lǐng)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?yàn)槲易畲蟮目謶忠呀?jīng)成為現(xiàn)實(shí)，而我卻還依然活著，依然有一個(gè)深愛著的女兒，我還有一臺(tái)舊打字機(jī)和一個(gè)大大的夢(mèng)想。我生命中最低的低點(diǎn)，成為我重建生活的堅(jiān)實(shí)基礎(chǔ)。

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.失敗使我的內(nèi)心產(chǎn)生一種安全感，以前通過考試也沒有的安全感。失敗讓我看清自己，以前我從沒認(rèn)識(shí)到自己是這樣的。我發(fā)現(xiàn)，我比自己以為的，有更強(qiáng)的意志和決心。我還發(fā)現(xiàn)，我有一些比寶石更珍貴的朋友。

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.只有到逆境來臨的那一天，你才會(huì)真正了解你自己，了解你結(jié)識(shí)的人。這種了解是真正的財(cái)富，雖然是用痛苦換來的，但是它比我以前得到的任何證書都有用。

三、我要重點(diǎn)談的，是演說的結(jié)尾部分。

一般來說，在演講結(jié)束時(shí)，嘉賓將對(duì)畢業(yè)生提出期望。我們可以看到，在這種場(chǎng)合，幾乎所有嘉賓，都沒有說“祝愿同學(xué)們?nèi)〉脗€(gè)人成功”，而是說“希望同學(xué)們努力去減輕人類的苦難”。

比爾·蓋茨去年說：

Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth 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?

哈佛是否鼓勵(lì)她的老師去研究解決世界上最嚴(yán)重的不平等？哈佛的學(xué)生是否從全球那些極端的貧窮中學(xué)到了什么??世界性的饑荒??清潔的水資源的缺乏??無法上學(xué)的女童??死于非惡性疾病的兒童??哈佛的學(xué)生有沒有從中學(xué)到東西？

Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?

那些世界上過著最優(yōu)越生活的人們，有沒有從那些最困難的人們身上學(xué)到東西？ These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.這些問題并非語言上的修辭。你必須用自己的行動(dòng)來回答它們。

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，我們?cè)谶@個(gè)院子里的這些人，被給予過什么——天賦、特權(quán)、機(jī)遇——那么可以這樣說，全世界的人們幾乎有無限的權(quán)力，期待我們做出貢獻(xiàn)。

J.K.羅琳今年說：

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 from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.你們是哈佛畢業(yè)生的這個(gè)事實(shí)，說明你們并不很了解失敗。你們也許極其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失敗。說實(shí)話，你們眼中的失敗，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，畢竟你們?cè)趯W(xué)業(yè)上已經(jīng)很成功了。

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s 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，所有各位哈佛大學(xué)2008屆畢業(yè)生，你們對(duì)其他人的生活了解多少？你們的智慧、你們的能力、你們所受的教育，給了你們獨(dú)一無二的優(yōu)勢(shì)，也給了你們獨(dú)一無二的責(zé)任。??你們的優(yōu)勢(shì)就是你們的責(zé)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.你們要用自己的地位和影響，為那些被忽略的人們說話；你們不僅要看到那些有權(quán)有勢(shì)者，也要看到那些無權(quán)無勢(shì)者；你們要學(xué)會(huì)設(shè)想，那些條件不如你們的人們是如何生活的；那樣的話，不僅你們的親人們將為你們感到自豪，而且千千萬萬的人們將因?yàn)槟銈兊膸椭畹酶谩?/p>

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.我們不需要改變世界的魔法，我們自己的體內(nèi)就有這樣的力量：那就是我們一直在夢(mèng)想，讓這個(gè)世界變得更美好。

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 I've 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 world's 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 can't remember a single word she said.This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently 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, I've 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 the crucial importance of imagination.These might seem quixotic or paradoxical 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 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.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, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.What is more, 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.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 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 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 of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.However, 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 from the average person's 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 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 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.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 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.You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable.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.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 anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so.Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense.Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation.In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books.This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs.Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them.I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends.I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries.I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government.Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland.He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him.He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child.I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since.The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her.She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power.I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have.The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners.Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet.My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced.They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral.One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all.They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages;they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally;they can refuse to know.I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do.Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors.I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters.They are often more afraid.What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters.For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives.It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.Even your nationality sets you apart.The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower.The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders.That is your privilege, and your burden.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.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.I am nearly finished.I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life.They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters.At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships.And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.I wish you all very good lives.Thank you very much.（J.K.Rowling.2008.Harvard University Commencement Address.Harvard University, MA

