AmyTan_谈创意【中英文对照】

1.The value of nothing: out of nothing comes something.
无的价值：无中生有的可能
2.That was an essay I wrote when I was 11 years old and I got a B+. (Laughter) What I’m going to talk about: nothing out of something, and how we create.
这是一篇我在十一岁时写的作文 当时我拿了个乙等。（笑） 今天我要谈的是创作，和无中生有的艺术
3.And I’m gonna try and do that within the 18-minute time span that we were told to stay within, and to follow the TED commandments: that is, actually, something that creates
我不但要试着在 大会给我的18分钟时限中完成 并且遵守TED的严格戒律： 我必须说，这些戒律的确让我
4.a near-death experience, but near-death is good for creativity.
有一种濒临死亡的感觉 但濒临死亡是有益于创作的
5.(Laughter) OK.
（笑）好
6.So, I also want to explain, because Dave Eggers said he was going to heckle me if I said anything that was a lie, or not true to universal creativity.
我还想顺便提到 如果我说谎，或是说的东西不能普世通用 大卫艾格说他将会严厉地质问我
7.And I’ve done it this way for half the audience, who is scientific.
这个图是为了听众中的科学家画的
8.When I say we, I don’t mean you, necessarily; I mean me, and my right brain, my left brain, and the one that’s in between that is the censor
当我使用“我们”的时候，我不一定是指你 而是说我，和我的右脑，我的左脑 还有在它们中间那负责审查的东西
9.and tells me what I’m saying is wrong.
如果我说错了什么，它将会提醒我
10.And I’m going do that also by looking at what I think is part of my creative process, which includes a number of things that happened, actually —
我也将会谈论 我个人的创作过程 那包含了一些不同的事件
11.the nothing started even earlier than the moment in which I’m creating something new.
无在更早之前发生 在我开始创作之前就发生了
12.And that includes nature, and nurture, and what I refer to as nightmares.
那包括了天份，滋养 还有我叫做梦魇的东西
13.Now in the nature area, we look at whether or not we are innately equipped with something, perhaps in our brains, some abnormal chromosome
在天份的方面，我们必须要检视 我们是否生来就有这天赋，或者 在我们的大脑里，是否有些一些不正常的染色体
14.that causes this muse-like effect.
带来了这些像是灵感的效应
15.And some people would say that we’re born with it in some other means, and others, like my mother, would say that I get my material from past lives.
有些人会用别的方法说这是我们与生俱来的 还有一些人，像我的母亲 会说我是从前世里找到这些写作材料的
16.Some people would also say that creativity may be a function of some other neurological quirk — van Gogh syndrome — that you have a little bit of, you know, psychosis, or depression.
有些人会说创作力 是一种精神异常的副作用 — 类似梵高症候群 — 就是你有一点精神失常，或是忧郁症
17.I do have to say, somebody — I read recently that van Gogh wasn’t really necessarily psychotic, that he might have had temporal lobe seizures,
但我必须告诉这些人 — 最近我才读到 梵高其实不一定是精神病患 而更可能得了一种颞叶癫痫症
18.and that might have caused his spurt of creativity, and I don’t — I suppose it does something in some part of your brain.
造成了他这种突然性的创作力 我想那的确会影响你一部分的大脑
19.And I will mention that I actually developed temporal lobe seizures a number of years ago, but it was during the time I was writing my last book,
我也必须提到，事实上 数年前我也有过这种颞叶癫痫 那时我正在写我的上一本书
20.and some people say that book is quite different.
有些人说那本书很不同
21.I think that part of it also begins with a sense of identity crisis: you know, who am I, why am I this particular person, why am I not black like everybody else?
还有一部分是从身份危机开始的： 我是谁，为什么我是这个我 为什么我不像别人一样是黑人？
22.And sometimes you’re equipped with skills, but they may not be the kind of skills that enable creativity.
有时候，你装备着那些技能 但它们可能不是一些能带来创造力的技能
23.I used to draw. I thought I would be an artist.
我以前还会画画。我曾以为我会成为一个画家
24.And I had a miniature poodle.
这是我画的迷你贵宾狗
25.And it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really creative.
似乎还不坏，但实在算不上什么创意
26.Because all I could really do was represent in a very one-on-one way.
因为我所能做的不过是把它们一个个画下来
27.And I have a sense that I probably copied this from a book.
而且我很有可能还是从一本书上抄绘下来的
28.And then I also wasn’t really shining in a certain area that I wanted to be, and you know, you look at those scores, and it wasn’t bad,
但是我在我真正想要的地方又似乎表现的不是太出色 你知道，你看着那些成绩，是不很差
29.but it was not certainly predictive that I would one day make my living out of the artful arrangement of words.
但也绝不可能让我预测到 有天我竟然能用写作来谋生
30.Also, one of the principles of creativity is to have a little childhood trauma.
