第一篇：TED英語演講稿：你能控制他人的注意力嗎？

TED英語演講稿：你能控制他人的注意

力嗎？

簡介：你能控制他人的注意力嗎?全球最偉大的“扒手”apollo robbins現(xiàn)場揭示人類的認知瑕疵。八分鐘的演講中，他當眾偷天換日，你甚至到演講結(jié)尾處才發(fā)現(xiàn)他在中間換了一套服裝。注意力決定了你看到的世界。如果你能控制他人的注意力，你會用它來做什么呢?

do you think it's possible to control someone's attention? even more than that, what about predicting human behavior? i think those are interesting ideas, if you could.i mean, for me, that would be the perfect superpower, actually kind of an evil way of approaching it.but for myself, in the past, i've spent the last 20 years studying human behavior from a rather unorthodox way: picking pockets.when we think of misdirection, we think of something as looking off to the side, when actually it's often the things that are right in front of us that are the hardest things to see, the things that you look at every day that you're blinded to.for example, how many of you still have your cell phones on you right now? great.double-check.make sure you still have them on you.i was doing some shopping beforehand.now you've looked at them probably a few times today, but i'm going to ask you a question about them.without looking at your cell phone directly yet, can you remember the icon in the bottom right corner? bring them out, check, and see how accurate you were.how'd you do? show of hands.did we get it?

now that you're done looking at those, close them down, because every phone has something in common.no matter how you organize the icons, you still have a clock on the front.so, without looking at your phone, what time was it? you just looked at your clock, right? it's an interesting idea.now, i'll ask you to take that a step further with a game of trust.close your eyes.i realize i'm asking you to do that while you just heard there's a pickpocket in the room, but close your eyes.now, you've been watching me for about 30 seconds.with your eyes closed, what am i wearing? make your best guess.what color is my shirt? what color is my tie? now open your eyes.by a show of hands, were you right?

it's interesting, isn't it? some of us are a little bit more perceptive than others.it seems that way.but i have a different theory about that, that model of attention.they have fancy models of attention, posner's trinity model of attention.for me, i like to think of it very simple, like a surveillance system.it's kind of like you have all these fancy sensors, and inside your brain is a little security guard.for me, i like to call him frank.so frank is sitting at a desk.he's got all sorts of cool information in front of him, high-tech equipment, he's got cameras, he's got a little phone that he can pick up, listen to the ears, all these senses, all these perceptions.but attention is what steers your perceptions, is what controls your reality.it's the gateway to the mind.if you don't attend to something, you can't be aware of it.but ironically, you can attend to something without being aware of it.that's why there's the cocktail effect: when you're in a party, you're having conversations with someone, and yet you can recognize your name and you didn't even realize you were listening to that.now, for my job, i have to play with techniques to exploit this, to play with your attention as a limited resource.so if i could control how you spend your attention, if i could maybe steal your attention through a distraction.now, instead of doing it like misdirection and throwing it off to the side, instead, what i choose to focus on is frank, to be able to play with the frank inside your head, your little security guard, and get you, instead of focusing on your external senses, just to go internal for a second.so if i ask you to access a memory, like, what is that? what just happened? do you have a wallet? do you have an american express in your wallet? and when i do that, your frank turns around.he accesses the file.he has to rewind the tape.and what's interesting is, he can't rewind the tape at the same time that he's trying to process new data.now, i mean, this sounds like a good theory, but i could talk for a long time and tell you lots of things, and they may be true, a portion of them, but i think it's better if i tried to show that to you here live.so if i come down, i'm going to do a little bit of shopping.just hold still where you are.hello, how are you? it's lovely to see you.you did a wonderful job onstage.you have a lovely watch that doesn't come off very well.do you have your ring as well? good.just taking inventory.you're like a buffet.it's hard to tell where to start, there's so many great things.hi, how are you? good to see you.hi, sir, could you stand up for me, please? just right where you are.oh, you're married.you follow directions well.that's nice to meet you, sir.you don't have a whole lot inside your pockets.anything down by the pocket over here? hopefully so.have a seat.there you go.you're doing well.hi, sir, how are you? good to see you, sir.you have a ring, a watch.do you have a wallet on you? joe: i don't.apollo robbins: well, we'll find one for you.come on up this way, joe.give joe a round of applause.come on up joe.let's play a game.(applause)

pardon me.i don't think i need this clicker anymore.you can have that.thank you very much.i appreciate that.come on up to the stage, joe.let's play a little game now.do you have anything in your front pockets? joe: money.ar: money.all right, let's try that.can you stand right over this way for me? turn around and, let's see, if i give you something that belongs to me, this is just something i have, a poker chip.hold out your hand for me.watch it kind of closely.now this is a task for you to focus on.now you have your money in your front pocket here? joe: yup.ar: good.i'm not going to actually put my hand in your pocket.i'm not ready for that kind of commitment.one time a guy had a hole in his pocket, and that was rather traumatizing for me.i was looking for his wallet and he gave me his phone number.it was a big miscommunication.so let's do this simply.squeeze your hand.squeeze it tight.do you feel the poker chip in your hand? joe: i do.ar: would you be surprised if i could take it out of your hand? say yes.joe: very.ar: good.open your hand.thank you very much.i'll cheat if you give me a chance.make it harder for me.just use your hand.grab my wrist, but squeeze, squeeze firm.did you see it go? joe: no.ar: no, it's not here.open your hand.see, while we're focused on the hand, it's sitting on your shoulder right now.go ahead and take it off.now, let's try that again.hold your hand out flat.open it up all the way.put your hand up a little bit higher, but watch it close there, joe.see, if i did it slowly, it'd be back on your shoulder.(laughter)joe, we're going to keep doing this till you catch it.you're going to get it eventually.i have faith in you.squeeze firm.you're human, you're not slow.it's back on your shoulder.you were focused on your hand.that's why you were distracted.while you were watching this, i couldn't quite get your watch off.it was difficult.yet you had something inside your front pocket.do you remember what it was? joe: money.ar: check your pocket.see if it's still there.is it still there?(laughter)oh, that's where it was.go ahead and put it away.we're just shopping.this trick's more about the timing, really.i'm going to try to push it inside your hand.put your other hand on top for me, would you? it's amazingly obvious now, isn't it? it looks a lot like the watch i was wearing, doesn't it?

(laughter)(applause)

joe: that's pretty good.that's pretty good.ar: oh, thanks.but it's only a start.let's try it again, a little bit differently.hold your hands together.put your other hand on top.now if you're watching this little token, this obviously has become a little target.it's like a red herring.if we watch this kind of close, it looks like it goes away.it's not back on your shoulder.it falls out of the air, lands right back in the hand.did you see it go? yeah, it's funny.we've got a little guy.he's union.he works up there all day.if i did it slowly, if it goes straightaway, it lands down by your pocket.i believe is it in this pocket, sir? no, don't reach in your pocket.that's a different show.so--(squeaking noise)--that's rather strange.they have shots for that.can i show them what that is? that's rather bizarre.is this yours, sir? i have no idea how that works.we'll just send that over there.that's great.i need help with this one.step over this way for me.now don't run away.you had something down by your pants pocket.i was checking mine.i couldn't find everything, but i noticed you had something here.can i feel the outside of your pocket for a moment? down here i noticed this.is this something of yours, sir? is this? i have no idea.that's a shrimp.joe: yeah.i'm saving it for later.ar: you've entertained all of these people in a wonderful way, better than you know.so we'd love to give you this lovely watch as a gift.(laughter)hopefully it matches his taste.but also, we have a couple of other things, a little bit of cash, and then we have a few other things.these all belong to you, along with a big round of applause from all your friends.(applause)

oe, thank you very much.(applause)

so, same question i asked you before, but this time you don't have to close your eyes.what am i wearing?

(laughter)

(applause)

attention is a powerful thing.like i said, it shapes your reality.so, i guess i'd like to pose that question to you.if you could control somebody's attention, what would you do with it?

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第二篇：擁抱他人,擁抱自己 TED 演講稿

Embracing otherness.When I first heard this theme, I thought, well embracing otherness is embracing myself.And the journey to that place of understanding and acceptance has been an interesting one for me, and it's given me an insight into the whole notion of self, which I think is worth sharing with you today.We each have a self, but I don't think that we're born with one.You know how newborn babies believe they're part of everything;they're not separate.Well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly.It's like that initial stage is over--oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive.It's no longer valid or real.What is real is separateness.And at some point in early babyhood, the idea of self starts to form.Our little portion of oneness is given a name, is told all kinds of things about itself.And these details, opinions and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, our identity.And that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world.But the self is a projection based on other people's projections.Is it who we really are? Or who we really want to be, or should be? 擁抱他人。當我第一次聽到這個主題時，我覺得擁抱他人，就是擁抱我自己。對于我來說，通往理解和接納的路是十分有意思的，并且讓我對“自我”這一概念有了深刻的理解。我想這值得在今天和你們分享。我們都有一個自我，但我并不認為這是與生俱來的。你看那些剛出生的小嬰兒，他們認為自己屬于任何事物，他們并不是脫離的。這種最基本的同一性會很快從我們身上消失，如同最初始的狀態(tài)已經(jīng)結(jié)束。同一性：嬰兒期、未成形的、原始的，將不復(fù)存在，取而代之的是分離。在嬰兒期的某一點，關(guān)于自我的意識開始萌芽。我們同一性的一小部分被賦予了一個名字，被告知關(guān)于它自己的任何事情。這些細節(jié)、觀點和想法變成事實，這些都幫我們形成自我，以及自己的身份。然后這個自我就成為一個工具，用來探索周圍的這個世界。但是這個自我實際上是一個以其他人的投影為基礎(chǔ)的投影。這就是真正的我們嗎？是我們真正想成為，或者應(yīng)該成為的人嗎？

