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TED英语演讲稿：What fear can teach us恐惧可以教会我们什么
one day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of chile, in one of the most remote regions of the pacific ocean, 20 american sailors watched their ship flood with seawater.
18的某一天， 在距离智利海岸3000英里的地方， 有一个太平洋上的最偏远的水域， 20名美国船员目睹了他们的船只进水的场面。
they'd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ship's hull. as their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together in three small whaleboats.
他们和一头抹香鲸相撞，给船体撞了 一个毁灭性的大洞。 当船在巨浪中开始沉没时， 人们在三条救生小艇中抱作一团。
these men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest scrap of land. in their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.
这些人在离家10000万英里的地方， 离最近的陆地也超过1000英里。 在他们的小艇中，他们只带了 落后的导航设备 和有限的食物和饮水。
these were the men of the whaleship essex, whose story would later inspire parts of “moby dick.”
他们就是捕鲸船essex上的人们， 后来的他们的故事成为《白鲸记》的一部分。
even in today's world, their situation would be really dire, but think about how much worse it would have been then.
即使在当今的世界，碰上这种情况也够杯具的，更不用说在当时的情况有多糟糕。
no one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. no search party was coming to look for these men. so most of us have never experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, but we all know what it's like to be afraid.
岸上的人根本就还没意识到出了什么问题。 没有任何人来搜寻他们。 我们当中大部分人没有经历过 这些船员所处的可怕情景， 但我们都知道害怕是什么感觉。
we know how fear feels, but i'm not sure we spend enough time thinking about what our fears mean.
我们知道恐惧的感觉， 但是我不能肯定我们会花很多时间想过 我们的恐惧到底意味着什么。
as we grow up, we're often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates.
我们长大以后，我们总是会被鼓励把恐惧 视为软弱，需要像乳牙或轮滑鞋一样 扔掉的幼稚的东西。
and i think it's no accident that we think this way. neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists.
我想意外事故并非我们所想的那样。 神经系统科学家已经知道人类 生来就是乐观主义者。
so maybe that's why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. “don't worry,” we like to say to one another. “don't panic.” in english, fear is something we conquer. it's something we fight.
这也许就是为什么我们认为有时候恐惧， 本身就是一种危险或带来危险。 “不要愁。”我们总是对别人说。“不要慌”。 英语中，恐惧是我们需要征服的东西。 是我们必须对抗的东西，是我们必须克服的东西。
it's something we overcome. but what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? what if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?
但是我们如果换个视角看恐惧会如何呢? 如果我们把恐惧当做是想象力的一个惊人成果， 是和我们讲故事一样 精妙而有见地的东西，又会如何呢?
it's easiest to see this link between fear and the imagination in young children, whose fears are often extraordinarily vivid.
在小孩子当中，我们最容易看到恐惧与想象之间的联系， 他们的恐惧经常是超级生动的。
when i was a child, i lived in california, which is, you know, mostly a very nice place to live, but for me as a child, california could also be a little scary.
我小时候住在加利福尼亚， 你们都知道，是非常适合居住的位置， 但是对一个小孩来说，加利福尼亚也会有点吓人。
i remember how frightening it was to see the chandelier that hung above our dining table swing back and forth during every minor earthquake, and i sometimes couldn't sleep at night, terrified that the big one might strike while we were sleeping.
我记得每次小地震的时候 当我看到我们餐桌上的吊灯 晃来晃去的时候是多么的吓人， 我经常会彻夜难眠，担心大地震 会在我们睡觉的时候突然袭来。
and what we say about kids who have fears like that is that they have a vivid imagination. but at a certain point, most of us learn to leave these kinds of visions behind and grow up.
我们说小孩子感受到这种恐惧 是因为他们有生动的想象力。 但是在某个时候，我们大多数学会了 抛弃这种想法而变得成熟。
we learn that there are no monsters hiding under the bed, and not every earthquake brings buildings down. but maybe it's no coincidence that some of our most creative minds fail to leave these kinds of fears behind as adults.
我们都知道床下没有魔鬼， 也不是每个地震都会震垮房子。但是我们当中最有想象力的人们 并没有因为成年而抛弃这种恐惧，这也许并不是巧合。
the same incredible imaginations that produced “the origin of species,” “jane eyre” and “the remembrance of things past,” also generated intense worries that haunted the adult lives of charles darwin, charlotte bront and marcel proust. so the question is, what can the rest of us learn about fear from visionaries and young children?
同样不可思议的想象力创造了《物种起源》， 《简・爱》和《追忆似水年华》， 也就是这种与生俱来的深深的担忧一直缠绕着成年的 查尔斯・达尔文， 夏洛特・勃朗特和马塞尔・普罗斯特。 问题就来了， 我们其他人如何能从这些 梦想家和小孩子身上学会恐惧?
well let's return to the year 1819 for a moment, to the situation facing the crew of the whaleship essex. let's take a look at the fears that their imaginations were generating as they drifted in the middle of the pacific.
让我们暂时回到1819年， 回到essex捕鲸船的水手们面对的情况。 让我们看看他们漂流在太平洋中央时 他们的想象力给他们带来的恐惧感觉。
twenty-four hours had now passed since the capsizing of the ship. the time had come for the men to make a plan, but they had very few options.
