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ElizabethGilbert_2014-_成功、失败，以及持续创造的动力_
So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport about to get on a flight, when I was approached by two women who I do not think would be insulted to hear themselves described as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads. 几年前我在甘乃迪国际机场, 快上飞机时, 有两位女士靠近我, 她们两人矮小、苍老, 是措辞严厉的义大利裔美国女性,
Airport:n.机场;航空港; approached:v.走近;临近;探讨;建议;(approach的过去分词和过去式) insulted:v.辱骂;侮辱;冒犯;(insult的过去分词和过去式) described:v.描述;形容;把…称为;做…运动;(describe的过去分词和过去式) tough-talking:vt.发出豪言壮语;
The taller one, who is like up here, she comes marching up to me, and she goes, 较高的那位大概这么高, 她快速走向我,接着说:
Honey, I gotta ask you something. 「亲爱的,我得问你个问题。
You got something to do with that whole 'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that's been going on lately? 你和最近流行的 《享受吧！一个人的旅行》有关？」
And I said, Yes, I did. 我说:「是的。」
And she smacks her friend and she goes, 她拍了一下朋友后说:
smacks:n.滋味; vt.掴; vi.用掌击; v.猛然;
See, I told you, I said, that's that girl. 「看吧,我就说她是那女孩。
That's that girl who wrote that book based on that movie. 她就是写了那本书的女孩, 根据那部电影写的。」
(Laughter) （笑声）
So that's who I am. 那就是我。
And believe me, I'm extremely grateful to be that person, because that whole Eat, Pray, Love thing was a huge break for me. 相信我,我非常榮幸能成为那个人, 因为《享受吧！一个人的旅行》的那整件事, 对我来说是天大的好运。
extremely:adv.非常,极其;极端地;
But it also left me in a really tricky position moving forward as an author trying to figure out how in the world 但那也让我处在很微妙的位置, 那就是以作家身分继续前进, 我到底要如何才能
tricky:adj.难办的;难对付的;狡猾的;诡计多端的;
I was ever going to write a book again that would ever please anybody, because I knew well in advance that all of those people who had adored Eat, Pray, Love were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it wasn't going to be Eat, Pray, Love, 再写本可以取悦任何人的书, 因为我早知道 每位超爱《享受吧！一个人的旅行》的读者 会有多么失望, 因为不论我接下来写什么, 那都不再是《享受吧！一个人的旅行》;
in advance:adv.预先,提前; incredibly:adv.难以置信地;非常地;
and all of those people who had hated Eat, Pray, Love were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it would provide evidence that I still lived. 而那些讨厌《享受吧！一个人的旅行》的人 也会大失所望, 因为不论我接下来写什么, 那都证明了我还活着。
evidence:n.证据,证明;迹象;明显;v.证明;
So I knew that I had no way to win, and knowing that I had no way to win made me seriously consider for a while just quitting the game and moving to the country to raise corgis . 因此我知道自己没有赢的机会, 也知道自己没办法赢, 这件事让我认真思考了一阵子, 就放弃这场游戏吧, 然后搬到乡下去养柯基犬。
for a while:adv.片刻;暂时;一会儿;一时; quitting:v.离开;离任;离校;停止;戒掉;(quit的现在分词) corgis:n.小狗;威尔士矮脚狗(等于Welshcorgi或corgy);
But if I had done that, if I had given up writing, 但如果我当时那么做,如果我当时放弃写作,
I would have lost my beloved vocation , so I knew that the task was that I had to find some way to gin up the inspiration to write the next book regardless of its inevitable negative outcome . 就会失去最爱的天职。 因此,我知道任务是我得找到某个方法 才能写下一本书, 不管那无可避免的失败。
beloved:adj.心爱的;挚爱的;n.心爱的人;亲爱的教友; vocation:n.职业;天职;天命;神召; gin:n.杜松子酒; vi.喝杜松子酒; regardless:adj.不管的; v.不顾后果地; inevitable:adj.必然的,不可避免的; negative:adj.[数]负的;消极的;否定的;阴性的;n.否定;负数;[摄]底片;v.否定;拒绝; outcome:n.结果,结局;成果;
In other words, I had to find a way to make sure that my creativity survived its own success. 换句话说,我得找到方法确保 我的创造力能在曾有的成功里幸存。