I grew up on the coast of England in the 70s.My dad is white from Cornwall, and my mom is black from Zimbabwe.Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people.But nature had its wicked way, and brown babies were born.But from about the age of five, I was aware that I didn't fit.I was the black atheist kid in the all-white catholic school run by nuns.I was an anomaly.And my self was rooting around for definition and trying to plug in.Because the self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong.That confirms its existence and its importance.And it is important.It has an extremely important function.Without it, we literally can't interface with others.We can't hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success.But my skin color wasn't right.My hair wasn't right.My history wasn't right.My self became defined by otherness, which meant that, in that social world, I didn't really exist.And I was other before being anything else--even before being a girl.I was a noticeable nobody.我于上世紀七十年代生長在英格蘭的海岸邊。我父親是來自康沃爾的白人，我母親是來自津巴布韋的黑人。對于許多人來說，是無論如何也想不到我們是一家人。但大自然自有意想不到的一面，棕色的孩子出生了。但自從五歲開始，我就察覺出我的格格不入。我是一個信奉無神論的黑人孩子，在一個由修女運轉(zhuǎn)的白人天主學校，我是一個另類。我的自我在不斷尋找一個定義，并試圖將自己套入定義。因為自我都是愿意去融入，看到自己被復(fù)制，有歸屬感。那能確認自我的存在感和重要性，這很重要。這有一個極端重要的功能。沒有一個對自我的定義，我們簡直不能和其他人交流。我們無法制定計劃，無法爬上潮流和成功的階梯。但我的膚色不對。我的發(fā)色不對。我的來歷不對。我的自我被他人定義，這意味著在社會上 我并不存在。我首先被定義為一個另類，甚至先于被定義為一個女孩。我是一個引人注意的沒有人。

We've created entire value systems and a physical reality to support the worth of self.Look at the industry for self-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over.We'd be right in assuming that the self is an actual living thing.But it's not;it's a projection, which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from the reality of death.But there is something that can give the self ultimate and infinite connection--and that thing is oneness, our essence.The self's struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator--to you and to me.And that can happen with awareness--awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood.For a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves.It happens when I dance, when I'm acting.I'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended.In those moments, I'm connected to everything--the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy from the audience.All my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as an infant might feel--that feeling of oneness.我們創(chuàng)造了整個價值系統(tǒng)，以及一個客觀的現(xiàn)實，用以支持自我的價值?？纯从蓚€人形象帶動的產(chǎn)業(yè)，還有它提供的工作，以及它創(chuàng)造的價值。我們可能會假設(shè)，這個自我是真實存在的。但我們錯了；這只是一個投影，是由我們聰明的大腦創(chuàng)造出來的，來欺騙我們自己無需面對死亡的現(xiàn)實。但總有一些事，能賦予自我終極無盡的聯(lián)系，那就是同一性，我們的本源。自我對于真實性和定義的掙扎永遠不會停止，除非自我能夠與創(chuàng)造者相連——與你，與我。這和意識的覺醒一同存在，意識到同一性的現(xiàn)實，以及自我的投影。一開始，我們可以想想那些我們失去自我的時候，當我跳舞時，表演時。我根植于我的本源，我的自我被抑制了。在那些時刻，我與萬物相連——大地，空氣 聲音，觀眾的能量。我的所有感官都是警覺和鮮活的，如同一個嬰兒感受到的一般——那種同一性的感覺。

And when I'm acting a role, I inhabit another self, and I give it life for a while.Because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and judgment.And I've played everything from a vengeful ghost in the time of slavery to Secretary of State in 2004.And no matter how other these selves might be, they're all related in me.And I honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and my progress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure.I always wondered why I could feel others' pain so deeply, why I could recognize the somebody in the nobody.It's because I didn't have a self to get in the way.I thought I lacked substance, and the fact that I could feel others' meant that I had nothing of myself to feel.The thing that was a source of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.And when I realized and really understood that my self is a projection and that it has a function, a funny thing happened.I stopped giving it so much authority.I give it its due.I take it to therapy.I've become very familiar with its dysfunctional behavior.But I'm not ashamed of my self.In fact, I respect my self and its function.And over time and with practice, I've tried to live more and more from my essence.And if you can do that, incredible things happen.當我表演一個角色時，我進入了另一個自我，我在一段時間內(nèi)賦予其生命。當自我被抑制時，它的多樣性和判斷也會一同被抑制。我出演過許多角色，從奴隸時代想要復(fù)仇的鬼魂到2004年的國務(wù)卿。無論這些角色是多么的不同，他們?nèi)寂c我相連。我誠懇地認為，我作為一個演員能夠成功的關(guān)鍵，以及作為一個不斷進步的人，是因為自我的缺失讓我覺得非常焦慮和不安。我總是在想，為什么我能如此深切地感受到他人的痛苦，為什么我能辨認出一個被忽視的人。那是因為我沒有一個自我擋在中間。我想我缺少一種介質(zhì)，我能夠感受他人這個事實說明我感受不到我自己。這曾經(jīng)導(dǎo)致了我的羞愧，其實是給我啟蒙的源頭。

Crucially, we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness with the Earth and every other living thing.We've just been insanely trying to figure out how to live with each other--billions of each other.Only we're not living with each other;our crazy selves are living with each other and perpetuating an epidemic of disconnection.Let's live with each other and take it a breath at a time.If we can get under that heavy self, light a torch of awareness, and find our essence, our connection to the infinite and every other living thing.We knew it from the day we were born.Let's not be freaked out by our bountiful nothingness.It's more a reality than the ones ourselves have created.Imagine what kind of existence we can have if we honor inevitable death of self, appreciate the privilege of life and marvel at what comes next.Simple awareness is where it begins.關(guān)鍵在于，我們尚未找出怎樣與地球和萬物一起，生活在同一性中。我們一直在瘋狂地尋找怎樣和數(shù)十億的其他人一起生活。我們并非只是和其他人一起生活。我們瘋狂的自我們在一起生活，與他人的隔斷也如同傳染病一般蔓延。讓我們生活在一起，歇一口氣，慢慢來。如果我們能進入那沉重的自我，點燃一支覺察的火炬，尋找我們的本源，我們和永恒以及萬物的聯(lián)系，我們從出生那天就知道的聯(lián)系。我們無須因為大量的空虛而慌張。相比于我們創(chuàng)造出的那些，這空虛更加真實。想像我們能有怎樣的存在方式，當我們正視自我不可避免的死亡，感恩生命的權(quán)利，驚異于即將到來的事物。這些都來自于簡單的覺察。

第三篇：擁抱他人,擁抱自己 TED 演講稿

Embracing otherness.When I first heard this theme, I thought, well embracing otherness is embracing myself.And the journey to that

place of understanding and acceptance has been an interesting one for me, and it's given me an insight into the whole notion of self, which I think is worth sharing with you today.We each have a self, but I don't think that we're born with one.You know how newborn babies believe they're part of everything;they're not separate.Well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly.It's like that initial stage is over--oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive.It's no longer valid or real.What is real is separateness.And at some point in early babyhood, the idea of self starts to form.Our little portion of oneness is given a name, is told all kinds of things about itself.And these details, opinions and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, our identity.And that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world.But the self is a projection based on other people's projections.Is it who we really are? Or who we really want to be, or should be? 擁抱他人。當我第一次聽到這個主題時，我覺得擁抱他人，就是擁抱我自己。對于我來說，通往理解和接納的路是十分有意思的，并且讓我對“自我”這一概念有了深刻的理解。我想這值得在今天和你們分享。我們都有一個自我，但我并不認為這是與生俱來的。你看那些剛出生的小嬰兒，他們認為自己屬于任何事物，他們并不是脫離的。這種最基本的同一性會很快從我們身上消失，如同最初始的狀態(tài)已經(jīng)結(jié)束。同一性：嬰兒期、未成形的、原始的，將不復(fù)存在，取而代之的是分離。在嬰兒期的某一點，關(guān)于自我的意識開始萌芽。我們同一性的一小部分被賦予了一個名字，被告知關(guān)于它自己的任何事情。這些細節(jié)、觀點和想法變成事實，這些都幫我們形成自我，以及自己的身份。然后這個自我就成為一個工具，用來探索周圍的這個世界。但是這個自我實際上是一個以其他人的投影為基礎(chǔ)的投影。這就是真正的我們嗎？是我們真正想成為，或者應(yīng)該成為的人嗎？

I grew up on the coast of England in the 70s.My dad is white from

Cornwall, and my mom is black from Zimbabwe.Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people.But nature had its wicked way, and brown babies were born.But from about the age of five, I was aware that I didn't fit.I was the black atheist kid in the all-white

catholic school run by nuns.I was an anomaly.And my self was rooting around for definition and trying to plug in.Because the self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong.That confirms its existence and its

importance.And it is important.It has an extremely important function.Without it, we literally can't interface with others.We can't hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success.But my skin color wasn't right.My hair wasn't right.My history wasn't right.My self

became defined by otherness, which meant that, in that social world, I didn't really exist.And I was other before being anything else--even before being a girl.I was a noticeable nobody.我于上世紀七十年代生長在英格蘭的海岸邊。我父親是來自康沃爾的白人，我母親是來自津巴布韋的黑人。對于許多人來說，是無論如何也想不到我們是一家人。但大自然自有意想不到的一面，棕色的孩子出生了。但自從五歲開始，我就察覺出我的格格不入。我是一個信奉無神論的黑人孩子，在一個由修女運轉(zhuǎn)的白人天主學校，我是一個另類。我的自我在不斷尋找一個定義，并試圖將自己套入定義。因為自我都是愿意去融入，看到自己被復(fù)制，有歸屬感。那能確認自我的存在感和重要性，這很重要。這有一個極端重要的功能。沒有一個對自我的定義，我們簡直不能和其他人交流。我們無法制定計劃，無法爬上潮流和成功的階梯。但我的膚色不對。我的發(fā)色不對。我的來歷不對。我的自我被他人定義，這意味著在社會上 我并不存在。我首先被定義為一個另類，甚至先于被定義為一個女孩。我是一個引人注意的沒有人。

We've created entire value systems and a physical reality to support the worth of self.Look at the industry for self-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over.We'd be right in assuming that the self is an actual living thing.But it's not;it's a projection, which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from the reality of death.But there is something that can give the self ultimate and

infinite connection--and that thing is oneness, our essence.The self's struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it's

connected to its creator--to you and to me.And that can happen with awareness--awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood.For a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves.It happens when I dance, when I'm acting.I'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended.In those moments, I'm

connected to everything--the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy from the audience.All my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as an infant might feel--that feeling of oneness.我們創(chuàng)造了整個價值系統(tǒng)，以及一個客觀的現(xiàn)實，用以支持自我的價值?？纯从蓚€人形象帶動的產(chǎn)業(yè)，還有它提供的工作，以及它創(chuàng)造的價值。我們可能會假設(shè)，這個自我是真實存在的。但我們錯了；這只是一個投影，是由我們聰明的大腦創(chuàng)造出來的，來欺騙我們自己無需面對死亡的現(xiàn)實。但總有一些事，能賦予自我終極無盡的聯(lián)系，那就是同一性，我們的本源。自我對于真實性和定義的掙扎永遠不會停止，除非自我能夠與創(chuàng)造者相連——與你，與我。這和意識的覺醒一同存在，意識到同一性的現(xiàn)實，以及自我的投影。一開始，我們可以想想那些我們失去自我的時候，當我跳舞時，表演時。我根植于我的本源，我的自我被抑制了。在那些時刻，我與萬物相連——大地，空氣 聲音，觀眾的能量。我的所有感官都是警覺和鮮活的，如同一個嬰兒感受到的一般——那種同一性的感覺。