船倾覆后已经过了24个小时。 这时人们制定了一个计划， 但是其实他们没什么太多的选择。
in his fascinating account of the disaster, nathaniel philbrick wrote that these men were just about as far from land as it was possible to be anywhere on earth.
在纳撒尼尔・菲尔布里克(nathaniel philbrick)描述这场灾难的 动人文章中，他写到“这些人离陆地如此之远， 似乎永远都不可能到达地球上的任何一块陆地。”
the men knew that the nearest islands they could reach were the marquesas islands, 1,200 miles away. but they'd heard some frightening rumors.
这些人知道离他们最近的岛 是1200英里以外的马克萨斯群岛(marquesas islands)。 但是他们听到了让人恐怖的谣言。
they'd been told that these islands, and several others nearby, were populated by cannibals. so the men ///picing ashore only to be murdered and eaten for dinner. another possible destination was hawaii, but given the season, the captain was afraid they'd be struck by severe storms.
他们听说这些群岛， 以及附近的一些岛屿上都住着食人族。 所以他们脑中都是上岸以后就会被杀掉 被人当做盘中餐的画面。 另一个可行的目的.地是夏威夷， 但是船长担心 他们会被困在风暴当中。
now the last option was the longest, and the most difficult: to sail 1,500 miles due south in hopes of reaching a certain band of winds that could eventually push them toward the coast of south america.
所以最后的选择是到最远，也是最艰险的地方： 往南走1500英里希望某股风 能最终把他们 吹到南美洲的海岸。
but they knew that the sheer length of this journey would stretch their supplies of food and water. to be eaten by cannibals, to be battered by storms, to starve to death before reaching land.
但是他们知道这个行程中一旦偏航 将会耗尽他们食物和饮水的供给。 被食人族吃掉，被风暴掀翻， 在登陆前饿死。
these were the fears that danced in the imaginations of these poor men, and as it turned out, the fear they chose to listen to would govern whether they lived or died.
这就是萦绕在这群可怜的人想象中的恐惧， 事实证明，他们选择听从的恐惧 将决定他们的生死。
now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. what if instead of calling them fears, we called them stories?
也许我们可以很容易的用别的名称来称呼这些恐惧。 我们不称之为恐惧， 而是称它们为故事如何?
because that's really what fear is, if you think about it. it's a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. and fears and storytelling have the same components.
如果你仔细想想，这是恐惧真正的意义。 这是一种与生俱来的， 无意识的讲故事的能力。 恐惧和讲故事有着同样的构成。
they have the same architecture. like all stories, fears have characters. in our fears, the characters are us. fears also have plots. they have beginnings and middles and ends. you board the plane.
他们有同样的结构。 如同所有的故事，恐惧中有角色。 在恐惧中，角色就是我们自己。 恐惧也有情节。他们有开头，有中间，有结尾。 你登上飞机。
the plane takes off. the engine fails. our fears also tend to contain imagery that can be every bit as vivid as what you might find in the pages of a novel. picture a cannibal, human teeth sinking into human skin, human flesh roasting over a fire.
飞机起飞。结果引擎故障。 我们的恐惧会包括各种生动的想象， 不比你看到的任何一个小说逊色。 想象食人族，人类牙齿 咬在人类皮肤上， 人肉在火上烤。
fears also have suspense. if i've done my job as a storyteller today, you should be wondering what happened to the men of the whaleship essex. our fears provoke in us a very similar form of suspense.
恐惧中也有悬念。 如果我今天像讲故事一样，留个悬念不说了， 你们也许会很想知道 essex捕鲸船上，人们到底怎么样了。 我们的恐惧用悬念一样的方式刺激我们。
just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: what will happen next?
就像一个很好的故事，我们的恐惧也如同一部好的文学作品一样， 将我们的注意力集中在对我们生命至关重要的问题上： 后来发生了什么?
in other words, our fears make us think about the future. and humans, by the way, are the only creatures capable of thinking about the future in this way, of projecting ourselves forward in time, and this mental time travel is just one more thing that fears have in common with storytelling.
换而言之，我们的恐惧让我们想到未来。 另外，人来是唯一有能力 通过这种方式想到未来的生物， 就是预测时间推移后我们的状况， 这种精神上的时间旅行是恐惧 与讲故事的另一个共同点。
as a writer, i can tell you that a big part of writing fiction is learning to predict how one event in a story will affect all the other events, and fear works in that same way.
我是一个作家，我要告诉你们写小说一个很重要的部分 就是学会预测故事中一件 事情如何影响另一件事情， 恐惧也是同样这么做的。
in fear, just like in fiction, one thing always leads to another. when i was writing my first novel, “the age of miracles,” i spent months trying to figure out what would happen if the rotation of the earth suddenly began to slow down. what would happen to our days?
恐惧中，如同小说一样，一件事情总是导致另一件事情。 我写我的第一部小说《奇迹时代》的时候， 我花了数月的时间想象如果地球旋转突然变慢了之后 会发生什么。 我们的一天变得如何?
what would happen to our crops? what would happen to our minds? and then it was only later that i realized how very similar these questions were to the ones i used to ask myself as a child frightened in the night.