第五篇：[高考語文]JK羅琳在哈佛的演講--失敗的附加值和想象力的重要性

失敗的附加值和想象力的重要性 ——JK羅琳在哈佛的演講

福斯特校長，校理事會(huì)和校務(wù)監(jiān)督委員會(huì)的成員們，各位老師，各位驕傲的父母?jìng)儯€有最重要的，畢業(yè)生們： 首先我要說謝謝，不只是因?yàn)楣鸾o了我莫大的榮譽(yù)，也是因?yàn)檫@幾個(gè)禮拜一直思考怎么做這個(gè)畢業(yè)演講帶來的焦慮和擔(dān)憂讓我成功地減了肥。真是喜上加喜！現(xiàn)在我只需要做幾個(gè)深呼吸，偷偷看著那面紅色的旗子，然后騙自己說我正在一個(gè)受過世界最優(yōu)秀的教育的哈利波特們的大會(huì)上。

做一個(gè)畢業(yè)演講的責(zé)任很大。但是當(dāng)我回憶了一下我畢業(yè)的時(shí)候聽到的畢業(yè)演講以后，我改變了我的想法。那天來做演講的人是英國著名的哲學(xué)家baroness mary warnock?；貞浰难葜v真的對(duì)我寫這個(gè)稿子幫助很大，因?yàn)槲野l(fā)現(xiàn)我連一個(gè)字都不記得了。這個(gè)發(fā)現(xiàn)讓我大大地松了一口氣，我不再擔(dān)心有的人會(huì)因?yàn)槲已葜v而放棄他們很有前途的經(jīng)濟(jì)、法律或者是政治方面的工作，而為了放縱的快樂成為一名同性戀巫師。

你們看，就算你們以后回憶起我的演講時(shí)只能記得這個(gè)“同性戀巫師”的笑話，我仍然會(huì)覺得自己比baroness mary warnock成功。取得個(gè)人成功的第一步——給自己一個(gè)可以達(dá)到的目標(biāo)。

實(shí)際上，為了想出合適的話題，我把自己弄得心力交瘁。我問過我自己：“我希望我畢業(yè)的時(shí)候知道什么？”在這畢業(yè)之后的二十一年里，我又學(xué)到了那些寶貴的知識(shí)呢？ 我有兩個(gè)答案。在這個(gè)美好的日子里，在我們歡聚在一起慶祝你們?nèi)〉玫膶W(xué)術(shù)上的成就的時(shí)候，我決定要告訴你們失敗的好處。同時(shí)，因?yàn)槟銈円呀?jīng)站在了“現(xiàn)實(shí)”的門檻上，我打算贊美一下想象力的至關(guān)重要性。

這兩個(gè)選擇看起來奇怪而又相互矛盾，但請(qǐng)耐心地聽我說完。

回頭看剛畢業(yè)的21歲的我，讓今天已經(jīng)42歲的我感到一些不舒服。21歲，我的生命到現(xiàn)在為止的前一半的時(shí)候，我努力地試圖在自己的野心和家人的期望之間取得一個(gè)平衡。我一直堅(jiān)定地相信，我唯一想做的事情，就是寫作。但是我的父母，出生于貧寒家庭，從未上過大學(xué)，他們把我過于活躍的想象力看作一種只屬于個(gè)人的怪癖，既不能用來償還抵押貸款，又不能用來領(lǐng)福利救濟(jì)。他們希望我能夠讀一個(gè)實(shí)用點(diǎn)兒的專業(yè)，我則希望讀英國文學(xué)。于是我們都做了妥協(xié)——雖然在今天看來這個(gè)妥協(xié)不能讓任何人滿意——結(jié)果是我讀了現(xiàn)代語言?？墒钱?dāng)我的父母一離開，我馬上就報(bào)了古典文學(xué)的名。我不記得有沒有告訴過我的父母我在學(xué)古典文學(xué)，他們也許是在畢業(yè)典禮那天才知道的。在這個(gè)星球上的所有的科目當(dāng)中，我想他們不能找到比希臘神話更沒有用的學(xué)科了，因?yàn)檫@個(gè)根本無法換來一個(gè)寬敞的獨(dú)立廁所。