And when I'm acting a role, I inhabit another self, and I give it life for a while.Because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and

judgment.And I've played everything from a vengeful ghost in the time of slavery to Secretary of State in 2004.And no matter how other these selves might be, they're all related in me.And I honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and my progress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure.I always wondered why I could feel others' pain so deeply, why I could recognize the somebody in the nobody.It's because I didn't have a self to get in the way.I thought I lacked substance, and the fact that I could feel others' meant that I had nothing of myself to feel.The thing that was a source of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.And when I realized and really understood that my self is a projection and that it has a function, a funny thing happened.I stopped giving it so much authority.I give it its due.I take it to therapy.I've become very familiar with its dysfunctional behavior.But I'm not ashamed of my self.In fact, I respect my self and its function.And over time and with

practice, I've tried to live more and more from my essence.And if you can do that, incredible things happen.當我表演一個角色時，我進入了另一個自我，我在一段時間內(nèi)賦予其生命。當自我被抑制時，它的多樣性和判斷也會一同被抑制。我出演過許多角色，從奴隸時代想要復(fù)仇的鬼魂到2004年的國務(wù)卿。無論這些角色是多么的不同，他們?nèi)寂c我相連。我誠懇地認為，我作為一個演員能夠成功的關(guān)鍵，以及作為一個不斷進步的人，是因為自我的缺失讓我覺得非常焦慮和不安。我總是在想，為什么我能如此深切地感受到他人的痛苦，為什么我能辨認出一個被忽視的人。那是因為我沒有一個自我擋在中間。我想我缺少一種介質(zhì)，我能

夠感受他人這個事實說明我感受不到我自己。這曾經(jīng)導(dǎo)致了我的羞愧，其實是給我啟蒙的源頭。

Crucially, we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness with the Earth and every other living thing.We've just been insanely trying to figure out how to live with each other--billions of each other.Only we're not living with each other;our crazy selves are living with each other and perpetuating an epidemic of disconnection.Let's live with each other and take it a breath at a time.If we can get under that heavy self, light a torch of awareness, and find our essence, our connection to the infinite and every other living thing.We knew it from the day we were born.Let's not be freaked out by our bountiful nothingness.It's more a reality than the ones ourselves have created.Imagine what kind of existence we can have if we honor inevitable death of self,appreciate the privilege of life and marvel at what comes next.Simple awareness is where it begins.關(guān)鍵在于，我們尚未找出怎樣與地球和萬物一起，生活在同一性中。我們一直在瘋狂地尋找怎樣和數(shù)十億的其他人一起生活。我們并非只是和其他人一起生活。我們瘋狂的自我們在一起生活，與他人的隔斷也如同傳染病一般蔓延。讓我們生活在一起，歇一口氣，慢慢來。如果我們能進入那沉重的自我，點燃一支覺察的火炬，尋找我們的本源，我們和永恒以及萬物的聯(lián)系，我們從出生那天就知道的聯(lián)系。我們無須因為大量的空虛而慌張。相比于我們創(chuàng)造出的那些，這空虛更加真實。想像我們能有怎樣的存在方式，當我們正視自我不可避免的死亡，感恩生命的權(quán)利，驚異于即將到來的事物。這些都來自于簡單的覺察。

第四篇：ted英語演講稿：擁抱他人,擁抱自己

TED英語演講稿：擁抱他人，擁抱自己

thandienewtonembracingotherness,embracingmyself

擁抱他人，擁抱自己

embracingotherness.whenifirstheardthistheme,ithought,well,embracingothernessisembracingmyself.andthejourneytothatplaceofunderstandingandacceptancehasbeenaninterestingoneforme,andit’sgivenmeaninsightintothewholenotionofself,whichithinkisworthsharingwithyoutoday.擁抱他類。當我第一次聽說這個主題時，我心想，擁抱他類不就是擁抱自己嗎。我個人懂得理解和接受他類的經(jīng)歷很有趣，讓我對于“自己”這個詞也有了新的認識，我想今天在這里和你們分享下我的心得體會。

weeachhaveaself,butidon’tthinkthatwe’rebornwithone.youknowhownewbornbabiesbelievethey’repartofeverything;they’renotseparate?wellthatfundamentalsenseofonenessislostonusveryquickly.it’slikethatinitialstageisover--oneness:infancy,unformed,primitive.it’snolongervalidorreal.whatisrealisseparateness,andatsomepointinearlybabyhood,theideaofselfstartstoform.ourlittleportionofonenessisgivenaname,istoldallkindsofthingsaboutitself,andthesedetails,opinionsandideasbecomefacts,whichgotowardsbuildingourselves,ouridentity.andthatselfbecomesthevehiclefornavigatingoursocialworld.buttheselfisaprojectionbasedonotherpeople’sprojections.isitwhowereallyare?orwhowereallywanttobe,orshouldbe?

我們每個人都有個自我，但并不是生來就如此的。你知道新生的寶寶們覺得他們是任何東西的一部分，而不是分裂的個體。這種本源上的“天人合一”感在我們出生后很快就不見了，就好像我們?nèi)松牡谝粋€篇章--和諧統(tǒng)一、嬰兒，未成形，原始--結(jié)束了。它們似幻似影，而現(xiàn)實的世界是孤獨彼此分離的。而在孩童期的某段時間，我們開始形成自我這個觀點。宇宙中的小小個體有了自己的名字，有了自己的過去等等各種信息。這些關(guān)于自己的細節(jié)，看法和觀點慢慢變成事實，成為我們身份的一部分。而那個自我，也變成我們?nèi)松飞锨靶械膶?dǎo)航儀。然后，這個所謂的自我，是他人自我的映射，還是我們真實的自己呢?我們究竟想成為什么樣，應(yīng)該成為什么樣的呢?

sothiswholeinteractionwithselfandidentitywasaverydifficultoneformegrowingup.theselfthatiattemptedtotakeoutintotheworldwasrejectedoverandoveragain.andmypanicatnothavingaselfthatfit,andtheconfusionthatcamefrommyselfbeingrejected,createdanxiety,shameandhopelessness,whichkindofdefinedmeforalongtime.butinretrospect,thedestructionofmyselfwassorepetitivethatistartedtoseeapattern.theselfchanged,gotaffected,broken,destroyed,butanotheronewouldevolve--sometimesstronger,sometimeshateful,sometimesnotwantingtobethereatall.theselfwasnotconstant.andhowmanytimeswouldmyselfhavetodiebeforeirealizedthatitwasneveraliveinthefirstplace? 這個和自我打交道，尋找自己身份的過程在我的成長記憶中一點都不容易。我想成為的那些“自我”不斷被否定再否定，而我害怕自己無法融入周遭的環(huán)境，因被否定而引起的困惑讓我變得更加憂慮，感到羞恥和無望，在很長一段時間就是我存在狀態(tài)。然而回頭看，對自我的解構(gòu)是那么頻

繁，以至于我發(fā)現(xiàn)了這樣一種規(guī)律。自我是變化的，受他人影響，分裂或被打敗，而另一個自我會產(chǎn)生，這個自我可能更堅強，可能更可憎，有時你也不想變成那樣。所謂自我不是固定不變的。而我需要經(jīng)歷多少次自我的破碎重生才會明白其實自我從來沒有存在過?

igrewuponthecoastofenglandinthe’70s.mydadiswhitefromcornwall,andmymomisblackfromzimbabwe.eventheideaofusasafamilywaschallengingtomostpeople.butnaturehaditswickedway,andbrownbabieswereborn.butfromabouttheageoffive,iwasawarethatididn’tfit.iwastheblackatheistkidintheall-whitecatholicschoolrunbynuns.iwasananomaly,andmyselfwasrootingaroundfordefinitionandtryingtoplugin.becausetheselflikestofit,toseeitselfreplicated,tobelong.thatconfirmsitsexistenceanditsimportance.anditisimportant.ithasanextremelyimportantfunction.withoutit,weliterallycan’tinterfacewithothers.wecan’thatchplansandclimbthatstairwayofpopularity,ofsuccess.butmyskincolorwasn’tright.myhairwasn’tright.myhistorywasn’tright.myselfbecamedefinedbyotherness,whichmeantthat,inthatsocialworld,ididn’treallyexist.andiwas”other”beforebeinganythingelse--evenbeforebeingagirl.iwasanoticeablenobody.我在70年代英格蘭海邊長大，我的父親是康沃爾的白人，母親是津巴布韋的黑人。而想象我和父母是一家人對于其他人來說總是不太自然。自然有它自己的魔術(shù)，棕色皮膚的寶寶誕生了。但從我五歲開始，我就有種感覺我不是這個群體的。我是一個全白人天主教會學校里面黑皮膚無神論小孩。我與他人是不同的，而那個熱衷于歸屬的自我卻到處尋找方式尋找歸屬感。這種認同感讓自我感受到存在感和重要

性，因此十分重要。這點是如此重要，如果沒有自我，我們根本無法與他人溝通。沒有它，我們無所適從，無法獲取成功或變得受人歡迎。但我的膚色不對，我的頭發(fā)不對，我的過去不對，我的一切都是另類定義的，在這個社會里，我其實并不真實存在。我首先是個異類，其次才是個女孩。我是可見卻毫無意義的人。

anotherworldwasopeninguparoundthistime:performanceanddancing.thatnaggingdreadofself-hooddidn’texistwheniwasdancing.i’dliterallylosemyself.andiwasareallygooddancer.iwouldputallmyemotionalexpressionintomydancing.icouldbeinthemovementinawaythatiwasn’tabletobeinmyreallife,inmyself.這時候，另一個世界向我敞開了大門、舞蹈表演。那種關(guān)于自我的嘮叨恐懼在舞蹈時消失了，我放開四肢，也成為了一位不錯的舞者。我將所有的情緒都融入到舞蹈的動作中去，我可以在舞蹈中與自己相溶，盡管在現(xiàn)實生活中卻無法做到。

andat16,istumbledacrossanotheropportunity,andiearnedmyfirstactingroleinafilm.icanhardlyfindthewordstodescribethepeaceifeltwheniwasacting.mydysfunctionalselfcouldactuallyplugintoanotherself,notmyown,anditfeltsogood.itwasthefirsttimethatiexistedinsideafully-functioningself--onethaticontrolled,thatisteered,thatigavelifeto.buttheshootingdaywouldend,andi’dreturntomygnarly,awkwardself.16歲的時候，我遇到了另一個機會，第一部參演的電影。我無法用語言來表達在演戲的時候我所感受到的平和，我無處著落的自我可以與那個角色融為一體，而不是我自