我们身体会怎样? 我们的思想会有什么变化? 也就是在那之后，我意识到 我过去总是问自己的那些些问题 和孩子们在夜里害怕是多么的相像。
if an earthquake strikes tonight, i used to worry, what will happen to our house? what will happen to my family? and the answer to those questions always took the form of a story.
要是在过去，如果今晚发生地震，我会很担心， 我的房子会怎么样啊?家里人会怎样啊? 这类问题的答案通常都会和故事一样。
so if we think of our fears as more than just fears but as stories, we should think of ourselves as the authors of those stories. but just as importantly, we need to think of ourselves as the readers of our fears, and how we choose to read our fears can have a profound effect on our lives.
所以我们认为我们的恐惧不仅仅是恐惧 还是故事，我们应该把自己当作 这些故事的作者。 但是同样重要的是，我们需要想象我们自己 是我们恐惧的解读者，我们选择如何 去解读这些恐惧会对我们的生活产生深远的影响。
now, some of us naturally read our fears more closely than others. i read about a study recently of successful entrepreneurs, and the author found that these people shared a habit that he called “productive paranoia,” which meant that these people, instead of dismissing their fears, these people read them closely, they studied them, and then they translated that fear into preparation and action.
现在，我们中有些人比其他人更自然的解读自己的恐惧。 最近我看过一个关于成功的企业家的研究， 作者发现这些人都有个习惯 叫做“未雨绸缪“， 意思是，这些人，不回避自己的恐惧， 而是认真解读并研究恐惧， 然后把恐惧转换成准备和行动。
so that way, if their worst fears came true, their businesses were ready.
这样，如果最坏的事情发生了， 他们的企业也有所准备。
and sometimes, of course, our worst fears do come true. that's one of the things that is so extraordinary about fear. once in a while, our fears can predict the future.
当然，很多时候，最坏的事情确实发生了。 这是恐惧非凡的一面。 曾几何时，我们的恐惧预测将来。
but we can't possibly prepare for all of the fears that our imaginations concoct. so how can we tell the difference between the fears worth listening to and all the others? i think the end of the story of the whaleship essex offers an illuminating, if tragic, example.
但是我们不可能为我们想象力构建的所有 恐惧来做准备。 所以，如何区分值得听从的恐惧 和不值得的呢? 我想捕鲸船essex的故事结局 提供了一个有启发性，同时又悲惨的例子。
after much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to south america.
经过数次权衡，他们最终做出了决定。 由于害怕食人族，他们决定放弃最近的群岛 而是开始更长 更艰难的南美洲之旅。
after more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. when the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism.
在海上呆了两个多月后，他们 的食物如预料之中消耗殆尽， 而且他们仍然离陆地那么远。 当最后的幸存者最终被过往船只救起时， 只有一小半的人还活着， 实际上他们中的一些人自己变成了食人族。
herman melville, who used this story as research for “moby dick,” wrote years later, and from dry land, quote, “all the sufferings of these miserable men of the essex might in all human probability have been avoided had they, immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for tahiti.
赫尔曼・梅尔维尔(herman melville)将这个故事作为 《白鲸记》的素材，在数年后写到： essex船上遇难者的悲惨结局 或许是可以通过人为的努力避免的， 如果他们当机立断地离开沉船， 直奔塔西提群岛。
but,” as melville put it, “they dreaded cannibals.” so the question is, why did these men dread cannibals so much more than the extreme likelihood of starvation?
“但是”，梅尔维尔说道：“他们害怕食人族” 问题是，为什么这些人对于食人族的恐惧 超过了更有可能的饥饿威胁呢?
why were they swayed by one story so much more than the other? looked at from this angle, theirs becomes a story about reading. the novelist vladimir nabokov said that the best reader has a combination of two very different temperaments, the artistic and the scientific.
为什么他们会被一个故事 影响如此之大呢? 从另一个角度来看， 这是一个关于解读的故事。 小说家弗拉基米尔・纳博科夫(vladimir nabokov)说 最好的读者能把两种截然不同的性格结合起来， 一个是艺术气质，一个是科学精神。
a good reader has an artist's passion, a willingness to get caught up in the story, but just as importantly, the readers also needs the coolness of judgment of a scientist, which acts to temper and complicate the reader's intuitive reactions to the story. as we've seen, the men of the essex had no trouble with the artistic part.
好的读者有艺术家的热情， 愿意融入故事当中， 但是同样重要的是，这些读者还要 有科学家的冷静判断， 这能帮助他们稳定情绪并分析 其对故事的直觉反应。 我们可以看出来，essex上的人在艺术部分一点问题都没有。
they dreamed up a variety of horrifying scenarios. the problem was that they listened to the wrong story. of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to picture: cannibals.
他们梦想到一系列恐怖的场景。 问题在于他们听从了一个错误的故事。 所有他们恐惧中 他们只对其中最耸人听闻，最生动的故事， 也是他们想象中最早出现的场景： 食人族。
but perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears more like a scientist, with more coolness of judgment, they would have listened instead to the less violent but the more likely tale, the story of starvation, and headed for tahiti, just as melville's sad commentary suggests.
也许，如果他们能像科学家那样 稍微冷静一点解读这个故事， 如果他们能听从不太惊悚但是更可能发生的 半路饿死的故事，他们可能就会直奔塔西提群岛， 如梅尔维尔充满惋惜的评论所建议的那样。
and maybe if we all tried to read our fears, we too would be less often swayed by the most salacious among them.