我要申明的是，我完全不是在責(zé)備我的父母。只有當(dāng)你能夠承擔(dān)你的責(zé)任，掌握自己生活的方向的時(shí)候，你才有權(quán)力怪你的父母曾經(jīng)逼著你走了冤枉路。并且，我也不能因?yàn)槲业母改赶Ｍ矣肋h(yuǎn)不會(huì)體驗(yàn)貧窮而批評(píng)他們。他們自己是窮人，我也是，因此我們都認(rèn)為這樣的體驗(yàn)絕對(duì)不是什么高貴的經(jīng)歷。貧窮總是伴隨著恐懼、壓力甚至抑郁，你會(huì)經(jīng)歷多如牛毛的羞辱和困難。靠自己的努力擺脫貧困確實(shí)是一件值得驕傲的事情，但是除了傻瓜以外，沒有人會(huì)覺得貧窮是浪漫的。

我像你們這么大年紀(jì)的時(shí)候，最害怕的不是貧窮，而是失敗。

在那個(gè)時(shí)候，因?yàn)槿狈W(xué)習(xí)的動(dòng)機(jī)，我花了太多的時(shí)間在咖啡館里寫文章，而僅把極少的時(shí)間用在課程的學(xué)習(xí)上。我有通過考試的特異功能。而這個(gè)，多年以來，一直是對(duì)我和我同齡人成功與否的衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。我不會(huì)天真到認(rèn)為因?yàn)槟銈兪悄贻p聰明，教育水平很高的大學(xué)生，你們的生活就是一帆風(fēng)順的。再有天賦和聰慧的人也會(huì)體會(huì)到命運(yùn)的反復(fù)無常。我也從來不曾設(shè)想過，我們當(dāng)中會(huì)有誰的生活盡如人意。

但是你們畢業(yè)于哈佛這個(gè)事實(shí)說明了你們應(yīng)該不常嘗試失敗的滋味，對(duì)成功的渴望和對(duì)失敗的恐懼同時(shí)在激勵(lì)著你們，事實(shí)上，也許你們的失敗的概念和普通人的成功的概念差別不大，因此才能在學(xué)術(shù)上取得如此的成就。

最終，我們都會(huì)有自己的失敗的定義，同時(shí)，如果你不留神，世界也會(huì)非常急切地給你一整套的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。我完全有理由說，在我畢業(yè)七年以后，我，不管從哪一個(gè)衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來說，都是一個(gè)徹頭徹尾的失敗者。結(jié)束了我短暫的婚姻，失去了工作，成為單親媽媽，處于現(xiàn)代英國社會(huì)的最貧窮階層，唯一值得慶幸的是，不是無家可歸。我父母對(duì)我的擔(dān)憂，我對(duì)自己的擔(dān)憂，全都變成了現(xiàn)實(shí)。不管怎么看，我都是我所知道的最大的失敗。

此刻，我不會(huì)站在這里告訴你們失敗是有趣的，我人生中的這個(gè)階段灰暗極了，我也并不知道會(huì)出現(xiàn)后來的像媒體描述的“童話般的”解決方式。我不知道這樣的黑暗會(huì)延伸到哪兒，并且很長一段時(shí)間里，出現(xiàn)在盡頭處的光都只是最后破滅的希望。

為什么我會(huì)說到失敗的益處呢？那是因?yàn)槭?huì)幫你分清生活中重要的和不重要的事情，并且讓你剔除掉不重要的。我開始認(rèn)識(shí)到最真實(shí)的我自己，集中我的全部精力來完成對(duì)我來說唯一重要的工作。如果我曾經(jīng)在別的方面成功過，我不可能下定決心要在這個(gè)競(jìng)技場(chǎng)上取得勝利，盡管我堅(jiān)信我屬于這里。我自由了，因?yàn)槲易畲蟮目謶忠呀?jīng)成為了現(xiàn)實(shí)，可是我還活著，有一個(gè)珍愛的女兒，有一臺(tái)老的打字機(jī)和一個(gè)絕佳的主意。因此，人生低谷的谷底反倒成了我重建我的人生的堅(jiān)實(shí)的基礎(chǔ)。

你也許永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)像我一樣失敗，但是人生中的失敗是在所難免的。你總會(huì)在什么方面失敗，除非你謹(jǐn)小慎微到什么也不做的程度——但是這樣你也是失敗的，你因?yàn)槿毕愕娜松　?/p>