己。那感覺真棒。這是第一次我感覺到我擁有一個自我，我可以駕馭，令其富有盛名的自我。然而當拍攝結(jié)束，我又會回到自己粗糙不明，笨拙的自我。by19,iwasafully-fledgedmovieactor,butstillsearchingfordefinition.iappliedtoreadanthropologyatuniversity.dr.phyllisleegavememyinterview,andsheaskedme,”howwouldyoudefinerace?”well,ithoughtihadtheanswertothatone,andisaid,”skincolor.”“sobiology,genetics?”shesaid.”because,thandie,that’snotaccurate.becausethere’sactuallymoregeneticdifferencebetweenablackkenyanandablackugandanthanthereisbetweenablackkenyanand,say,awhitenorwegian.becauseweallstemfromafrica.soinafrica,there’sbeenmoretimetocreategeneticdiversity.”inotherwords,racehasnobasisinbiologicalorscientificfact.ontheonehand,result.right?ontheotherhand,mydefinitionofselfjustlostahugechunkofitscredibility.butwhatwascredible,whatisbiologicalandscientificfact,isthatweallstemfromafrica--infact,fromawomancalledmitochondrialevewholived160,000yearsago.andraceisanillegitimateconceptwhichourselveshavecreatedbasedonfearandignorance.19歲的時候，我已經(jīng)是富有經(jīng)驗的專業(yè)電影演員，而我還是在尋找自我的定義。我申請了大學的人類學專業(yè)。phyllislee博士面試了我，她問我、“你怎么定義種族?”我覺得我很了解這個話題，我說、“膚色?！薄澳敲瓷锷蟻碚f呢，例如遺傳基因?”她說，“thandie膚色并不全面，其實一個肯尼亞黑人和烏干達黑人之間基因差異比一個肯尼亞黑人和挪威白人之間差異要更多。因為我們都是從非洲來的，所以在非洲，基因變異演化的時間是最久的?！睋Q句話說，種族在生物學或任何科學上都沒有事實根據(jù)。另一方面，我對于自我的定義瞬時失去了一大片基礎(chǔ)。但那就是生

物學事實，我們都是非洲后裔，一位在1600XX年前的偉大女性mitochondrialeve的后人。而種族這個無效的概念是我們基于恐懼和無知自己捏造出來的。

strangely,theserevelationsdidn’tcuremylowself-esteem,thatfeelingofotherness.mydesiretodisappearwasstillverypowerful.ihadadegreefromcambridge;ihadathrivingcareer,butmyselfwasacarcrash,andiwoundupwithbulimiaandonatherapist’scouch.andofcourseidid.istillbelievedmyselfwasalliwas.istillvaluedself-worthaboveallotherworth,andwhatwastheretosuggestotherwise?we’vecreatedentirevaluesystemsandaphysicalrealitytosupporttheworthofself.lookattheindustryforself-imageandthejobsitcreates,therevenueitturnsover.we’dberightinassumingthattheselfisanactuallivingthing.butit’snot.it’saprojectionwhichourcleverbrainscreateinordertocheatourselvesfromtherealityofdeath.奇怪的是，這個發(fā)現(xiàn)并沒有治好我的自卑，那種被排擠的感覺。我還是那么強烈地想要離開消失。我從劍橋拿到了學位，我有份充滿發(fā)展的工作，然而我的自我還是一團糟，我得了催吐病不得不接受治療師的幫助。我還是相信自我是我的全部。我還是堅信“自我”的價值甚過一切。而且我們身處的世界就是如此，我們的整個價值系統(tǒng)和現(xiàn)實環(huán)境都是在服務(wù)“自我”的價值?？纯床煌袠I(yè)里面對于自我的塑造，看看它們創(chuàng)造的那些工作，產(chǎn)出的那些利潤。我們甚至必須相信自我是真實存在的。但它們不是，自我不過是我們聰明的腦袋假想出來騙自己不去思考死亡這個話題的幌子。

butthereissomethingthatcangivetheselfultimateandinfiniteconnection--andthatthingisoneness,ouressence.theself’sstruggleforauthenticityanddefinitionwillneverendunlessit’sconn

ectedtoitscreator--toyouandtome.andthatcanhappenwithawareness--awarenessoftherealityofonenessandtheprojectionofself-hood.forastart,wecanthinkaboutallthetimeswhenwedoloseourselves.ithappenswhenidance,wheni’macting.i’mearthedinmyessence,andmyselfissuspended.inthosemoments,i’mconnectedtoeverything--theground,theair,thesounds,theenergyfromtheaudience.allmysensesarealertandaliveinmuchthesamewayasaninfantmightfeel--thatfeelingofoneness.但其實我們的終極自我其實是我們的本源，合一。掙扎自我是否真實，究竟是什么永遠沒有終結(jié)，除非它和賦予它意義的創(chuàng)造者合一，就是你和我。而這點當我們意識到現(xiàn)實是你中有我，我中有你，和諧統(tǒng)一，而自我是種假象時就會體會到了。我們可以想想，什么時候我們是身心統(tǒng)一的，例如說我跳舞，表演的時候，我和我的本源連結(jié)，而我的自我被拋在一邊。那時，我和身邊的一切--空氣，大地，聲音，觀眾的反饋都連結(jié)在一起。我的知覺是敏銳和鮮活的，就像初生的嬰兒那樣，合一。

andwheni’mactingarole,iinhabitanotherself,andigiveitlifeforawhile,becausewhentheselfissuspendedsoisdivisivenessandjudgment.andi’veplayedeverythingfromavengefulghostinthetimeofslaverytosecretaryofstateinXX.andnomatterhowothertheseselvesmightbe,they’reallrelatedinme.andihonestlybelievethekeytomysuccessasanactorandmyprogressasapersonhasbeentheverylackofselfthatusedtomakemefeelsoanxiousandinsecure.ialwayswonderedwhyicouldfeelothers’painsodeeply,whyicouldrecognizethesomebodyinthenobody.it’sbecauseididn’thaveaselftogetintheway.ithoughtilackedsubstance,andthefactthaticouldfeelo

thers’meantthatihadnothingofmyselftofeel.thethingthatwasasourceofshamewasactuallyasourceofenlightenment.當我在演戲的時候，我讓另一個自我住在我體內(nèi)，我代表它行動。當我的自我被拋開，緊隨的分歧和主觀判斷也消失了。我曾經(jīng)扮演過奴隸時代的復(fù)仇鬼魂，也扮演過XX年的國務(wù)卿。不管他們這些自我是怎樣的，他們都在那時與我相連。而我也深信作為演員，我的成功，或是作為個體，我的成長都是源于我缺乏“自我”，那種缺乏曾經(jīng)讓我非常憂慮和不安。我總是不明白為什么我會那么深地感受到他人的痛苦，為什么我可以從不知名的人身上看出他人的印痕。是因為我沒有所謂的自我來左右我感受的信息吧。我以為我缺少些什么，我以為我對他人的理解是因為我缺乏自我。那個曾經(jīng)是我深感羞恥的東西其實是種啟示。

andwhenirealizedandreallyunderstoodthatmyselfisaprojectionandthatithasafunction,afunnythinghappened.istoppedgivingitsomuchauthority.igiveititsdue.itakeittotherapy.i’vebecomeveryfamiliarwithitsdysfunctionalbehavior.buti’mnotashamedofmyself.infact,irespectmyselfanditsfunction.andovertimeandwithpractice,i’vetriedtolivemoreandmorefrommyessence.andifyoucandothat,incrediblethingshappen.當我真的理解我的自我不過是種映射，是種工具，一件奇怪的事情發(fā)生了。我不再讓它過多控制我的生活。我學習管理它，像把它帶去看醫(yī)生一樣，我很熟悉那些因自我而失調(diào)的舉動。我不因自我而羞恥，事實上，我很尊敬我的自我和它的功能。而隨著時間過去，我的技術(shù)也更加熟練，我可以更多的和我的本源共存。如果你愿意嘗試，不可以思議的事情也會發(fā)生在你身上。

iwasincongoinfebruary,dancingandcelebratingwithwomenw

ho’vesurvivedthedestructionoftheirselvesinliterallyunthinkableways--destroyedbecauseotherbrutalized,psychopathicselvesalloverthatbeautifullandarefuelingourselves’addictiontoipods,pads,andbling,whichfurtherdisconnectourselvesfromeverfeelingtheirpain,theirsuffering,theirdeath.because,hey,ifwe’realllivinginourselvesandmistakingitforlife,thenwe’redevaluinganddesensitizinglife.andinthatdisconnectedstate,yeah,wecanbuildfactoryfarmswithnowindows,destroymarinelifeanduserapeasaweaponofwar.sohere’sanotetoself:thecrackshavestartedtoshowinourconstructedworld,andoceanswillcontinuetosurgethroughthecracks,andoilandblood,riversofit.今年二月，我在剛果和一群女性一起跳舞和慶祝，她們都是經(jīng)歷過各種無法想象事情“自我”遍體鱗傷的人們，那些備受摧殘，心理變態(tài)的自我充斥在這片美麗的土地，而我們?nèi)园V迷地追逐著ipod，pad等各種閃亮的東西，將我們與他們的痛苦，死亡隔得更遠。如果我們各自生活在自我中，并無以為這就是生活，那么我們是在貶低和遠離生命的意義。在這種脫節(jié)的狀態(tài)中，我們是可以建設(shè)沒有窗戶的工廠，破壞海洋生態(tài)，將xx作為戰(zhàn)爭的工具。為我們的自我做個解釋、這是看似完善的世界里的裂痕，海洋，河流，石油和鮮血正不斷地從縫中涌出。

crucially,wehaven’tbeenfiguringouthowtoliveinonenesswiththeearthandeveryotherlivingthing.we’vejustbeeninsanelytryingtofigureouthowtolivewitheachother--billionsofeachother.onlywe’renotlivingwitheachother;ourcrazyselvesarelivingwitheachotherandperpetuatinganepidemicofdisconnection.關(guān)鍵的是，我們還沒有明白如何和自然以及其他所有生物和諧地共處。我們只是瘋狂地想和其他人溝通，幾十億其他人。只有當我們不在和世界合一的時候，我們瘋狂的自我卻互相憐惜，并永遠繼續(xù)這場相互隔絕的疫癥。

let’slivewitheachotherandtakeitabreathatatime.ifwecangetunderthatheavyself,lightatorchofawareness,andfindouressence,ourconnectiontotheinfiniteandeveryotherlivingthing.weknewitfromthedaywewereborn.let’snotbefreakedoutbyourbountifulnothingness.it’smorearealitythantheonesourselveshavecreated.imaginewhatkindofexistencewecanhaveifwehonorinevitabledeathofself,appreciatetheprivilegeoflifeandmarvelatwhatcomesnext.simpleawarenessiswhereitbegins.讓我們共生共榮，并不要太過激進著急。試著放下沉重的自我，點亮知覺的火把，尋找我們的本源，我們與萬事萬物之間的聯(lián)系。我們初生時就懂得這個道理的。不要被我們內(nèi)心豐富的空白嚇到，這比我們虛構(gòu)的自我要真實。想象如果你能接受自我并不存在，你想要如何生活，感恩生命的可貴和未來的驚奇。簡單的覺醒就是開始。thankyouforlistening.(applause)謝謝。(鼓掌)