And I did, in the end, find that inspiration, but I found it in the most unlikely and unexpected place. 后来,我找到了那灵感, 但我发现那是在最不可能, 也最想不到的地方出现。
unlikely:adj.不大可能发生的;非心目中的;非想象的;难以相信的; unexpected:adj.意外的,想不到的;
I found it in lessons that I had learned earlier in life about how creativity can survive its own failure. 我是在生活中早已学过的课题中发现 创造力如何从过去的失败中存活下来。
So just to back up and explain, the only thing I have ever wanted to be for my whole life was a writer. 因此只要回顾并说明, 我这辈子唯一想做的事,
I wrote all through childhood , all through adolescence , by the time I was a teenager I was sending my very bad stories to The New Yorker, hoping to be discovered. 整个童年和青春期我都在写, 在我还是青少女时, 我把自己的烂故事寄给《纽约客》, 希望能被发掘。
childhood:n.童年;幼年;孩童时期 adolescence:n.青春期;
After college, I got a job as a diner waitress , kept working, kept writing, kept trying really hard to get published, and failing at it. 念完大学,我开始当餐厅服务生, 我继续工作、写作, 为了能出版非常努力, 然后却失败了。
waitress:n.女服务员;女侍者;vi.做女服务生;
I failed at getting published for almost six years. 我有将近六年没得到出版机会。
So for almost six years, every single day, 因此几乎这六年的每一天,
I had nothing but rejection letters waiting for me in my mailbox. 除了拒绝信在信箱等我之外, 什么都没有。
rejection:n.抛弃;拒绝;被抛弃的东西;盖帽;
And it was devastating every single time, and every single time, I had to ask myself if I should just quit while I was behind and give up and spare myself this pain. 每次都让人伤心欲绝, 每一次,我都得自问 每当我失败了,是不是该就此罢手、 放弃,让自己不再受苦。
devastating:adj.毁灭性的; v.毁灭; (devastate的现在分词) spare:v.节约,吝惜;饶恕;分出,分让;adj.多余的;瘦的;少量的;n.剩余;备用零件;
But then I would find my resolve , and always in the same way, by saying, I'm not going to quit, 但之后我发现自己的决心,而且始终如一, 只要说:「我不打算放弃,
resolve:vt.决定; vi.解决; n.坚决;
I'm going home. 我要回家了。」
And you have to understand that for me, going home did not mean returning to my family's farm. 你要了解对我来说, 回家的意思不是回到我家的农场。
For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego , which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. 对我来说, 因为写作就是我的家, 因为我热爱写作胜于我讨厌写坏了的感觉, 那就是说我爱写作 胜于我的自我, 终极的意义就是 我爱写作胜于爱自己。
ego:n.自我;自负;自我意识; ultimately:adv.最终;最后;归根结底;终究;
And that's how I pushed through it. 那就是我走过来的方式。
But the weird thing is that 20 years later, during the crazy ride of Eat, Pray, Love, 但奇怪的是 20 年后, 在《享受吧！一个人的旅行》的疯狂之旅期间,
weird:adj.奇怪的;奇异的;离奇的;n.命运;宿命;命运女神;
I found myself identifying all over again with that unpublished young diner waitress who I used to be, thinking about her constantly , and feeling like I was her again, which made no rational sense whatsoever because our lives could not have been more different. 我发现自己又再次用 当年那个没出书的年轻服务生认定一切, 再次觉得自己就是她, 其实这没什么道理, 因为我们的生活早已天差地远。
identifying:n.识别,标识;标识关系;v.识别;(identify的现在分词) unpublished:adj.未公开出版的;未发表过的; constantly:adv.不断地;时常地; rational:n.理性;人类;合理的事物;[数]有理数;adj.合理的;理性的;明智的;理智的; whatsoever:pron.无论什么;
She had failed constantly. 她不断失败,
I had succeeded beyond my wildest expectation . 而我曾超乎意料之外的成功。
expectation:n.预料;预期;期待;希望;指望;
We had nothing in common. 我们没有任何共通处。
Why did I suddenly feel like I was her all over again? 为什么我突然又觉得自己就是她？
And it was only when I was trying to unthread that that I finally began to comprehend the strange and unlikely psychological connection in our lives between the way we experience great failure and the way we experience great success. 一直到我试着抽丝剥茧, 才终于开始理解 那奇怪又不真实的精神连结 存在我俩生命中 经历大起大落的方式之间。