失敗給了我成功地通過考試從來沒有獲得過的內(nèi)心的安全感，失敗讓我看清楚了在別的情況下永遠(yuǎn)不能看到的我自己，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己有堅(jiān)強(qiáng)的意志，比我想象的更多的原則，我也發(fā)現(xiàn)我擁有比鉆石還珍貴的朋友。

當(dāng)你發(fā)現(xiàn)自己在一次次的失敗中變得更堅(jiān)強(qiáng)和充滿智慧的時(shí)候，就意味著，你已經(jīng)具備了頑強(qiáng)地生存的能力了。如果沒有挫折的考驗(yàn)，你永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)知道自己有多強(qiáng)，也不會(huì)知道你身邊的人會(huì)給你多大的支持。這樣的知識(shí)才是真正的禮物，因?yàn)樗侨绱说膩碇灰祝彩侨绱说恼滟F，任何別的能力都無法與之相比。

如果我能有一臺(tái)時(shí)間機(jī)器，或者是時(shí)空隧道，我會(huì)告訴21歲的我自己，如果想要獲得幸福，就必須要明白，生活不是一張寫滿了你所獲得的和你的成就的單子。你的資格證書、你的履歷和你的生活毫無關(guān)聯(lián)，雖然很多跟你同齡或者年長于你的人都并沒有分清這二者。生活復(fù)雜而艱辛，沒有人可以完全控制他，只有認(rèn)識(shí)到了這個(gè)，才能夠承受人生的起起落落。你們也許會(huì)認(rèn)為我選擇想象力的重要性作為我的第二個(gè)主題是因?yàn)橄胂罅υ谖抑匦抡酒饋淼倪^程中起到了重要作用，但是事實(shí)不完全如此。雖然我會(huì)至死不渝地堅(jiān)信睡前故事的重要價(jià)值，我也認(rèn)為想象力應(yīng)該有更廣泛的定義，想象力不僅僅是人類獨(dú)有的看到比眼睛能看到的更多的東西的能力，也是一切發(fā)明和創(chuàng)新的基礎(chǔ)。在它的富于爭(zhēng)議性的諸多功能中，能帶來最多改變的就是，讓我們能夠同情那些我們自己從來沒有經(jīng)歷過的，別人的經(jīng)歷。

在寫哈利波特之前，我有一個(gè)非常重要的經(jīng)歷，在我的書里我寫了很多跟它有關(guān)的事情。這是我早期的工作之一。雖然常常在午飯時(shí)間溜出去寫小說，但是我二十幾歲的時(shí)候，是靠在國際特赦組織倫敦總部的研究中心工作養(yǎng)活自己的。

在我的小小的辦公室里，我讀到了很多草草寫就的信件，在極權(quán)主義統(tǒng)治之下的人民，冒著坐牢的危險(xiǎn)，把這些信偷運(yùn)出來，以告訴世界他們的遭遇。我看到了很多無緣無故的失蹤的人的照片，他們絕望的家人和朋友把這些照片發(fā)到了特赦組織。我讀到了那些被折磨的人的陳述，看到了他們的傷口的照片。也看到了手寫的綁架和強(qiáng)奸案的證人記錄。我那時(shí)候的很多同事以前都是政治犯，他們因?yàn)橛斜３知?dú)立于政府之外的思考的勇氣而不得不離開自己的家，被迫流亡。到我們辦公室來的人，通常都是來報(bào)信，或者是想要知道他們離開之后，他們被迫拋下的親人有什么遭遇。我永遠(yuǎn)也忘不了一名非洲的酷刑的受害者，一個(gè)和當(dāng)時(shí)的我差不多大的年輕人，在他的祖國經(jīng)受了種種折磨之后，患上了嚴(yán)重的精神疾病，當(dāng)他對(duì)著一臺(tái)攝影機(jī)說自己受到的殘酷的虐待的時(shí)候，他不能自制地渾身發(fā)抖。他比我高一英寸左右，看起來就像一個(gè)小孩一樣脆弱。我的任務(wù)是護(hù)送他去地鐵站，我們分別的時(shí)候，這個(gè)自己的生活已經(jīng)支離破碎的年輕人，極度彬彬有禮地握著我的手，祝我有一個(gè)幸福的未來。我永遠(yuǎn)也忘不了當(dāng)我走在空蕩蕩的走廊上時(shí)，突然從一扇緊閉的門后傳來我聽到過的最慘的充滿了痛苦和絕望的哀嚎。門打開了，一個(gè)工作人員探出頭來，讓我趕快去給坐在他旁邊的年輕人拿一杯咖啡。他剛剛得知，作為對(duì)他敢發(fā)表違反國家意志的言論的報(bào)復(fù)，他的母親已經(jīng)被處死了。