第五篇：TED英語演講稿

01.Remember to say thank you

Hi.I'm here to talk to you about the importance of praise, admiration and thank you, and having it be specific and genuine.And the way I got interested in this was, I noticed in myself, when I was growing up, and until about a few years ago, that I would want to say thank you to someone, I would want to praise them, I would want to take in their praise of me and I'd just stop it.And I asked myself, why? I felt shy, I felt embarrassed.And then my question became, am I the only one who does this? So, I decided to investigate.I'm fortunate enough to work in the rehab facility, so I get to see people who are facing life and death with addiction.And sometimes it comes down to something as simple as, their core wound is their father died without ever saying he's proud of them.But then, they hear from all the family and friends that the father told everybody else that he was proud of him, but he never told the son.It's because he didn't know that his son needed to hear it.So my question is, why don't we ask for the things that we need? I know a gentleman, married for 25 years, who's longing to hear his wife say, “Thank you for being the breadwinner, so I can stay home with the kids,” but won't ask.I know a woman who's good at this.She, once a week, meets with her husband and says, “I'd really like you to thank me for all these things I did in the house and with the kids.” And he goes, “Oh, this is great, this is great.” And praise really does have to be genuine, but she takes responsibility for that.And a friend of mine, April, who I've had since kindergarten, she thanks her children for doing their chores.And she said, “Why wouldn't I thank it, even though they're supposed to do it?”

So, the question is, why was I blocking it? Why were other people blocking it? Why can I say, “I'll take my steak medium rare, I need size six shoes,” but I won't say, “Would you praise me this way?” And it's because I'm giving you critical data about me.I'm telling you where I'm insecure.I'm telling you where I need your help.And I'm treating you, my inner circle, like you're the enemy.Because what can you do with that data? You could neglect me.You could abuse it.Or you could actually meet my need.And I took my bike into the bike store--I love this--same bike, and they'd do something called “truing” the wheels.The guy said, “You know, when you true the wheels, it's going to make the bike so much better.” I get the same bike back, and they've taken all the little warps out of those same wheels I've had for two and a half years, and my bike is like new.So, I'm going to challenge all of you.I want you to true your wheels: be honest about the praise that you need to hear.What do you need to hear? Go home to your wife--go ask her, what does she need? Go home to your husband--what does he need? Go home and ask those questions, and then help the people around you.And it's simple.And why should we care about this? We talk about world peace.How can we have world peace with different cultures, different languages? I think it starts household by household, under the same roof.So, let's make it right in our own backyard.And I want to thank all of you in the audience for being great husbands, great mothers, friends, daughters, sons.And maybe somebody's never said that to you, but you've done a really, really good job.And thank you for being here, just showing up and changing the world with your ideas.02.The benefits of a bilingual brain

?Hablas espa?ol? Parlez-vous fran?ais? ni hui shuo zhong wen ma? If you answered “si”,”oui” or ”hui” and you are watching this in English, chances are you belong to the world bilingual and multilingual majority.And besides having an easier time traveling, or watching movies without subtitles, knowing two or more languages means that your brain may actually look and work differently than those of your monolingual friends.So what does it really mean to know a language?

Language ability is typically measured in two active parts, speaking and writing, and two passive parts, listening and reading.While a balanced bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in vary proportions.And depending on their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be classified into three general types.For example, let’s take Gabriella, whose family immigrates to the US from Peru when she was two-years old.As a compound bilingual, Gabriella develops two linguistic codes simultaneously, with a single set of concepts, learning both English and Spanish as she begins to process the world around her.Her teenage brother, on the other hand, might be a coordinate bilingual, working with two sets of concepts, learning English in school, while continuing to speak Spanish at home and with friends.Finally, Gabriella’s parents are likely to be subordinate bilinguals who learned a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language.Because all types of bilingual people can become fully proficient in a language regardless of accent and pronunciation, the difference may not be apparent to be a casual observer.But recent advances in imaging technology have given neurolinguists a glimpse into how specific aspects of language learning affect the bilingual brain.It’s well known that the brain’s left hemisphere is more dominant and analytical in logical processes, while the right hemisphere is more active in emotional and social ones, though this is a matter of degree, not an absolute split.The fact that language involves both types of functions while lateralization develops gradually with age, has lead to the critical period hypothesis.According to this theory, children learn languages more easily because the plasticity of their developing brains let them use both hemispheres in language acquisition, while in most adults, language is lateralized to one hemisphere, usually the left.If this is true, learning a language in childhood may give you a more holistic grasp of its social and emotional contexts.Conversely, recent research showed that people who learned a second language in adulthood exhibit less emotional bias and a more rational approach when confronting problems in the second language than their native one.But regardless of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages.Some of these are even visible, such higher density of the gray matter that contains most of your brain’s neurons and synapses, and more activity in certain regions when engaging a second language.The heightened workout a bilingual brain receives throughout its life can also help delay the onset of diseases, like Alzheimers and Dementia by as much as 5 years.The idea of major cognitive benefits to bilingualism may seem intuitive now, but it would have surprised earlier experts.Before the 1960s, bilingualism was considered a handicap that slowed the child’s development by forcing them to spend them too much energy distinguishing between languages, a view based largely on flawed studies.And while a more recent study did show that reaction times and errors increase for some bilingual students in cross-language tests, it also showed that the effort and attention needed to switch between languages triggered more activity in, and potentially strengthened, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.This is the part of brain that plays a large role in executive function, problem solving, switching between tasks, and focusing while filtering out irrelevant information.So, while bilingual may not necessarily make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy, complex and actively engaged, and even if you didn’t have the good fortune of learning a second language like a child, it’s never too late to do yourself a favor and make the linguistic leap from, ”Hello,” to “Hola”, ”Bonjour” or “ninhao’s” because when it comes to our brains a little exercise can go a long way.03.Feats of memory anyone can do

I'd like to invite you to close your eyes.Imagine yourself standing outside the front door of your home.I'd like you to notice the color of the door, the material that it's made out of.Now visualize a pack of overweight nudists on bicycles.They are competing in a naked bicycle race, and they are headed straight for your front door.I need you to actually see this.They are pedaling really hard, they're sweaty, they're bouncing around a lot.And they crash straight into the front door of your home.Bicycles fly everywhere, wheels roll past you, spokes end up in awkward places.Step over the threshold of your door into your foyer, your hallway, whatever's on the other side, and appreciate the quality of the light.The light is shining down on Cookie Monster.Cookie Monster is waving at you from his perch on top of a tan horse.It's a talking horse.You can practically feel his blue fur tickling your nose.You can smell the oatmeal raisin cookie that he's about to shovel into his mouth.Walk past him.Walk past him into your living room.In your living room, in full imaginative broadband, picture Britney Spears.She is scantily clad, she's dancing on your coffee table, and she's singing “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” And then, follow me into your kitchen.In your kitchen, the floor has been paved over with a yellow brick road, and out of your oven are coming towards you Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion from “The Wizard of Oz,” hand-in-hand, skipping straight towards you.Okay.Open your eyes.I want to tell you about a very bizarre contest that is held every spring in New York City.It's called the United States Memory Championship.And I had gone to cover this contest a few years back as a science journalist, expecting, I guess, that this was going to be like the Superbowl of savants.This was a bunch of guys and a few ladies, widely varying in both age and hygienic upkeep.They were memorizing hundreds of random numbers, looking at them just once.They were memorizing the names of dozens and dozens and dozens of strangers.They were memorizing entire poems in just a few minutes.They were competing to see who could memorize the order of a shuffled pack of playing cards the fastest.I was like, this is unbelievable.These people must be freaks of nature.And I started talking to a few of the competitors.This is a guy called Ed Cook, who had come over from England, where he had one of the best-trained memories.And I said to him, “Ed, when did you realize that you were a savant?” And Ed was like, “I'm not a savant.In fact, I have just an average memory.Everybody who competes in this contest will tell you that they have just an average memory.We've all trained ourselves to perform these utterly miraculous feats of memory using a set of ancient techniques, techniques invented 2,500 years ago in Greece, the same techniques that Cicero had used to memorize his speeches, that medieval scholars had used to memorize entire books.” And I said, “Whoa.How come I never heard of this before?”

And we were standing outside the competition hall, and Ed, who is a wonderful, brilliant, but somewhat eccentric English guy, says to me, “Josh, you're an American journalist.Do you know Britney Spears?” I'm like, “What? No.Why?” “Because I really want to teach Britney Spears how to memorize the order of a shuffled pack of playing cards on U.S.national television.It will prove to the world that anybody can do this.”