也许如果我们都试着解读自己的恐惧， 我们就能少被 其中的一些幻象所迷惑。
maybe then we'd spend less time worrying about serial killers and plane crashes, and more time concerned with the subtler and slower disasters we face: the silent buildup of plaque in our arteries, the gradual changes in our climate.
我们也就能少花一点时间在 为系列杀手或者飞机失事方面的担忧， 而是更多的关心那些悄然而至 的灾难： 动脉血小板的逐渐堆积， 气候的逐渐变迁。
just as the most nuanced stories in literature are often the richest, so too might our subtlest fears be the truest. read in the right way, our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how that future will play out.
如同文学中最精妙的故事通常是最丰富的故事， 我们最细微的恐惧才是最真实的恐惧。 用正确的方法的解读，我们的恐惧就是我们想象力 赐给我们的礼物，借此一双慧眼， 让我们能管窥未来 甚至影响未来。
properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as our favorite works of literature: a little wisdom, a bit of insight and a version of that most elusive thing -- the truth. thank you.
如果能得到正确的解读，我们的恐惧能 和我们最喜欢的文学作品一样给我们珍贵的东西： 一点点智慧，一点点洞悉 以及对最玄妙东西―― 真相的诠释。 谢谢。
(applause)
(掌声)
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predict the future. But we can't possibly prepare for all of the fears that our imaginations concoct. So how can we tell the difference between the fears worth listening to and all the others? I think the end of the story of the whaleship Essex offers an illuminating, if tragic, example. After much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. Terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to South
America. After more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism. Herman Melville, who used this story as research for “Moby Dick,” wrote years later, and from dry land, quote, “All the sufferings of these miserable men of the Essex might in all human probability have been avoided had they, immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for Tahiti. But,” as Melville put it, “they dreaded cannibals.” So the question is, why did these men dread cannibals so much more than the extreme likelihood of starvation? Why were they swayed by one story so much more than the other? Looked at from this angle, theirs becomes a story about reading.
当然，有时候，我们所担心的最坏的事情的确发生了。这就是恐惧本身如此特别的一点。偶尔，我们的恐惧可以预测未来。但我们不可能为我们想象力编造出来的所有恐惧都作好准备。那么，我们如何辨别出值得听的恐惧和其余不值听的呢?我认为捕鲸船Essex号的故事结局提供了一个富有启发性的例子，尽管是个悲剧结局。经过再三斟酌后，这些人最终作出了一个决定。由于害怕食人族，他们决定放弃航行到最近的岛屿，而选择了更长、更艰难的去往南美洲的航线。在海上待了两个多月后，他们的食物如先前预料地消耗殆尽，而他们离陆地依然很远。当最后的幸存者最终被两艘路过的船只救起来时，只有不到一半的人还活着，而其中一些人也选择了吃人肉的做法。赫尔曼・梅尔维尔(Herman Melville)在多年之后写《白鲸记》前，研究了这个故事，身处陆地，他引述道：“Essex号上的这些可怜的船员所遭受的苦难或许是可以完全避免的，倘若他们能够在离开沉船后立刻向塔希提岛(Tahiti)航行。但是，”正如梅尔维尔所说，“他们害怕食人族。”所以问题来了，为什么这些人对食人族的恐惧如此之深，甚至都超过了极有可能发生的饥饿威胁呢?为什么他们被一个故事影响的程度远胜于另一个故事呢?从这个角度来看，他们的故事变成了一个关于解读的故事。
The novelist Vladimir Nabokov said that the best reader has a
combination of two very different temperaments, the artistic and the
scientific. A good reader has an artist's passion, a willingness to get caught up in the story, but just as importantly, the reader also needs the coolness of judgment of a scientist, which acts to temper and
complicate the reader's intuitive reactions to the story. As we've seen, the men of the Essex had no trouble with the artistic part. They
dreamed up a variety of horrifying scenarios. The problem was that they listened to the wrong story. Of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to picture: cannibals. But perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears more like a scientist, with more coolness of judgment, they would have listened instead to the less
violent but the more likely tale, the story of starvation, and headed for Tahiti, just as Melville's sad commentary suggests. And maybe if we all tried to read our fears, we too would be less often swayed by the most salacious among them. Maybe then we'd spend less time worrying about serial killers and plane crashes, and more time concerned with the subtler and slower disasters we face: the silent buildup of plaque in our arteries, the gradual changes in our climate. Just as the most nuanced stories in literature are often the richest, so too might our subtlest fears be the truest. Read in the right way, our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to
influence how that future will play out. Properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as our favorite works of literature: a little wisdom, a bit of insight and a version of that most elusive thing -- the truth.
