Learn in order to Practise in Work.

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

2017-08-05 13:56:06

J.K. ROWLING, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

为什么我说失败是有好处的？因为失败将那些非本质的东西都剥离了。我不再伪装自己，我找到了真正的我，我将自己所有的精力，投入完成对我最重要的唯一一项工作。

失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败让我看清自己，以前我从没认识到自己是这样的。我发现，我比自己以为的，有更强的意志和决心。我还发现，我有一些比宝石更珍贵的朋友。

J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

作者：阮一峰
日期： 2008年6月17日

一、
今年6月5日是哈佛大学的毕业典礼，请来的演讲嘉宾是《哈利波特》的作者J.K.罗琳女士。

她的演讲题目是《失败的好处和想象的重要性》（The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination）。我读了一遍讲稿，觉得很好，很感染人。

她几乎没有谈到哈里波特，而是说了年轻时的一些经历。虽然J·K·罗琳现在很有钱，是英国仅次于女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾经有一段非常艰辛的日子，30岁了，还差点流落街头。她主要谈的是，自己从这段经历中学到的东西。
去年的演讲嘉宾是比尔·盖茨，我翻译了他的演讲，影响挺大。今年，我继续翻译，有兴趣的朋友可以在网上找到原文和视频。

二、
她首先说了自己如何构思演讲稿，以及选择的两个演讲主题。

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
福斯特校长，哈佛集团的各位成员，监管理事会的各位理事，各位老师，各位自豪的家长，以及最重要的各位毕业生同学，

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
我想说的第一句话，就是”谢谢”。不仅因为哈佛给了我这样非同一般的荣誉，还因为为了构思今天的演讲，我忍受了几个星期的担惊受怕、茶饭不思的生活，使得我体重减轻。这真可谓”双赢”啊！现在，我唯一要做的就是深呼吸，偷偷看一眼四周飘扬的红色旗帜，让自己相信真的来到了世界上最大的”格兰芬多”聚会。

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
在毕业典礼上发表演讲，是一项巨大的责任，令我倍感压力。直到我回忆起了自己的毕业典礼，才稍稍放松。那一次的演讲嘉宾是杰出的英国哲学家玛丽·沃诺克。回想她的演讲，极大地帮助我写作自己的演讲稿，因为我发现一点也不记得她的任何一句话了。这个发现让我如释重负，不再害怕自己在不经意间就对你们产生影响，让你们放弃在商业、法律、政治方面的大好前途，去追求成为一个快乐巫师的那种令人眩晕的愉悦。

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.
你们明白吗？如果多年以后，你们只记得我讲的这个”快乐巫师”的笑话，我就已经超过玛丽·沃诺克了。可以实现的目标，是自己改进的第一步。

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
实际上，我真的是绞尽脑汁，思索今天自己到底应该讲什么。我问自己，当年我毕业的时候，希望知道哪些事情；以及21年后的今天，我又从人生中得到哪些重要的经验教训。

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
我得到了两个回答。这个美妙的日子，我们聚集一堂，庆祝你们在学业上的成功，但是我决定跟你们说说失败的好处。以及当你们站在所谓”真实世界”的门槛之上的时候，我要颂扬想象力的重要性。

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
这样的主题可能看上去有点异想天开和自相矛盾，但是请听下去。

三、
她开始回忆自己大学毕业时的情景：
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
对于一个42岁的妇女来说，回想自己21岁毕业时的情景，是一种稍稍令人不安的经历。回到21年之前，我正遭受煎熬，不知道在自己内心的追求与父母对我的期望之间，应该如何平衡。

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.
当时，我确信自己一生中唯一想做的事情，就是去写小说。但是，我的父母出身贫寒，没有受过大学教育。他们认为，我那些不安分的想象力只是一种怪癖，根本不能用来还房贷，或者挣来养老金。我现在知道，这种人生的反讽，有着卡通片里大铁砧般的巨大打击力。

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
他们希望我再去读个职业学位，而我想去研究英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学语言学。可是等到父母的车消失在公路的转角，我就立刻抛掉了德语，奔向古典文学的道路。

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
我不记得将这事告诉了父母。他们可能是在毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，在全世界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一间独立的宽敞卫生间。

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
我要申明，我并不责怪父母有这种看法。父母只在一段时间内，对你的人生方向负责；当你长大以后，你自己就控制了人生方向，必须自己承担责任。而且，他们只是希望我不要过穷日子，我不能批评他们。他们自己很穷，我后来一度也很穷，所以我很理解他们，贫穷是一种悲惨的经历。它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有抑郁。它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实让人自豪，但是只有傻瓜才会将贫穷本身浪漫化。

接着，她谈到了自己那些最悲惨的日子：
A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.
我毕业后只过了7年，就失败得一塌糊涂。