I was like, “Well, I'm not Britney Spears, but maybe you could teach me.I mean, you've got to start somewhere, right?” And that was the beginning of a very strange journey for me.I ended up spending the better part of the next year not only training my memory, but also investigating it, trying to understand how it works, why it sometimes doesn't work, and what its potential might be.And I met a host of really interesting people.This is a guy called E.P.He's an amnesic who had, very possibly, the worst memory in the world.His memory was so bad, that he didn't even remember he had a memory problem, which is amazing.And he was this incredibly tragic figure, but he was a window into the extent to which our memories make us who we are.At the other end of the spectrum, I met this guy.This is Kim Peek, he was the basis for Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie “Rain Man.” We spent an afternoon together in the Salt Lake City Public Library memorizing phone books, which was scintillating.And I went back and I read a whole host of memory treatises, treatises written 2,000-plus years ago in Latin, in antiquity, and then later, in the Middle Ages.And I learned a whole bunch of really interesting stuff.One of the really interesting things that I learned is that once upon a time, this idea of having a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory was not nearly so alien as it would seem to us to be today.Once upon a time, people invested in their memories, in laboriously furnishing their minds.Over the last few millenia, we've invented a series of technologies--from the alphabet, to the scroll, to the codex, the printing press, photography, the computer, the smartphone--that have made it progressively easier and easier for us to externalize our memories, for us to essentially outsource this fundamental human capacity.These technologies have made our modern world possible, but they've also changed us.They've changed us culturally, and I would argue that they've changed us cognitively.Having little need to remember anymore, it sometimes seems like we've forgotten how.One of the last places on Earth where you still find people passionate about this idea of a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory, is at this totally singular memory contest.It's actually not that singular, there are contests held all over the world.And I was fascinated, I wanted to know how do these guys do it.A few years back a group of researchers at University College London brought a bunch of memory champions into the lab.They wanted to know: Do these guys have brains that are somehow structurally, anatomically different from the rest of ours? The answer was no.Are they smarter than the rest of us? They gave them a bunch of cognitive tests, and the answer was: not really.There was, however, one really interesting and telling difference between the brains of the memory champions and the control subjects that they were comparing them to.When they put these guys in an fMRI machine, scanned their brains while they were memorizing numbers and people's faces and pictures of snowflakes, they found that the memory champions were lighting up different parts of the brain than everyone else.Of note, they were using, or they seemed to be using, a part of the brain that's involved in spatial memory and navigation.Why? And is there something that the rest of us can learn from this?

The sport of competitive memorizing is driven by a kind of arms race where, every year, somebody comes up with a new way to remember more stuff more quickly, and then the rest of the field has to play catch-up.This is my friend Ben Pridmore, three-time world memory champion.On his desk in front of him are 36 shuffled packs of playing cards that he is about to try to memorize in one hour, using a technique that he invented and he alone has mastered.He used a similar technique to memorize the precise order of 4,140 random binary digits in half an hour.Yeah.And while there are a whole host of ways of remembering stuff in these competitions, everything, all of the techniques that are being used, ultimately come down to a concept that psychologists refer to as “elaborative encoding.”

And it's well-illustrated by a nifty paradox known as the Baker/baker paradox, which goes like this: If I tell two people to remember the same word, if I say to you, “Remember that there is a guy named Baker.” That's his name.And I say to you, “Remember that there is a guy who is a baker.” Okay? And I come back to you at some point later on, and I say, “Do you remember that word that I told you a while back? Do you remember what it was?” The person who was told his name is Baker is less likely to remember the same word than the person was told his job is a baker.Same word, different amount of remembering;that's weird.What's going on here?

Well, the name Baker doesn't actually mean anything to you.It is entirely untethered from all of the other memories floating around in your skull.But the common noun “baker”--we know bakers.Bakers wear funny white hats.Bakers have flour on their hands.Bakers smell good when they come home from work.Maybe we even know a baker.And when we first hear that word, we start putting these associational hooks into it, that make it easier to fish it back out at some later date.The entire art of what is going on in these memory contests, and the entire art of remembering stuff better in everyday life, is figuring out ways to transform capital B Bakers into lower-case B bakers--to take information that is lacking in context, in significance, in meaning, and transform it in some way, so that it becomes meaningful in the light of all the other things that you have in your mind.One of the more elaborate techniques for doing this dates back 2,500 years to Ancient Greece.It came to be known as the memory palace.The story behind its creation goes like this:

There was a poet called Simonides, who was attending a banquet.He was actually the hired entertainment, because back then, if you wanted to throw a really slamming party, you didn't hire a D.J., you hired a poet.And he stands up, delivers his poem from memory, walks out the door, and at the moment he does, the banquet hall collapses.Kills everybody inside.It doesn't just kill everybody, it mangles the bodies beyond all recognition.Nobody can say who was inside, nobody can say where they were sitting.The bodies can't be properly buried.It's one tragedy compounding another.Simonides, standing outside, the sole survivor amid the wreckage, closes his eyes and has this realization, which is that in his mind's eye, he can see where each of the guests at the banquet had been sitting.And he takes the relatives by the hand, and guides them each to their loved ones amid the wreckage.What Simonides figured out at that moment, is something that I think we all kind of intuitively know, which is that, as bad as we are at remembering names and phone numbers, and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial memories.If I asked you to recount the first 10 words of the story that I just told you about Simonides, chances are you would have a tough time with it.But, I would wager that if I asked you to recall who is sitting on top of a talking tan horse in your foyer right now, you would be able to see that.The idea behind the memory palace is to create this imagined edifice in your mind's eye, and populate it with images of the things that you want to remember--the crazier, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is, the more unforgettable it's likely to be.This is advice that goes back 2,000-plus years to the earliest Latin memory treatises.So how does this work? Let's say that you've been invited to TED center stage to give a speech, and you want to do it from memory, and you want to do it the way that Cicero would have done it, if he had been invited to TEDxRome 2,000 years ago.What you might do is picture yourself at the front door of your house.And you'd come up with some sort of crazy, ridiculous, unforgettable image, to remind you that the first thing you want to talk about is this totally bizarre contest.And then you'd go inside your house, and you would see an image of Cookie Monster on top of Mister Ed.And that would remind you that you would want to then introduce your friend Ed Cook.And then you'd see an image of Britney Spears to remind you of this funny anecdote you want to tell.And you'd go into your kitchen, and the fourth topic you were going to talk about was this strange journey that you went on for a year, and you'd have some friends to help you remember that.This is how Roman orators memorized their speeches--not word-for-word, which is just going to screw you up, but topic-for-topic.In fact, the phrase “topic sentence”--that comes from the Greek word “topos,” which means “place.” That's a vestige of when people used to think about oratory and rhetoric in these sorts of spatial terms.The phrase “in the first place,” that's like “in the first place of your memory palace.”

I thought this was just fascinating, and I got really into it.And I went to a few more of these memory contests, and I had this notion that I might write something longer about this subculture of competitive memorizers.But there was a problem.The problem was that a memory contest is a pathologically boring event.Truly, it is like a bunch of people sitting around taking the SATs--I mean, the most dramatic it gets is when somebody starts massaging their temples.And I'm a journalist, I need something to write about.I know that there's incredible stuff happening in these people's minds, but I don't have access to it.And I realized, if I was going to tell this story, I needed to walk in their shoes a little bit.And so I started trying to spend 15 or 20 minutes every morning, before I sat down with my New York Times, just trying to remember something.Maybe it was a poem, maybe it was names from an old yearbook that I bought at a flea market.And I found that this was shockingly fun.I never would have expected that.It was fun because this is actually not about training your memory.What you're doing, is you're trying to get better and better at creating, at dreaming up, these utterly ludicrous, raunchy, hilarious, and hopefully unforgettable images in your mind's eye.And I got pretty into it.This is me wearing my standard competitive memorizer's training kit.It's a pair of earmuffs and a set of safety goggles that have been masked over except for two small pinholes, because distraction is the competitive memorizer's greatest enemy.I ended up coming back to that same contest that I had covered a year earlier, and I had this notion that I might enter it, sort of as an experiment in participatory journalism.It'd make, I thought, maybe a nice epilogue to all my research.Problem was, the experiment went haywire.I won the contest--which really wasn't supposed to happen.Now, it is nice to be able to memorize speeches and phone numbers and shopping lists, but it's actually kind of beside the point.These are just tricks.They work because they're based on some pretty basic principles about how our brains work.And you don't have to be building memory palaces or memorizing packs of playing cards to benefit from a little bit of insight about how your mind works.We often talk about people with great memories as though it were some sort of an innate gift, but that is not the case.Great memories are learned.At the most basic level, we remember when we pay attention.We remember when we are deeply engaged.We remember when we are able to take a piece of information and experience, and figure out why it is meaningful to us, why it is significant, why it's colorful, when we're able to transform it in some way that makes sense in the light of all of the other things floating around in our minds, when we're able to transform Bakers into bakers.The memory palace, these memory techniques--they're just shortcuts.In fact, they're not even really shortcuts.They work because they make you work.They force a kind of depth of processing, a kind of mindfulness, that most of us don't normally walk around exercising.But there actually are no shortcuts.This is how stuff is made memorable.And I think if there's one thing that I want to leave you with, it's what E.P., the amnesic who couldn't even remember he had a memory problem, left me with, which is the notion that our lives are the sum of our memories.How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives, by losing ourselves in our Blackberries, our iPhones, by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we're not willing to process deeply?

I learned firsthand that there are incredible memory capacities latent in all of us.But if you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.Thank you.01.請別忘記感謝身邊的人

嗨。我在這里要和大家談?wù)勏騽e人表達贊美，傾佩和謝意的重要性。并使它們聽來真誠，具體。

之所以我對此感興趣是因為我從我自己的成長中注意到幾年前，當我想要對某個人說聲謝謝時，當我想要贊美他們時，當我想接受他們對我的贊揚，但我卻沒有說出口。我問我自己，這是為什么？我感到害羞，我感到尷尬。接著我產(chǎn)生了一個問題難道我是唯一一個這么做的人嗎？所以我決定做些探究。

我非常幸運的在一家康復(fù)中心工作，所以我可以看到那些因為上癮而面臨生與死的人。有時候這一切可以非常簡單地歸結(jié)為，他們最核心的創(chuàng)傷來自于他們父親到死都未說過“他為他們而自豪”。但他們從所有其它家庭或朋友那里得知他的父親告訴其他人為他感到自豪，但這個父親從沒告訴過他兒子。因為他不知道他的兒子需要聽到這一切。

因此我的問題是，為什么我們不索求我們需要的東西呢？我認識一個結(jié)婚25年的男士渴望聽到他妻子說，“感謝你為這個家在外賺錢，這樣我才能在家陪伴著孩子，”但他從來不去問。我認識一個精于此道的女士。每周一次，她見到丈夫后會說，“我真的希望你為我對這個家和孩子們付出的努力而感謝我?！彼麜?yīng)和到“哦，真是太棒了，真是太棒了?！辟潛P別人一定要真誠，但她對贊美承擔了責任。一個從我上幼兒園就一直是朋友的叫April的人，她會感謝她的孩子們做了家務(wù)。她說：“為什么我不表示感謝呢，即使他們本來就要做那些事情？”

因此我的問題是，為什么我不說呢？為什么其它人不說呢？為什么我能說：“我要一塊中等厚度的牛排，我需要6號尺寸的鞋子，”但我卻不能說：“你可以贊揚我嗎？”因為這會使我把我的重要信息與你分享。會讓我告訴了你我內(nèi)心的不安。會讓你認為我需要你的幫助。雖然你是我最貼心的人，我卻把你當作是敵人。你會用我托付給你的重要信息做些什么呢？你可以忽視我。你可以濫用它?；蛘吣憧梢詽M足我的要求。