创意的其中一项原则是拥有童年的心理创伤
31.And I had the usual kind that I think a lot of people had, and that is that, you know, I had expectations placed on me.
我想我有的创伤和一般人一样 来自父母对子女过分热切的期望
32.That figure right there, by the way, figure right there was a toy given to me when I was but nine years old, and it was to help me become a doctor from a very early age.
那具人体模型 是我在九岁的时候得到的一件玩具， 以助我在童年时期就能踏上成为医生康庄大道
33.I have some ones that were long lasting: from the age of five to 15, this was supposed to be my side occupation, and it led to a sense of failure.
还有一些持续比较久的心理创伤：从五到十五岁 成为一个钢琴家理应变成我的第二职业 但最终它只变成我感觉失败的来源
34.But actually there was something quite real in my life that happened when I was about 14.
但事实上在我人生中是有一些真实的心理创伤 发生在我十四岁的时候
35.And it was discovered that my brother, in 1967, and then my father, six months later, had brain tumors.
就是发现我的兄弟，在1967年，然后我的父亲 六个月以后，双双长了脑瘤
36.And my mother believed that something had gone wrong, and she was gonna find out what it was. And she was gonna fix it.
我母亲相信有些事情出错了 她想找出原因，然后解决它
37.My father was a Baptist minister, and he believed in miracles, and that God’s will would take care of that.
我父亲是个牧师，他相信神迹 他相信神会解决那些问题
38.But of course, they ended up dying, six months apart.
但当然，他们都过世了，中间隔了六个月
39.And after that, my mother believed that it was fate, or curses — she went looking through all the reasons in the universe why this would have happened.
在那之后，我母亲相信那是命运，是诅咒 她找遍了宇宙间所有可能的理由 为什么这件事会发生
40.Everything except randomness. She did not believe in randomness.
除了偶然以外所有的理由。她不相信偶然
41.There was a reason for everything.
每件事都有原因
42.And one of the reasons, she thought, was that her mother, who had died when she was very young, was angry at her.
她相信其中一件原因是在她的母亲 她相信在她幼年就过世的母亲怨恨她
43.And so I had this notion of death all around me because my mother also believed that I would be next, and she would be next And when you are faced with the prospect of death very soon,
所以我总被死亡的阴影笼罩着 因为我母亲还相信我会是下一个，或是她会是下一个 当你面对死亡的时候
44.you begin to think very much about everything.
你开始认真思考每件事情
45.You become very creative, in a survival sense.
你开始非常有创造力，从一种争取生存的角度来说
46.And this, then, led to my big questions.
这让我想到一个大问题
47.And they’re the same ones that I have today.
一些我今日仍然在想的问题
48.And they are: Why do things happen, and how do things happen?
为什么事情会发生，它们是怎么发生的？
49.And the one my mother asked: How do I make things happen?
和我母亲问的那句：我怎么让这些事情发生的？
50.It’s a wonderful way to look at these questions, when you write a story.
在撰写故事的时候，这都是一些很重要的问题
51.Because after all, in that framework, between page one and 300, you have to answer this question of why things happen, how things happen,
因为你必须三百页的篇幅中回答这些问题： 为什么事情会这样发生，它是怎么发生的
52.in what order they happen. What are the influences?
事情发生的顺序和影响
53.How do I, as the narrator, as the writer, also influence that?
我，身为一个述说者，对这个故事又有什么影响？
54.And it’s also one that I think many of our scientists have been asking.
我想这也是所有科学家所问的问题
55.It’s a kind of cosmology, and I have to develop a cosmology of my own universe, as the creator of that universe.
我在我的世界中发展出自己的宇宙观 像一个宇宙的创造者。
56.And you see, there’s a lot of back and forth in trying to make that happen, trying to figure it out — years and years, oftentimes.
这中间有许多的反复 尝试着创造，尝试着理出头绪 年复一年，往往。
57.So when I look at creativity, I also think that it is this sense or this inability to repress my looking at associations in practically anything in life.
当我想到创作力的时候，我也认为 这来自一种对日常生活中每件事无法压抑的看法。
58.And I got a lot of them during what’s been going on throughout this conference, almost everything that’s been going on.
我在许多事件发生时做出观察 在这个大会中， 几乎是所有发生的事情。
59.And so I’m going to use, as the metaphor, this association: quantum mechanics, which I really don’t understand, but I’m still gonna use it as the process
让我在这里用量子力学做比喻： 虽然我并不理解量子力学， 但我将以它做为一种过程
60.for explaining how it is the metaphor.
来解释为何它是个比喻。
61.So in quantum mechanics, of course, you have dark energy and dark matter.
在量子力学中，有着暗能量和暗物质。
62.And it’s the same thing in looking at these questions of how things happen.