在我這段工作經(jīng)歷里，每一天我都在提醒自己，能夠出生在一個(gè)民主的人人都擁有為自己公開辯護(hù)的權(quán)力的國家，我有多么的幸運(yùn)。每一天，我都能看到一些邪惡的人類為了得到或者保持自己的權(quán)力而對(duì)他們的人民所犯下的罪行的證據(jù)。因我看到的、聽到的，我開始不斷地做噩夢(mèng)。同時(shí)，我也在特赦組織越來越多地了解到了人性的善。

特赦組織動(dòng)員了數(shù)以千計(jì)從來沒有因?yàn)樽约旱男叛鍪艿竭^折磨或者監(jiān)禁的人出來為有這樣遭遇的人說話，人類的同情心的力量，讓他們拯救生命，解放囚徒。自身的幸福得到了滿足的普通人民，大規(guī)模地聚集起來，拯救那些他們從不認(rèn)識(shí)，也不會(huì)相見的人，我的參與只是其中的微不足道的一小部分，但是仍然在我的人生中鼓舞我。和地球上的別的生物不同，人類擁有學(xué)習(xí)和了解自己沒有經(jīng)歷過的事情的能力。他們可以從別人的角度來看問題，可以對(duì)別人的經(jīng)歷感同身受。

當(dāng)然，這樣的能力，就像我的小說想象力一樣，是沒有善惡之分的，人們可以利用這個(gè)能力來理解和同情別人，也可以控制和操縱別人。有很多人根本就不使用自己的想象力，他們寧可被自己的認(rèn)識(shí)束縛，也不愿意去試著把自己置身于別的情況中。他們不在乎聽到了什么樣的慘叫或者是籠子里面有什么；只要鞭子不落到自己身上，他們就可以當(dāng)作沒發(fā)生；他們拒絕了解。如果我不知道他們和我一樣惡夢(mèng)連連，我也許會(huì)嫉妒可以這樣生活的人。只愿意生活在狹窄的空間里會(huì)導(dǎo)致廣場(chǎng)恐懼癥，這會(huì)帶來新的恐懼。不愿意想象的人看到更多的怪物，他們常常是更恐懼的人。更可怕的是，不愿意同情別人的人可能會(huì)創(chuàng)造真正的怪獸。就算我們完全不贊同那些邪惡的做法，我們也因?yàn)樽约旱哪魂P(guān)心而成為了他們的同伙。

我十八歲時(shí)在古典文學(xué)課上學(xué)到的事情還包括當(dāng)時(shí)無法理解的希臘學(xué)者普魯塔克說的一句話：“我們對(duì)內(nèi)在修養(yǎng)的追求將會(huì)改變外在現(xiàn)實(shí)?！?/p>

這個(gè)論斷已經(jīng)無數(shù)次的在我們的生活當(dāng)中證明了他的正確性。在一定程度上，它表達(dá)了我們和外界的密不可分，揭示了我們只是單純地存在，就會(huì)對(duì)他人造成影響的事實(shí)。

但是哈佛08屆的畢業(yè)生們，你們當(dāng)中有多少人會(huì)愿意去了解他人的人生呢？你們的聰明，你們勤奮工作的能力和你們獲得的教育給了你們獨(dú)有的地位和責(zé)任，雖然你們的國籍不同，但是你們當(dāng)中的絕大部分都屬于世界上僅存的超能力的一部分，你們投票的方式，生活的方式，抗議的方式，你們自己的壓力給政府造成的影響，都有著遠(yuǎn)超出你們范圍的影響力。這是你們的權(quán)利，也是你們的負(fù)擔(dān)。如果你們選擇運(yùn)用自己的地位和影響來為那些不能發(fā)出聲音的人說話，如果你們選擇不只是和有權(quán)力的人而是也和沒有權(quán)力的人站在一起，如果你們能夠總是站在那些生活不如你的人的角度考慮問題，那樣不只是你們的家人會(huì)因?yàn)橛心銈兌?，還有成千上萬的因?yàn)槟愣纳屏松畹娜藭?huì)因?yàn)橛心愣?。我們不需要魔法來改變我們的生活，我們自身就已?jīng)擁有了強(qiáng)大的能力：憧憬更美好生活的能力。