我把我的自行車拿到車行－－我喜歡這么做－－同樣的自行車，他們會對車輪做整形。那里的人說：“當你對車輪做整形時，它會使自行車變成更好?！蔽野堰@輛自行車拿回來，他們把有小小彎曲的鐵絲從輪子上拿走這輛車我用了2年半，現(xiàn)在還像新的一樣。所以我要問在場的所有人，我希望你們把你們的車輪整形一下：真誠面對對你們想聽到的贊美。你們想聽到什么呢？回家問問你們的妻子，她想聽到什么？回家問問你們的丈夫，他想聽到什么？回家問問這些問題，并幫助身邊的人實現(xiàn)它們。

非常簡單。為什么要關(guān)心這個呢？我們談?wù)撌澜绾推?。我們怎么用不同的文化，不同的語言來保持世界和平？我想要從每個小家庭開始。所以讓我們在家里就把這件事情做好。我想要感謝所有在這里的人們因為你們是好丈夫，好母親，好伙伴，好女兒和好兒子。或許有些人從沒跟你們說過但你們已經(jīng)做得非常非常得出色了。感謝你們來到這里，向世界顯示著你們的智慧，并用它們改變著世界。

02.雙語能力對大腦的益處驚人

你會說中文嗎？如果你能回答“si”、“oui”或者“是的”，而且能看懂這個英文短片，那么你就跟世界上很多人一樣、具備雙語能力或是多語能力。除了旅游時溝通比較方便、看電影不需要字幕這些好處之外，通曉兩種或者三種以上的語言，意味著你的大腦在結(jié)構(gòu)上或運作上與你那些單一語言的朋友有著明顯的不同。所以到底什么才能算通曉一門語言呢？

衡量語言能力，主要包含兩個主動部分——說和寫，和兩個被動部分——聽和讀。雖然一個出色的雙語者對于兩種語言都有著相近的使用能力，但是大多數(shù)的雙語者對兩個語種的認知和使用能力是有差異的。根據(jù)個人所處的環(huán)境以及他們具體學語言的方法，雙語者通?？梢苑殖扇悺?/p>

舉個例子來說，Gabriella在兩歲時跟著家人由秘魯移民到美國。她屬于復(fù)合型雙語者，Gabriella在剛接觸這個世界時就同時學英語和西班牙語，所以給她一個概念、她的大腦就能同時喚起兩種語言信號。她有一個十幾歲的哥哥，則屬于協(xié)調(diào)型雙語使用者，他運用兩種不同的概念，一方面在學校學習英語，另一方面用西班牙語和家人、朋友交流。

最后，Gabriella的父母，則屬于從屬型雙語者。當他們學習外語（英語）時，需要通過母語進行翻譯再進行學習。

如果不考慮口音和發(fā)音問題，這三種類型的雙語者至少都算能精通一門語言。因此，一般人很難發(fā)現(xiàn)這三種類型的差異。然而現(xiàn)在，由于大腦成像技術(shù)不斷進步，神經(jīng)語言學家能夠知道語言學習對雙語使用者的大腦產(chǎn)生什么樣的影響。

大家都知道，大腦的左半球是掌管數(shù)據(jù)和邏輯分析的，而大腦的右半球則掌管情感與社交，但這并不是絕對的、只是比例多少的問題。

語言同時包括了左腦和右腦的功能，而隨著年齡的增長，大腦的功能會逐漸側(cè)重其中的一邊，語言學習的關(guān)鍵時期假說就是由這個事實引申出來的。根據(jù)這個理論，兒童學習語言更容易，是因為他們的大腦仍在發(fā)展、可塑性更強，他們可以同時調(diào)用左右兩邊大腦的機能來學習語言；然而多數(shù)成年人只通過大腦的一邊（通常是左腦）學習語言。

如果這個假說是真的，那么在兒童時期學習語言可以讓你對其社會和情感內(nèi)涵有著更整體的把握。另一方面，近期的研究表明，成年人學習外語時的情緒性偏見沒那么多，同時相比于母語環(huán)境，他們在外語環(huán)境中遇到問題時也更為理性。

無論如何，當你學習一門新的語言時，多語能力都會給你的大腦帶來明顯的好處。有些好處甚至是可視化的，比如大腦灰白質(zhì)的密度增加，那里包含了大多數(shù)的神經(jīng)元和突觸，而且在學習外語時，大腦的部分區(qū)域會變得更加活躍。雙語者的大腦可以持續(xù)不斷地接收強化訓練，這能讓一些病癥（如阿茲海默癡呆癥和失智癥）的發(fā)作推遲至5年以后。

雙語能力對認知能力的有所幫助在現(xiàn)代來看是很好理解的，但是過去的專家一定會對這個觀點大吃一驚。在1960年之前，人們認為使用雙語對于兒童的成長來說是一種障礙，因為這需要兒童花費精力去分辨別不同語言，這種觀點的產(chǎn)生源自有瑕疵的研究方法。

最新的研究的確顯示，在跨語言測驗當中，使用雙語的學生的反應(yīng)時間與錯誤次數(shù)增加了；同時也表明，學生需要花費更多的努力和注意力進行語言的轉(zhuǎn)換，這也使得前額葉腦區(qū)更加活躍、進而強化其機能。前額葉腦區(qū)主要影響執(zhí)行、解決問題、多任務(wù)轉(zhuǎn)換、集中注意力、排除無關(guān)信息的能力。

雖然學習雙語不一定能讓你更聰明，但是它可以讓你的大腦更加健康、多元和活躍。即使你在年幼時沒有機會學習第二語言，但是現(xiàn)在學習永遠不會太晚。從現(xiàn)在開始學一門外語吧，把“hello”轉(zhuǎn)換成“Hola”、“Bonjour”、“你好”(本文作者母語為英語)等外語問候，即使只是小小的訓練，也能對大腦有所幫助。03.每個人都能掌握的記憶技巧

請大家跟我一起閉上眼睛，象一下。

你站在，自己家門口的外面，請留心一下門的顏色，以及門的材質(zhì)，現(xiàn)在請想象一群超重的裸騎者，正在進行一場裸體自行車賽，向你的前門直沖而來，盡量讓畫面想象得栩栩如生近在眼前，他們都在奮力地踩腳踏板汗流浹背，路面非常顛簸，然后徑直撞進了你家前門，自行車四下飛散車輪從你身旁滾過，輻條扎進了各種尷尬角落，跨過門檻，進到門廳、走廊和門里的其他地方，室內(nèi)光線柔和舒適，光線灑在甜餅怪物身上，他坐在一匹棕色駿馬的馬背上，正向你招手，這匹馬會說話，你可以感覺到他的藍色鬃毛讓你鼻子發(fā)癢，你可以聞到他正要扔進嘴里的葡萄燕麥曲奇的香氣，繞過他繞過他走進客廳，站在客廳里把你的想象力調(diào)到最大檔，想象小甜甜布蘭妮，她衣著暴露在你咖啡桌上跳舞，并唱著“Hit Me Baby One More Time”，接下來跟著我走進你的廚房，廚房的地面被一道黃磚路覆蓋，依次鉆出你的烤箱向你走來的是，《綠野仙蹤》里的多蘿西鐵皮人，稻草人和獅子，他們手挽著手蹦蹦跳跳地向你走來，好了睜開眼睛吧，我要給你們講一個每年春天在紐約，都會舉辦的奇異競賽，叫做全美記憶冠軍賽，幾年前我作為一名科技類記者，去報道這項競賽，心里想著大概那兒得像，怪才的“超級碗冠軍賽”一樣熱鬧吧，一大堆男人和屈指可數(shù)的女性，從小孩兒到老人有些還不怎么注意個人衛(wèi)生，有的奮力在只看一次的情況下，記下上百個任意列出的數(shù)字，有的在努力記住成群的陌生人的名字，有的想在幾分鐘內(nèi)努力背下整篇詩歌，還有的在比賽誰能以最快速度，記下一整副打亂的牌的順序，我當時覺得這太不可思議了，這些人肯定天賦異稟。