小说家弗拉基米尔・纳博科夫(Vladimir Nabokov)说最好的读者能把两种截然不同的性格结合起来，一个是艺术气质，一个是科学精神。好的读者有艺术家的热情，愿意融入故事当中，但是同样重要的是，这些读者还要有科学家的冷静判断，这能帮助他们稳定情绪并分析其对故事的直觉反应。我们可以看出来，ESSEX上的人在艺术部分一点问题都没有。他们梦想到一系列恐怖的场景。问题在于他们听从了一个错误的故事。所有他们恐惧中他们只对其中最耸人听闻，最生动的故事，也是他们想象中最早出现的场景：食人族。也许，如果他们能像科学家那样稍微冷静一点解读这个故事，如果他们能听从不太惊悚但是更可能发生的半路饿死的故事，他们可能就会直奔塔西提群岛，如梅尔维尔充满惋惜的评论所建议的那样。 也许如果我们都试着解读自己的恐惧，我们就能少被其中的一些幻象所迷惑。我们也就能少花一点时间在为系列杀手或者飞机失事方面的担忧，而是更多的关
心那些悄然而至的灾难：动脉血小板的逐渐堆积，气候的逐渐变迁。如同文学中最精妙的故事通常是最丰富的故事，我们最细微的恐惧才是最真实的恐惧。用正确的方法的解读，我们的恐惧就是我们想象力赐给我们的礼物，借此一双慧眼，让我们能管窥未来甚至影响未来。如果能得到正确的解读，我们的恐惧能和我们最喜欢的文学作品一样给我们珍贵的东西：一点点智慧，一点点洞悉以及对最玄妙东西――真相的诠释。
TED英语演讲稿
I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O. box at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has never believed in email, in Facebook, in texting or cell phones in general. And so while other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by the mailbox to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was a little frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking for some sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.
And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completely sucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written me for strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens of them. I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N., everywhere. I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary, and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for a hand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked. Overnight, my inbox morphed into this harbor of heartbreak -- a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barely even knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them a reason to wait by the mailbox.
Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips to the mailbox, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like never before to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most of all, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled with the scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangers not because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, but because they have found one another by way of letter-writing.
But, you know, the thing that always
They know each other more in the biblical sense as well. Message number three: Don't leave before you leave. I think there's a really deep irony to the fact that actions women are taking — and I see this all the time — with the objective of staying in the workforceactually lead to their eventually leaving. Here's what happens: We're all busy. Everyone's busy. A woman's busy. And she starts thinking about having a child, and from the moment she starts thinking about having a child, she starts thinking about making room for that child. “How am I going to fit this into everything else I'm doing?” And literally from that moment, she doesn't raise her hand anymore, she doesn't look for a promotion, she doesn't take on the new project, she doesn't say, “Me. I want to do that.” She starts leaning back.
The problem is that — let's say she got pregnant that day, that day — nine months of pregnancy, three months of maternity leave, six months to catch your breath — Fast-forward two years, more often — and as I've seen it — women start thinking about this way earlier — when they get engaged, or married, when they start thinking about having a child, which can take a long time. One woman came to see me about this. She looked a little young. And I said, “So are you and your husband thinking about having a baby?” And she said, “Oh no, I'm not married.” She didn't even have a boyfriend.
I think the cause is more complicated. I think, as a society, we put more pressure on our boys to succeedthan we do on our girls. I know men that stay home and work in the home to support wives with careers,and it's hard. When I go to the Mommy-and-Me stuff and I see the father there, I notice that the other mommies don't play with him. And that's a problem, because we have to make it as important a job,because it's the hardest job in the world to work inside the home, for people of both genders, if we're going to even things out and let women stay in the workforce. Studies show that households with equal earning and equal responsibility also have half the divorce rate.And if that wasn't good enough motivation for everyone out there, they also have more — how shall I say this on this stage?
My generation really, sadly, is not going to change the numbers at the top. They're just not moving. We are not going to get to where 50 percent of the population — in my generation, there will not be 50 percent of [women] at the top of any industry. But I'm hopeful that future generations can. I think a world where half of our countries and our companies were run by women, would be a better world. It's not just because people would know where the women's bathrooms are, even though that would be very helpful.I think it would be a better world. I have two children. I have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. I want my son to have a choice to contribute fully in the workforce or at home, and I want my daughter to have the choice to not just succeed, but to be liked for her accomplishments.
I said, “You're thinking about this just way too early.” But the point is that what happens once you start kind of quietly leaning back? Everyone who's been through this — and I'm here to tell you, once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it's hard to leave that kid at home. Your job needs to be challenging. It needs to be rewarding. You need to feel like you're making a difference. And if two years ago you didn't take a promotion and some guy next to you did, if three years ago you stopped looking for new opportunities,you're going to be bored because you should have kept your foot on the gas pedal. Don't leave before you leave. Stay in. Keep your foot on the gas pedal, until the very day you need to leave to take a break for a child — and then make your decisions. Don't make decisions too far in advance, particularly ones you're not even conscious you're making.
TED英语演讲稿
When you are a kid, you get asked this one particular question a lot, it really gets kind of annoying. What do you want to be when you grow up? Now, adults are hoping for answers like, I want to be an astronaut or I want to be a neurosurgeon, you’re adults in your imaginations.
Kids, they’re most likely to answer with pro-skateboarder, surfer or minecraft player. I asked my little brother, and he said, seriously dude, I’m 10, I have no idea, probably a pro-skier, let’s go get some ice cream.
See, us kids are going to answer something we’re stoked on, what we think is cool, what we have experience with, and that’s typically the opposite of what adults want to hear.
But if you ask a little kid, sometimes you’ll get the best answer, something so simple, so obvious and really profound. When I grow up, I want to be happy.