就像我们尝试解释事情为何会发生的时候
63.There’s a lot of unknown, and you often don’t know what it is except by its absence.
有许多未知，你不知道那是什么，只知道它不在
64.But when you make those associations, you want them to come together in a kind of synergy in the story, and what you’re finding is what matters. The meaning.
但当你尝试找出关联性时 当你希望能在故事中把事件连接起来时 你突然发现了事物的核心。它的意义。
65.And that’s what I look for in my work, a personal meaning.
这就是我在我的作品中所想要找寻的，对我而言的意义。
66.There is also the uncertainty principle, which is part of quantum mechanics, as I understand it. (Laughter) And this happens constantly in the writing.
在量子力学中还有测不准原理， 至少我想有。（笑） 同样的事也时常发生在写作中。
67.And there’s the terrible and dreaded observer effect, in which you’re looking for something, and you know, things are happening simultaneously,
还有一种可怕的观者效应， 当你在找寻一些事情的时候， 那些同时发生的事情，
68.and you’re looking at it in a different way, and you’re trying to really look for the about-ness.
你尝试用不同角度去看它， 你尝试找出它和其他事物的关联性，
69.Or what is this story about. And if you try too hard, then you will only write the about.
或是这个故事和什么有关。如果你过分强求， 最后你写下的只是“关联”。
70.You won’t discover anything.
却什么也没发现。
71.And what you were supposed to find, what you hoped to find, in some serendipitous way, is no longer there.
而你应该找到的， 你真正希望能找到的，在无意中， 却已经不在了。
72.Now, I don’t want to ignore the other side of what happens in our universe, like many of our scientists have.
我并不想忽略 在宇宙另一边发生的事， 像一些科学家所做的一样。
73.And so I am going to just throw in string theory here, and just say that creative people are multi-dimensional, and there are eleven levels, I think, of anxiety.
所以在这里我也要顺便谈谈弦理论， 证明创意人不仅是多维的， 还有着十一种层次的焦虑。
74.(Laughter) And they all operate at the same time.
（笑）而且它们全部一起发生。
75.There is also a big question of ambiguity.
再来还有模棱两可的问题。
76.And I would link that to something called the cosmological constant.
像是你们说的宇宙常数。
77.And you don’t know what is operating, but something is operating there.
你不明白什么在运作，但有些事情在运作。
78.And ambiguity, to me, is very uncomfortable in my life, and I have it. Moral ambiguity.
模棱两可是一种非常不舒服的感觉，对我的人生来说 但它仍然存在。道德的不确定性
79.It is constantly there. And just as an example, this is one that recently came to me.
总是存在着。举例来说， 最近刚发生了一件事。
80.It was something I read in an editorial by a woman who was talking about the war in Iraq. And she said, “Save a man from drowning, you are responsible to him for life.”
在我从事编辑工作时，我读到 一个女人在描写伊拉克战争时， 她使用了一句很有名的中国谚语
81.A very famous Chinese saying, she said.
”救一个溺水者，你便得为他的一生负责。“
82.And that means because we went into Iraq, we should stay there until things were solved. You know, maybe even 100 years.
意味着既然我们进入了伊拉克，我们便应该长驻 直到事情解决。你知道，就算要上百年
83.So there was another one that I came across, and it’s “saving fish from drowning.”
还有另一个例子 就是”救溺水的游鱼“
84.And it’s what Buddhist fishermen say, because they’re not supposed to kill anything.
来自一个信仰佛教的渔夫 佛教相信人不该杀生
85.And they also have to make a living, and people need to be fed.
但渔夫却仍得谋生，养家
86.So their way of rationalizing that is they are saving the fish from drowning, and unfortunately in the process the fish die.
为了将杀生合理化，他们声称自己是在救溺水的鱼 但鱼不幸地在过程中死了。
87.Now what’s encapsulated in both these drowning metaphors — actually, one of them is my mother’s interpretation, and it is a famous Chinese saying because she said it to me:
暗藏在这两个溺水故事中的比喻是 其中一个说法来自我母亲 中国人常说的
88.”Save a man from drowning, you are responsible to him for life.”
”救一个溺水者，你便得为他的一生负责。“
89.And it was a warning — don’t get involved in other people’s business, or you’re going to get stuck.
那是一种警告：别管别人的闲事 免得被缠上
90.OK. I think if somebody really was drowning, she’d save them.
但我想如果真的有人溺水的话，她还是会救他们的
91.But both of these sayings, saving a fish from drowning, or saving a man from drowning, to me they had to do with intentions.
但这两种说法，不管是救溺水的鱼， 还是溺水的人，这取决与你的意图
92.And all of us in life, when we see a situation, we have a response.
我们在人生中，都得对我们身边发生的事情做出反应
93.And then we have intentions.
怀抱着各自的意图
94.There’s an ambiguity of what that should be that we should do, and then we do something.