finally:adv.终于;最终;(用于列举)最后;彻底地; comprehend:v.理解;包含;由…组成; psychological:adj.心理的;心理学的;精神上的;
So think of it like this: 用这个方式思考:
For most of your life, you live out your existence here in the middle of the chain of human experience where everything is normal and reassuring and regular, 你大半辈子的生活 是在人类的历史洪流中渡过, 每件事都很正常、可靠与规律,
reassuring:adj.安心的;可靠的;鼓气的;v.使放心(reassure的现在分词);
but failure catapults you abruptly way out over here into the blinding darkness of disappointment. 但失败让你猛然落入远在天边、 黑得看不见五指的失望深渊里。
catapults:n.弹弩; v.用弹射器弹射; abruptly:adv.突然地;唐突地;
Success catapults you just as abruptly but just as far way out over here into the equally blinding glare of fame and recognition and praise. 成功也是让你猛然落入 那以名声、肯定与赞赏所构成的目盲眩光之中。
recognition:n.识别;认识;承认;认可;
And one of these fates is objectively seen by the world as bad, and the other one is objectively seen by the world as good, but your subconscious is completely incapable of discerning the difference between bad and good. 而在这两种命运中,有一个 在客观上,是被世人认为不好的, 而另一个则被视为好的, 但你的潜意识却完全无法 分辨好与坏的差别。
objectively:adv.客观地; subconscious:adj.潜意识的;下意识的;n.潜在意识;下意识心理活动; incapable:adj.不能的;无能力的;不能胜任的; discerning:adj.敏锐的;有识别力的;v.识别;觉察出;了解;(discern的现在分词)
The only thing that it is capable of feeling is the absolute value of this emotional equation , the exact distance that you have been flung from yourself. 唯一能感受到的是 这种情感方程式的绝对值, 那就是一直以来你被抛离自己的距离。
emotional:adj.情绪的;易激动的;感动人的; equation:n.方程式,等式;相等;[化学]反应式; flung:vt.挥动(fling的过去式及过去分词形式);
And there's a real equal danger in both cases of getting lost out there in the hinterlands of the psyche . 这两种情况都有同样真实的危险,
hinterlands:n.内陆地区(hinterland的名词复数); (由某一港口或某些其他中心城市供应物资的)内陆贸易区; psyche:n.灵魂;心智;
But in both cases, it turns out that there is also the same remedy for self-restoration, and that is that you have got to find your way back home again as swiftly and smoothly as you can, and if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint: 但这两者也同样都有自我修复的解方, 那就是你必须再次找到回家的路, 尽可能快速与平稳, 如果你想知道自己的家在何方, 可以试想:
remedy:vt.补救;治疗;纠正;n.补救;治疗;赔偿; swiftly:adv.很快地;敏捷地;即刻; smoothly:adv.平稳地,平滑地;流畅地,流利地;
Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. 你的家就是这世上, 你爱它比爱自己还多的地方。
So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure , faith , service, it might be raising corgis, 因此那也许是创造,也许是家庭, 也许是发明、冒险、 信仰、布道,也许是养柯基犬,
adventure:n.冒险;奇遇;经历;冒险游戏;v.探险;以…冒险;大胆进行;闯; faith:n.信心;信任;宗教信仰;
I don't know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential . 都有可能,你的家就是那个 你能奉献活力的地方, 有了如此独一无二的奉献, 最后的结果就会变得微不足道。
dedicate:vt.致力;献身;题献; singular:adj.单数的;单一的;非凡的;异常的;n.单数; devotion:n.献身,奉献;忠诚;热爱; inconsequential:adj.不重要的;不合理的;不合逻辑的;
For me, that home has always been writing. 对我来说,家一直以来都是写作。
So after the weird, disorienting success that I went through with Eat, Pray, Love, 因此在完成《享受吧！一个人的旅行》
disorienting:v.使迷失方向;使觉得迷惘;(disorient的现在分词)
I realized that all I had to do was exactly the same thing that I used to have to do all the time when I was an equally disoriented failure. 我了解自己需要做的 就和我处在迷惘的失败中时 必须做的同一件事。
disoriented:adj.无判断力的; v.使迷失方向; (disorient的过去时和过去分词)