For me, when I grow up, I want to continue to be happy like I am now. I’m stoked to be here at TedEx, I mean, I’ve been watching Ted videos for as long as I can remember, but I never thought I’d make it on the stage here so soon. I mean, I just became a teenager, and like most teenage boys, I spend most of my time wondering, how did my room get so messy all on its own.
Did I take a shower today? And the most perplexing of all, how do I get girls to like me? Neurosciences say that the teenage brain is pretty weird, our prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped, but we actually have more neurons than adults, which is why we can be so creative, and impulsive and moody and get bummed out.
But what bums me out is to know that, a lot of kids today are just wishing to be happy, to be healthy, to be safe, not bullied, and be loved for who they are. So it seems to me when adults say, what do you want to be when you grow up? They just assume that you’ll automatically be happy and healthy.
Well, maybe that’s not the case, go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, boom, then you’ll be happy, right? You don’t seem to make learning how to be happy and healthy a priority in our schools, it’s separate from schools. And for some kids, it doesn’t exists at all? But what if we didn’t make it separate? What if we based education on the study and practice of being happy and healthy, because that’s what it is, a practice, and a simple practice at that?
Education is important, but why is being happy and healthy not considered education, I just don’t get it. So I’ve been studying the science of being happy and healthy. It really comes down to practicing these eight things. Exercise, diet and nutrition, time in nature, contribution, service to others, relationships, recreation, relaxation and stress management, and religious or spiritual involvement, yes, got that one.
So these eight things come from Dr. Roger Walsh, he calls them Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes or TLCs for short. He is a scientist that studies how to be happy and healthy. In researching this talk, I got a chance to ask him a few questions like; do you think that our schools today are making these eight TLCs a priority? His response was no surprise, it was essentially no. But he did say that many people do try to get this kind of education outside of the traditional arena, through reading and practices such as meditation or yoga.
But what I thought was his best response was that, much of education is oriented for better or worse towards making a living rather than making a life.
In , Sir Ken Robinson gave the most popular Ted talk of all time. Schools kill creativity. His message is that creativity is as important as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.
A lot of parents watched those videos, some of those parents like mine counted it as one of the reasons they felt confident to pull their kids from traditional school to try something different. I realized I’m part of this small, but growing revolution of kids who are going about their education differently, and you know what? It freaks a lot of people out.
Even though I was only nine, when my parents pulled me out of the school system, I can still remember my mom being in tears when some of her friends told her she was crazy and it was a stupid idea.
Looking back, I’m thankful she didn’t cave to peer pressure, and I think she is too. So, out of the 200 million people that have watched Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, why aren’t there more kids like me out there?
Shane McConkey is my hero. I loved him because he was the world’s best skier. But then, one day I realized what I really loved about Shane, he was a hacker. Not a computer hacker, he hacked skiing. His creativity and inventions made skiing what it is today, and why I love to ski. A lot of people think of hackers as geeky computer nerds who live in their parent’s basement and spread computer viruses, but I don’t see it that way.
Hackers are innovators, hackers are people who challenge and change the systems to make them work differently, to make them work better, it’s just how they think, it’s a mindset.
I’m growing up in a world that needs more people with the hacker mindset, and not just for technology, everything is up for being hacked, even skiing, even education. So whether it’s Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Shane McConkey having the hacker mindset can change the world.
Healthy, happy, creativity in the hacker mindset are all a large part of my education. I call it Hackschooling, I don’t use any one particular curriculum, and I’m not dedicated to any one particular approach, I hack my education.
I take advantage of opportunities in my community, and through a network of my friends and family. I take advantage of opportunities to experience what I’m learning, and I’m not afraid to look for shortcuts or hacks to get a better faster result. It’s like a remix or a mash-up of learning. It’s flexible, opportunistic, and it never loses sight of making happy, healthy and creativity a priority.
And here is the cool part, because it’s a mindset, not a system. Hackschooling can be used anyone, even traditional schools. Soo what does my school look like? Well, it looks like Starbucks a lot of the time, but like most kids I study lot of math, science, history and writing. I didn’t used to like to write because my teachers made me write about butterflies and rainbows, and I wanted to write about skiing.
It was a relief for my good friend’s mom, started the Squaw Valley Kids Institute, where I got to write through my experiences and my interests, while, connecting with great speakers from around the nation, and that sparked my love of writing.
I realized that once you’re motivated to learn something, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time, and on your own, Starbucks is pretty great for that. Hacking physics was fun, we learned all about Newton and Galileo, and we experienced some basic physics concepts like kinetic energy through experimenting and making mistakes.
My favorite was the giant Newton’s cradle that we made out of bowling balls, no bocce balls. We experimented with lot of other things like bowling balls and event giant jawbreakers.
Project Discovery’s ropes course is awesome, and slightly stressful. When you’re 60 feet off the ground, you have to learn how to handle your fears, communicate clearly, and most importantly, trust each other.
Community organizations play a big part in my education, High Fives Foundation’s Basics Program being aware and safe in critical situations. We spent a day with the Squaw Valley Ski Patrol to learn more about mountain safety, then the next day we switched to science of snow, weather and avalanches.
But most importantly, we learned that making bad decisions puts you and your friends at risk. Young should talk, well brings history to life. You study a famous character in history, and so that you can stand on stage and perform as that character, and answer any question about their lifetime.