所以我開始采訪參賽者，這位叫Ed Cook，是從英格蘭來的，他在那兒接受了最好的記憶訓練，我問他 “Ed 你是什么時候開始意識到，自己是記憶天才的?”，Ed答道“我并不是什么專家，其實我的記憶力很一般，來參賽的每一個人，都會告訴你他們的記憶力只是一般水平，我們都在訓練自己后才能，完成這些奇跡般的記憶游戲，我們運用了一系列古老的技巧，這些技巧是希臘人在兩千五百年前發(fā)明的，西塞羅正是用了這些技巧，來記憶他的演講稿的，中世紀學者用這種技巧來背誦正本書籍的內(nèi)容“，我驚訝不已 ”哇噻怎么我從來沒聽說過呢?“，我們站在競技大廳外，聰明過人令人驚嘆，而又稍有些古怪的英國人Ed，對我說 ”Josh 你是個美國記者，你知道小甜甜布蘭妮吧?”，我茫然不解 “什么? 當然為什么要問這個?”，“因為我真的很想在，美國國家電臺上教會布蘭妮，怎樣記住一整副打亂的牌的順序，就能證明這是人人都可以做到的了“，我說 ”雖然我不是布蘭妮，但你也可以教教我呀，總得找個人開教嘛不是嗎?“，接著一段非常奇特的歷程在我面前展開了序幕，結(jié)果第二年的大部分時間，我都花在了訓練自己的記憶力，同時調(diào)查研究記憶上，我想嘗試理解產(chǎn)生記憶的原理，為何有時會記了又忘，及其它到底隱藏著什么樣的潛力，途中我遇到了很多有趣的人，其中一個叫E.P.，他患有健忘癥他的記憶力，恐怕是世界上最差的了，他的記憶能力差到，甚至記不得自己有健忘癥，真的很神奇，雖然他是個悲劇角色，但通過他我們能了解到，記憶在何種程度上塑造了我們的人格，情況的另一個極端是我遇到了這樣一個人，他叫Kim Peek，他是Dustin Hoffman在電影《雨人》里的角色的原型，我和他花了一下午，在鹽湖城公共圖書館里背電話簿，讓我大開眼界，回家后我讀了許多關(guān)于記憶的論文，寫于兩千多年前的論文，用拉丁文寫的從古代，一直到后來中世紀期間，我學到很多很有意思的事兒，其中一個就是，曾經(jīng)，訓練規(guī)束培養(yǎng)記憶力的這種概念，完全不像如今那樣陌生，曾幾何時人們寄希望于自己的記憶，能不遺余力地裝飾自己的心靈，近幾千年來，人類發(fā)明了一系列技術(shù)，從字母表到卷軸，到法典印刷機攝影技術(shù)，電腦智能手機，讓我們能越來越輕松地，外化記憶能力，讓我們從根本上，把這種基礎(chǔ)的人類能力拱手讓出，這些技術(shù)讓現(xiàn)代生活變?yōu)榭赡?，但同時也改變了我們，不僅在文化上，我覺得也在認知上，不再需要費勁去記憶，有時會覺得我們已經(jīng)忘了如何去記憶，在這片地球上已經(jīng)很少有地方，能讓你覺得人們?nèi)詿嶂杂?，訓練?guī)束培養(yǎng)記憶力了，那非同尋常的記憶大賽算是一個，其實它也沒有那么非同尋常，世界各地都開始舉辦這樣的競賽，我對此深深著迷想要知道這些人是怎么做到的，幾年前倫敦大學學院的一組研究人員，請來一批記憶大賽的冠軍接受研究，他們想要弄明白，這些人的大腦，是否跟我們其他人在解剖學上的結(jié)構(gòu)不一樣?，答案是否定的，那他們比我們都聰明嗎?，他們給研究對象實施了一系列認知測試，依舊得出了否定結(jié)論，但對比受控制的比對目標的大腦，記憶大賽冠軍們的大腦，確實有一處很有趣的不同很說明問題，這些人被送去做功能磁共振，掃描大腦時，當他們在記憶數(shù)字或人臉或雪花圖案時，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)記憶大賽冠軍們，的大腦激活的區(qū)域，跟普通人不太一樣，值得注意的是他們看來是在用，腦中在空間記憶和導(dǎo)航時會用到的部分，為什么? 我們可以從中得出什么樣的結(jié)論呢?，競爭性記憶的較量，被一種類似軍事比賽的方式推向了白熱化，每年都會有人，帶著更有效的記憶方法現(xiàn)身賽場，而其他人就必須迎頭趕上，這是我的朋友Ben Pridmore，贏得過三次國際記憶大賽冠軍，在他的臺前，有三十六副打亂順序的牌，他要在一個小時內(nèi)記下全部，用的是一種他自己發(fā)明的也只有他會的技巧，用與此類似的方法，他曾一字不差地背下了，4140個任意排列的二進制數(shù)，只用了半個小時，很牛吧，參賽者在這些競賽中，運用過很多不同的記憶方法，各式各樣被運用到的所有技巧，最終都能歸化為一個概念，心理學家稱之為”精細編碼“，這個概念能用一則幽默的悖論完美詮釋，叫做Baker/baker悖論，簡單說來就是，假設(shè)我讓兩個人去記同一個詞，我跟你說，”記住有個人叫Baker“，Baker是人名，我又來告訴你 ”記住有個人是面包師(baker)“，過了一段時間我又回來找到你們，問 ”還記得我之前，叫你們記住的那個詞嗎?“，”還記得是什么詞嗎?“，被告知人名是Baker的人，記住這個詞的可能性遠不如，被告知職業(yè)是面包師的那個人，同樣的詞導(dǎo)致不同的記憶程度，到底是為什么呢，是因為人名Baker沒有任何特殊含義，沒法跟你腦海里，零碎繁雜的記憶產(chǎn)生任何聯(lián)系，但是面包師(baker)作為一個常用名詞，我們都知道面包師是什么，面包師帶著搞笑的白帽子，他們手上沾滿了面粉，他們下班回到家?guī)е鴵浔堑目久姘?，甚至可能有些人有朋友就是面包師，我們初次聽到這個詞時，馬上就會產(chǎn)生各種各樣的聯(lián)想，這使我們能在一段時間后還能回憶起來，其實要理解記憶競賽中的，一切奧妙，或在日常生活中改善記憶力的秘訣，僅僅在于想辦法把Baker中的大寫B(tài)，變?yōu)槊姘鼛?baker)中的小寫b，把沒有前因后果，沒有重要性沒有涵義的信息，用某種方法轉(zhuǎn)化為，有意義的內(nèi)容，跟腦海里的其他記憶串聯(lián)起來，這種精確記憶的技巧，在兩千五百年前的古希臘就已出現(xiàn)，后來將其稱為記憶宮殿，發(fā)明這種技巧的過程如下，有個叫做Simonides的詩人，他要去參加一個晚宴，其實他算是被請去做表演嘉賓的，因為在那個年代炫酷派對的標準，不是請D.J.來打碟而是要請詩人來頌詩，他站起來背出了他的全篇詩作然后瀟灑離去，他剛走出門口晚宴大廳就塌了，砸死了里面所有的人，不僅全體死亡，所有的死者都被砸得面目全非，沒人說得清死者都有些誰，沒人說得清誰坐在哪兒，導(dǎo)致死者的尸體沒法得到合適的殉葬安置，這又加重了整件事的悲劇色彩，Simonides站在外面，作為廢墟中的唯一幸存者，閉上眼睛猛然意識到，在他的腦海中，他眼前出現(xiàn)了所有賓客所坐的位置，他就牽著親屬們的手，穿過廢墟把他們帶到了親人身邊，Simonides當時猛然醒悟的事，大概我們大家也都猜到了，其實是不管我們，有多不善于記住姓名電話號碼，或是同事的每句指令，我們都擁有異常敏銳的視覺或空間記憶能力，要是我讓你們逐字逐句地重述，我剛才講的Simonides故事的前十個字，應(yīng)該沒幾個人會記得，但我敢打賭，如果我讓你們現(xiàn)在回想下，在你的門廳里坐在會講話的棕色駿馬上的，是誰，你們就明白我剛才說的意思了，記憶宮殿的原理，就是在你的腦海里建立一棟想象大廈，并讓你想記住的東西，的影像充滿其中，越是瘋狂古怪奇詭，荒誕搞笑亂七八糟招人厭惡的影像，就越容易記住，這個建議來自于兩千多年前，拉丁最早的記憶學者，那么這種說法的原理到底是什么呢，假設(shè)你被邀請，站上TED的中心講臺演講，而你想脫稿完成，如西塞羅在兩千年前在TEDx羅馬上的演講一般，他就會這么霸氣走一回而你也想這樣，你要做的就是，想象自己站在自家門前，然后憑空想象出，一段完全荒誕瘋狂難忘的景象，用來提示你上臺要提的第一件事，就是這場詭異的裸騎大賽，然后你走進房子里，想到甜餅怪物，坐在Ed先生背上的樣子，這個景象會提醒你，要介紹你的朋友Ed Cook，然后你腦海里出現(xiàn)了小甜甜布蘭妮的樣子，你就會想起要講那個關(guān)于布蘭妮的小故事，然后你走進廚房，你要說到的第四個話題是，你花了一整年走過的奇妙歷程，通過綠野仙蹤就可以聯(lián)想得到，這就是羅馬演說家背誦演講稿的秘訣，并非一字不差逐字背誦只會平添麻煩，而是記住一個個主題，其實短語”主題句“，就來源于希臘詞”topos“，意思是”地點“，這是古時候，人們談到演講或是修辭時，會用到的空間術(shù)語，短語 ”第一"，就意味著你的記憶宮殿的第一層，這簡直太有意思了，我對這起了很大的興趣，后來我又去了更多記憶大賽，我開始萌發(fā)了要更詳細描寫，這種競技記憶文化的念頭，但有一個問題，問題是記憶大賽，其實過程很無聊的，(大笑)，真的就像一群人坐那兒高考一樣，最最激動人心的時刻，也不過就是有人揉了揉太陽穴，我是個記者總得有東西可寫呀，我知道這些人腦子里肯定是驚濤駭浪，但我作為外人無法得見，我意識到若我真的想報道這事兒，一定得親身體驗才行，所以我開始嘗試著每天早上坐下來看紐約時報前，花上十五到二十分鐘，嘗試記憶一些事，背背小詩，背背我在跳蚤市場買來的，舊年鑒里的人名，我驚奇地發(fā)現(xiàn)這其實非常帶勁，要不去嘗試根本想不到，有趣在于其實目標并不是要通過訓練提高記憶力，而是你在努力培養(yǎng)改善，創(chuàng)造力想象力，在你的腦海里憑空造出，那些完全滑稽荒誕胡亂最好是難忘的影像，而它成為了我的樂趣，這是我戴著標準競賽記憶者訓練套裝的樣子，它有一對耳塞，一副護目鏡鏡面全部遮黑，就留了兩個小孔，因為競技記憶者最大的敵人就是注意力分散，最后我再次回到了一年前報道的那場競賽場上，我一時沖動也想報名參加，就當做參與性新聞報道的實驗了，我當時想到時能在前言里調(diào)侃一下自己也好，問題是實驗最后得到了意想不到的結(jié)果，那場競賽我贏了，真是完全出乎我預(yù)料之外，對我來說現(xiàn)在，背演講稿電話號碼或是購物單，都是小菜一碟倒是很不錯，但其實這些都不重要了，這些都是小伎倆，這些記憶伎倆之所以有效，是因為它們依仗人類大腦運轉(zhuǎn)的，一些基本原理，并不用真的去建立記憶宮殿，或記下幾副牌的順序，你也完全可以從了解大腦運轉(zhuǎn)原理中，獲得一些益處，我們總會議論記憶力很好的人，總覺得那些人是天賦異稟，事實并不是這樣，強大的記憶力是可以習得的，從最根本的說起專心致志就能記住，全心投入時就能記住，只要能想辦法把信息和經(jīng)歷，轉(zhuǎn)化為有意義的事，就能記住，想它為何重要為何多彩，當我們能把它轉(zhuǎn)化成為，有前因后果的事，并跟我們腦海中繁雜瑣碎的其他事產(chǎn)生聯(lián)想時，當我們能把人名Baker轉(zhuǎn)化為面包師baker時，記憶宮殿或是那些記憶技巧，都只是捷徑而已，其實說到底它們都不能算捷徑，這方法有效是因為它迫使你思考，它迫使你往更深層次去想，讓你更加專注，大部分人平時并不會費力去訓練這個，其實捷徑并不存在，這一直就是我們能記住事物的原因，有一件事我希望你們能記住，就是E.P.，那個連自己患了健忘癥都想不起來的人，讓我深思，得出了一個感想，人生就是我們個人記憶的合集，在短暫的人生里，你還愿意因為黑莓 iPhone，喪失多少瞬間，忽略對面坐著的人，在跟我們交談的人，變得越發(fā)懶惰不愿意，深究任何事？，通過親身經(jīng)歷我發(fā)現(xiàn)，我們的身體里潛藏著，不可思議的記憶能力，但若你想活得難忘，就得做那種，記得時常記憶的人。

謝謝。