I had to get my ass back to work, and that's what I did, and that's how, in 2010, 我得起身去工作, 那是我过去做的事,也是在 2010 年时,
I was able to publish the dreaded follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love. 我为什么能出版那吓人的东西 接续《享受吧！一个人的旅行》。
dreaded:adj.令人畏惧的,可怕的;v.惧怕(dread的过去分词); follow-up:adj.后续的;增补的;n.随访;跟进;后续行动;
And you know what happened with that book? 你知道那本书后来怎么了吗？
It bombed, and I was fine. 大惨败,但我还是好好的。
Actually, I kind of felt bulletproof , because I knew that I had broken the spell and I had found my way back home to writing for the sheer devotion of it. 其实我觉得自己就像百毒不侵, 因为我知道自己早就破除了魔咒, 我已经找到回家的路, 就是为了全然的奉献而写。
bulletproof:adj.防弹的; sheer:adj.纯; v.十足地; n.透明薄纱; v.[航海](使)偏航; (使)转向;
And I stayed in my home of writing after that, and I wrote another book that just came out last year and that one was really beautifully received, which is very nice, but not my point. 那之后我待在写作的家, 写了另一本书,在去年出版, 而且也颇受好评, 虽然那不是重点,但那真棒。
My point is that I'm writing another one now, and I'll write another book after that and another and another and another and many of them will fail, and some of them might succeed, but I will always be safe from the random hurricanes of outcome as long as I never forget where I rightfully live. 重点是我正在写另一本书, 之后会再写另一本书, 未来也会写更多、更多书, 之中有很多本都会惨败, 也许有几本会成功, 但是我永远会平安地 从不时出现的颶风般结局中活下来, 只要我永远不忘自己生活在对的地方。
random:adj.[数]随机的;任意的;胡乱的;n.随意;adv.胡乱地; hurricanes:n.[气象]飓风(hurricane的复数); as long as:conj.只要;长达;如果;既然; rightfully:adv.正当地;正直地;
Look, I don't know where you rightfully live, but I know that there's something in this world that you love more than you love yourself. 我不知道哪里对你来说是对的地方, 但我知道世上有某种 你爱它胜过爱自己的东西。
Something worthy , by the way , so addiction and infatuation don't count, because we all know that those are not safe places to live. Right? 某种有价值的东西, 但是成瘾和沉溺不算, 因为我们都知道那不安全,对吧。
worthy:adj.值得的; n.杰出人物; by the way:顺便说一下; addiction:n.瘾;嗜好;入迷; infatuation:n.迷恋;醉心;
The only trick is that you've got to identify the best, worthiest thing that you love most, and then build your house right on top of it and don't budge from it. 唯一的诀窍是你得辨别 你最爱的东西中最好,也最有价值的那个, 接着在那之上建立起自己的家, 不要让步。
budge:vi.挪动; vt.使让步; n.羔羊皮;
And if you should someday, somehow get vaulted out of your home by either great failure or great success, then your job is to fight your way back to that home the only way that it has ever been done, by putting your head down and performing with diligence and devotion and respect and reverence whatever the task is that love is calling forth from you next. 如果你在某天 从家里被抛出, 不论是因为惨败或是大胜, 你的工作就是努力回到那个家, 唯一能够做到的方式 就是埋头苦干, 用勤奋、奉献、尊重且崇敬的态度去做, 不论接下来这项任务是什么, 爱都会在下一个阶段呼唤你。
somehow:adv.以某种方法;莫名其妙地; vaulted:adj.拱形的;圆顶的;v.做成拱形;撑杆跳跃(vault的过去分词形式); performing:adj.表演的;演奏的;v.做;执行;演出;运转(perform的现在分词) diligence:n.勤奋,勤勉;注意的程度; reverence:n.崇敬;尊严;敬礼;vt.敬畏;尊敬;
You just do that, and keep doing that again and again and again, and I can absolutely promise you, from long personal experience in every direction, I can assure you that it's all going to be okay. 你只要做,不停地做, 一而再、再而三, 我能向你保证,
again and again:adv.再三地,反复地; absolutely:adv.绝对地;完全地; personal:adj.个人的;身体的;亲自的;n.人事消息栏;人称代名词; assure:vt.保证;担保;使确信;弄清楚;
Thank you. 谢谢。
(Applause) （掌声）