In this photo, you see Al Capone and Bob Marley getting grilled with questions at the historical Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, the same stage where Harry Houdini got his start.
Time and nature is really important to me, it’s calm, quiet and I get to just log out of reality. I spend one day a week, outside all day. At my Fox Walkers classes, our goal is to be able to survive in the wilderness with just a knife. We learn to listen to nature, we learn to sense our surroundings, and I’ve gained a spiritual connection to nature that, I never knew existed.
But the best part is that we get to make spears, bows and arrows, fires with just a bow drill and survival shelters for the snowy nights when we camp out. Hanging out at the Moment Factory where they hand make skis and design clothes, has really inspired me to one day have my own business. The guys at the factory showed me why I need to be good at math, be creative and get good at selling.
So I got an internship at Big Shark Print to get better at design and selling. Between fetching lunch, scrubbing toilets and breaking their vacuum cleaner, I’m getting to contribute to clothing design, customizing hats and selling them. The people who work there are happy, healthy, creative, and stoked to be doing what they are doing, this is by far my favorite class.
So, this is why I’m really happy, powder days, and it’s a good metaphor for my life, my education, my hackschooling. If everyone ski this mountain, like most people think of education, everyone will be skiing the same line, probably the safest and most of the powder would go untouched.
I look at this, and see a thousand possibilities, dropping the corners, shredding the spine, looking for a churning from cliff-to-cliff. Skiing to me is freedom, and so is my education, it’s about being creative; doing things differently, it’s about community and helping each other. It’s about being happy and healthy among my very best friends.
So I’m starting to think, I know what I might want to do when I grow up, but if you ask me what do I want to be when I grow up? I’ll always know that I want to be happy. Thank you.
TED英语演讲稿
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My favorite munity organizations play a big part in my education, High Fives Foundations Basics program being aizing hats and selling them. The people cliff-to-cliff. Skiing to me is freedom, and so is my education, its about being creative; doing things differently, its about community and helping each other. Its about being happy and healthy among my very best friends.
So Im starting to think, I know what I might want to do when I grow up, but if you ask me what do I want to be when I grow up? Ill always know that I want to be happy. Thank you.
So for any of us in this room today, let's start out by admitting we're lucky. We don't live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited. And if you're in this room today, most of us grew up in a world where we have basic civil rights, and amazingly, we still live in a world where some women don't have them.But all that aside, we still have a problem,and it's a real problem. And the problem is this: Women are not making it to the top of any professionanywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story quite clearly. 190 heads of state — nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top, C-level jobs, board seats — tops out at 15, 16 percent. The numbers have not moved since and are going in the wrong direction. And even in the non-profit world, a world we sometimes think of as being led by more women, women at the top: 20 percent.
We also have another problem, which is that women face harder choices between professional success and personal fulfillment. A recent study in the U.S. showed that, of married senior managers, two-thirds of the married men had children and only one-third of the married women had children. A couple of years ago, I was in New York, and I was pitching a deal, and I was in one of those fancy New York private equity offices you can picture. And I'm in the meeting — it's about a three-hour meeting — and two hours in, there needs to be that bio break, and everyone stands up, and the partner running the meeting starts looking really embarrassed. And I realized he doesn't know where the women's room is in his office. So I start looking around for moving boxes, figuring they just moved in, but I don't see any. And so I said, “Did you just move into this office?” And he said, “No, we've been here about a year.” And I said, “Are you telling me that I am the only woman to have pitched a deal in this office in a year?” And he looked at me, and he said, “Yeah. Or maybe you're the only one who had to go to the bathroom.”So the question is, how are we going to fix this? How do we change these numbers at the top? How do we make this different?
I know no women, whether they're at home or whether they're in the workforce,who don't feel that sometimes. So I'm not saying that staying in the workforce is the right thing for everyone.My talk today is about what the messages are if you do want to stay in the workforce, and I think there are three. One, sit at the table. Two, make your partner a real partner. And three, don't leave before you leave. Number one: sit at the table. Just a couple weeks ago at Facebook, we hosted a very senior government official, and he came in to meet with senior execs from around Silicon Valley. And everyone kind of sat at the table. He had these two women who were traveling with him pretty senior in his department, and I kind of said to them, “Sit at the table. Come on, sit at the table,” and they sat on the side of the room. When I was in college, my senior year, I took a course called European Intellectual History. Don't you love that kind of thing from college?
I wish I could do that now. And I took it with my roommate, Carrie, who was then a brilliant literary student — and went on to be a brilliant literary scholar — and my brother — smart guy, but a water-polo-playing pre-med, who was a sophomore.The three of us take this class together. And then Carrie reads all the books in the original Greek and Latin, goes to all the lectures. I read all the books in English and go to most of the lectures. My brother is kind of busy. He reads one book of 12 and goes to a couple of lectures, marches himself up to our rooma couple days before the exam to get himself tutored. The three of us go to the exam together, and we sit down. And we sit there for three hours — and our little blue notebooks — yes, I'm that old. We walk out, we look at each other, and we say, “How did you do?” And Carrie says, “Boy, I feel like I didn't really draw out the main point on the Hegelian dialectic.” And I say, “God, I really wish I had really connected John Locke's theory of property with the philosophers that follow.” And my brother says, “I got the top grade in the class.”