在我们应该做的，和最后真正做了的两者之间 有一些模棱两可之处
95.And the results of that may not match what our intentions had been.
而结果也不一定符合我们原本的意图
96.Maybe things go wrong. And so, after that, what are our responsibilities?
说不定事情搞砸了。若当如此，我们的责任又在哪？
97.What are we supposed to do?
我们该怎么做？
98.Do we stay in for life, or do we do something else and justify and say, well, my intentions were good, and therefore I cannot be held responsible for all of it?
我们该留下来负责 还是尝试合理化我们的行为，说，我的本意是好的 所以我不应当负全责
99.That is the ambiguity in my life that really disturbed me, and led me to write a book called Saving Fish From Drowning.
这便是我人生中很难接受的模棱两可 甚至让我因此写了本书，就叫做 救一只溺水的鱼
100.I saw examples of that, once I identified this question. It was all over the place.
一旦你意识到这个问题，就发现它无所不在
101.I got these hints everywhere.
在哪里都能看到它的痕迹
102.And then, in a way, I knew that they had always been there.
同时我也知道，它们一直都在那里。
103.And then writing, that’s what happens. I get these hints, these clues, and I realize that they’ve been obvious, and yet they have not been.
在写作上，我看见这些暗示，这些线索 我意识到它们一直都在那，但又隐身不见
104.And what I need, in effect, is a focus.
我需要的是焦点
105.And when I have the question, it is a focus.
当我有一个问题要问的时候，它就是一个焦点
106.And all these things that seem to be flotsam and jetsam in life actually go through that question, and what happens is those particular things become relevant.
那些在人生中的灾难都会过去 这些问题，和在这些事件中所发生的事都是有关联的
107.And it seems like it’s happening all the time.
而且它无处不在
108.You think there’s a sort of coincidence going on, a serendipity, in which you’re getting all this help from the universe.
你以为它不过是偶发事件，或是碰巧发生的 或许是来自宇宙的帮忙
109.And it may also be explained that now you have a focus.
也可以解释成，心中有了焦点以后
110.And you are noticing it more often.
你更能发现它的存在
111.But you apply this.
当你开始应用它
112.You begin to look at things having to do with your tensions.
你开始检视那些令你紧张的事情
113.Your brother, who’s fallen in trouble, do you take care of him?
当你的兄弟遇上了麻烦，你该帮助他吗？
114.Why or why not?
为什么要，又为什么不要？
115.It may be something that is perhaps more serious — as I said, human rights in Burma.
它或许比你想象的更为严肃 像缅甸的人权问题
116.I was thinking that I shouldn’t go because somebody said if I did, it would show that I approved of the military regime there.
我本来想着我是否不应该去，因为有人告诉我 我在那里出现意味着我支持当地的军权统治
117.And then after a while, I had to ask myself, “Why do we take on knowledge, why do we take on assumptions that other people have given us?”
但一阵子以后，我自问 “为什么我们要在意他人对我们的想法 或认知？”
118.And it was the same thing that I felt when I was growing up, and was hearing these rules of moral conduct from my father, who was a Baptist minister.
这和我在成长过程中的感觉很像 我身为牧师的父亲 给我们的所有规则和道德指标
119.So I decided that I would go to Burma for my own intentions, and still didn’t know that if I went there, what the result of that would be if I wrote a book —
最后我决定为了我自己去缅甸 而我仍然不知道，到了那里 写一本书，结果又会如何
120.and I just would have to face that later, when the time came.
但我只能等到时机出现的时候，再来面对这些问题
121.We are all concerned with things that we see in the world that we are aware of.
我们总是在意这世界上我们所感知的事物
122.We come to this point and say, what do I as an individual do?
我们对自己说：我能做什么？
123.Not all of us can go to Africa, or work at hospitals, so what do we do if we have this moral response, this feeling?
不是每个人都可以去非洲，或是在医院工作 我又该如何处理我里面的这个道德感？
124.Also, I think one of the biggest things we are all looking at, and we talked about today, is genocide.
我想今日的一个重要议题是 种族灭绝
125.This leads to this question, when I look at all these things that are morally ambiguous and uncomfortable, and I consider what my intentions should be,
我们再次回到同样的问题 当我遇见这些在道德上模棱两可，让我感觉不舒服的事件 我的心态又是如何？
126.I realize it goes back to this identity question that I had when I was a child — and why am I here, and what is the meaning of my life,
我认知到这让我再次回到孩提时所遇见的身份认知议题 为什么我在这里，人生的意义时什么
127.and what is my place in the universe?
我在宇宙间的位置是什么？
128.It seems so obvious, and yet it is not.
这看起来似乎很明显，但一点也不
129.We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary.
我们都不喜欢道德上的不确定性 但这种不确定感确是绝对必要的