在我的演講將要結(jié)束的時(shí)候，我還有最后的一個(gè)希望，21歲的我曾經(jīng)有幸擁有。在畢業(yè)典禮上坐在我身邊的朋友成為了我一輩子的朋友，他們是我的孩子的教父教母，我遇到麻煩的時(shí)候幫助我，雖然我把他們的名字用作食死徒的名字，他們?nèi)匀粵]有告我。在我們的畢業(yè)典禮上，我們因?yàn)楦星?，因?yàn)槲覀円黄鸲冗^的一去不返的時(shí)光而緊緊地聯(lián)系在了一起，當(dāng)然，理由還有，我們手里都捏著對(duì)方足夠多的照片，足以在誰要競(jìng)選首相的時(shí)候敲他一大筆錢。所以幾天，我也祝你們擁有同樣的友誼。以后，我希望你們就算完全忘了我的演講，也能記住另外一個(gè)古羅馬人的講話：

對(duì)于小說來說，重要的不是長度而是質(zhì)量，人生同樣如此。希望你們都有美好的人生。非常感謝。

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination 2008 Harvard University Commencement, June 5, 2008.by J.K.Rowling

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, 致Faust校長，哈佛集團(tuán)以及哈佛監(jiān)事委員會(huì)的各位成員，各位教職員工，眾多自豪的家長，以及最為重要的——各位畢業(yè)生們：

The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honor, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've 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 world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.我想要說的第一句話是“謝謝你們”。這份感謝不僅來自于哈佛賦予我如此非同尋常的榮譽(yù)，更是由于幾個(gè)星期以來每當(dāng)我想到今天的致詞就會(huì)覺得頭暈惡心，因而終于成功的減肥了。這就是“雙贏”??！現(xiàn)在，我只需要深呼吸幾次，瞄幾眼紅色的橫幅，然后裝模作樣的讓自己相信，我正身處世界上受過最好教育的哈里波特迷的盛大集會(huì)之中。

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 can't remember a single word she said.This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently 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, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.在畢業(yè)典禮上致詞意味著極大的責(zé)任——我這樣想著，直到我開始回想我自己的畢業(yè)典禮。那天致詞的是著名的英國哲學(xué)家 Baroness Mary Warnock。對(duì)于她的演講的回憶也極大地幫助了我完成現(xiàn)在這份，因?yàn)椋彝耆氩黄饋硭f了什么。這個(gè)具有解放意義的重大發(fā)現(xiàn)讓我無所畏懼的寫下自己的致詞，因?yàn)槲以僖膊槐負(fù)?dān)心會(huì)在不經(jīng)意間對(duì)你們?cè)斐捎绊懀灾劣谧屇銈優(yōu)榱顺蔀橐粋€(gè)快樂巫師的虛幻憧憬，就放棄自己在商業(yè)、法律界或政界的遠(yuǎn)大前程?？吹搅税桑烤退闳舾赡旰竽銈儗?duì)我的演講的印象只剩下這個(gè)“快樂的巫師”的笑話，那我還是領(lǐng)先了Baroness Mary Warnock一步的。能夠達(dá)成的目標(biāo)是自我改善的第一步。

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.事實(shí)上，為了確定今天應(yīng)該對(duì)你們說些什么，我真是絞盡了腦汁。我問自己，在我自己的畢業(yè)典禮上，我曾期待知道什么？而自那天開始到現(xiàn)在的21年間，我又學(xué)到了那些教訓(xùn)？

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 the crucial importance of imagination.我想到了兩個(gè)答案。在今天這個(gè)美妙的時(shí)刻，當(dāng)我們齊聚一堂慶祝你們?nèi)〉脤W(xué)業(yè)成功的時(shí)候，我決定跟你們談?wù)勈淼暮锰?。另外，在你們正要一腳踏入所謂“真實(shí)的生活”的時(shí)候，我還要高聲贊頌想象力的重大意義。

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.這些決定看起來頗為荒誕而矛盾，但是啊，請(qǐng)聽我慢慢道來。