I want to start out by saying, I talk about this — about keeping women in the workforce — because I really think that's the answer. In the high-income part of our workforce, in the people who end up at the top — Fortune 500 CEO jobs, or the equivalent in other industries — the problem, I am convinced, is that women are dropping out. Now people talk about this a lot, and they talk about things like flextime and mentoring and programs companies should have to train women. I want to talk about none of that today, even though that's all really important. Today I want to focus on what we can do as individuals. What are the messages we need to tell ourselves? What are the messages we tell the women that work with and for us? What are the messages we tell our daughters?Now, at the outset, I want to be very clear that this speech comes with no judgments. I don't have the right answer. I don't even have it for myself. I left San Francisco, where I live, on Monday, and I was getting on the plane for this conference. And my daughter, who's three, when I dropped her off at preschool, did that whole hugging-the-leg, crying, “Mommy, don't get on the plane” thing. This is hard. I feel guilty sometimes.
TED英语演讲稿：大人可以跟孩子学什么？
邹奇奇背景资料
美国华盛顿州西雅图市华裔女童邹奇奇(英文名Adora Svitak)，2008年被美国媒体誉为“世界上最聪明的孩子”，她比凤姐牛多了，3岁时就开始阅读各种书籍，从4岁起写下了400多篇故事和诗歌，8岁时出版的故事集《飞扬的手指》轰动美国，其中包含的300多篇故事大多以中世纪为背景，从古埃及写到了文艺复兴，文中透露的政治、宗教和教育见解，思想深刻，文思严谨，邹奇奇也被 誉为“美国文坛小巨人”。
邹奇奇的母亲邹灿(Joyce)是中国重庆人，1988年到美国后，学习法语专业的她又获得了英语文学硕士学位，现在是美国一家电话语音翻译公司的.中英文翻译员。奇奇的父亲约翰John Svitak是一名捷克裔美国人物理学博士，现任职于微软公司。除了奇奇外，他们还有另一个名叫希希的10岁女儿，姐妹俩的名字合起来就是“希奇”。全家生活在美国华盛顿州西雅图市。尽管邹奇奇的外表和其他同龄孩子没啥两样，但她的知识和成就却远非同龄孩子可比。
Now, I want to start with a question: When was the last time you were called childish? For kids like me, being called childish can be a frequent occurrence. Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior, or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish, which really bothers me. After all, take a look at these events: Imperialism and colonization, world wars, George W. Bush. Ask yourself: Who's responsible? Adults.
Now, what have kids done? Well, Anne Frank touched millions with her powerful account of the Holocaust, Ruby Bridges helped end segregation in the United States, and, most recently, Charlie Simpson helped to raise 120,000 pounds for Haiti on his little bike. So, as you can see evidenced by such examples, age has absolutely nothing to do with it. The traits the word childish addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking. (Applause)
Thank you. Then again, who's to say that certain types of irrational thinking aren't exactly what the world needs? Maybe you've had grand plans before, but stopped yourself, thinking: That's impossible or that costs too much or that won't benefit me. For better or worse, we kids aren't hampered as much when it comes to thinking about reasons why not to do things. Kids can be full of inspiring aspirations and hopeful thinking, like my wish that no one went hungry or that everything were free kind of utopia. How many of you still dream like that and believe in the possibilities? Sometimes a knowledge of history and the past failures of utopian ideals can be a burden because you know that if everything were free, that the food stocks would become depleted, and scarce and lead to chaos. On the other hand, we kids still dream about perfection. And that's a good thing because in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first.
In many ways, our audacity to imagine helps push the boundaries of possibility. For instance, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, my home state -- yoohoo Washington -- (Applause) has a program called Kids Design Glass, and kids draw their own ideas for glass art. Now, the resident artist said they got some of their best ideas through the program because kids don't think about the limitations of how hard it can be to blow glass into certain shapes. They just think of good ideas. Now, when you think of glass, you might think of colorful Chihuly designs or maybe Italian vases, but kids challenge glass artists to go beyond that into the realm of broken-hearted snakes and bacon boys, who you can see has meat vision. (Laughter)
Now, our inherent wisdom doesn't have to be insiders' knowledge. Kids already do a lot of learning from adults, and we have a lot to share. I think that adults should start learning from kids. Now, I do most of my speaking in front of an education crowd, teachers and students, and I like this analogy. It shouldn't just be a teacher at the head of the classroom telling students do this, do that. The students should teach their teachers. Learning between grown ups and kids should be reciprocal. The reality, unfortunately, is a little different, and it has a lot to do with trust, or a lack of it.
Now, if you don't trust someone, you place restrictions on them, right. If I doubt my older sister's ability to pay back the 10 percent interest I established on her last loan, I'm going to withhold her ability to get more money from me until she pays it back. (Laughter) True story, by the way. Now, adults seem to have a prevalently restrictive attitude towards kids from every “don't do that,” “don't do this” in the school handbook, to restrictions on school internet use. As history points out, regimes become oppressive when they're fearful about keeping control. And, although adults may not be quite at the level of totalitarian regimes, kids have no, or very little, say in making the rules, when really the attitude should be reciprocal, meaning that the adult population should learn and take into account the wishes of the younger population.