An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我还失业了，成了一个艰难的单身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。我父母对我的担忧，我对自己的担忧，都变成了现实。用平常人的标准，我是我所知道的最失败的人。

That period of my life was a dark one. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月。我不知道还要在黑暗中走多久，很长一段时间中，我有的只是希望，而不是现实。

但是，J.K. 罗琳认为，没有那段日子的失败，就不会有后来的她。
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.
为什么我说失败是有好处的？因为失败将那些非本质的东西都剥离了。我不再伪装自己，我找到了真正的我，我将自己所有的精力，投入完成对我最重要的唯一一项工作。

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.
要是我以前在其他地方成功了，那么我也许永远不会有这样的决心，投身于这个我自信真正属于我的领域。

I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
我自由了，因为我最大的恐惧已经成为现实，而我却还依然活着，依然有一个深爱着的女儿，我还有一台旧打字机和一个大大的梦想。我生命中最低的低点，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败让我看清自己，以前我从没认识到自己是这样的。我发现，我比自己以为的，有更强的意志和决心。我还发现，我有一些比宝石更珍贵的朋友。

You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
只有到逆境来临的那一天，你才会真正了解你自己，了解你结识的人。这种了解是真正的财富，虽然是用痛苦换来的，但是它比我以前得到的任何证书都有用。
在演说的下半部分，她还谈了毕业后在大赦国*际（Amnesty International）伦敦总部的第一份工作。这部分内容也很精彩，不过我就不翻译了，大家可以去看原文。

三、
我要重点谈的，是演说的结尾部分。
一般来说，在演讲结束时，嘉宾将对毕业生提出期望。我们可以看到，在这种场合，几乎所有嘉宾，都没有说”祝愿同学们取得个人成功”，而是说”希望同学们努力去减轻人类的苦难”。

比尔·盖茨去年说：
Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world’s worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean water …the girls kept out of school … the children who die from diseases we can cure?
哈佛是否鼓励她的老师去研究解决世界上最严重的不平等？哈佛的学生是否从全球那些极端的贫穷中学到了什么……世界性的饥荒……清洁的水资源的缺乏……无法上学的女童……死于非恶性疾病的儿童……哈佛的学生有没有从中学到东西？

Should the world’s most privileged people learn about the lives of the world’s least privileged?
那些世界上过着最优越生活的人们，有没有从那些最困难的人们身上学到东西？

These are not rhetorical questions - you will answer with your policies.
这些问题并非语言上的修辞。你必须用自己的行动来回答它们。

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given - in talent, privilege, and opportunity - there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.
想一想吧，我们在这个院子里的这些人，被给予过什么—-天赋、特权、机遇—-那么可以这样说，全世界的人们几乎有无限的权力，期待我们做出贡献。

J.K.罗琳今年说：
the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，说明你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，毕竟你们在学业上已经很成功了。

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities……. That is your privilege, and your burden.
但是，所有各位哈佛大学2008届毕业生，你们对其他人的生活了解多少？你们的智慧、你们的能力、你们所受的教育，给了你们独一无二的优势，也给了你们独一无二的责任。……你们的优势就是你们的责任。

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.
你们要用自己的地位和影响，为那些被忽略的人们说话；你们不仅要看到那些有权有势者，也要看到那些无权无势者；你们要学会设想，那些条件不如你们的人们是如何生活的；那样的话，不仅你们的亲人们将为你们感到自豪，而且千千万万的人们将因为你们的帮助而生活得更好。

We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
我们不需要改变世界的魔法，我们自己的体内就有这样的力量：那就是我们一直在梦想，让这个世界变得更美好。

Text as delivered follows.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

致Faust校长，哈佛集团以及哈佛监事委员会的各位成员，各位教职员工，众多自豪的家长，以及最为重要的——各位毕业生们：

我想要说的第一句话是“谢谢你们”。这份感谢不仅来自于哈佛赋予我如此非同寻常的荣誉，更是由于几个星期以来每当我想到今天的致词就会觉得头晕恶心，因而终于成功的减肥了。这就是“双赢”啊！现在，我只需要深呼吸几次，瞄几眼红色的横幅，然后装模作样的让自己相信，我正身处世界上受过最好教育的哈里波特迷的盛大集会之中。

在毕业典礼上致词意味着极大的责任——我这样想着，直到我开始回想我自己的毕业典礼。那天致词的是著名的英国哲学家 Baroness Mary Warnock。对于她的演讲的回忆也极大地帮助了我完成现在这份，因为，我完全想不起来她说了什么。这个具有解放意义的重大发现让我无所畏惧的写下自己的致词，因为我再也不必担心会在不经意间对你们造成影响，以至于让你们为了成为一个快乐巫师的虚幻憧憬，就放弃自己在商业、法律界或政界的远大前程。

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

看到了吧？就算若干年后你们对我的演讲的印象只剩下这个“快乐的巫师”的笑话，那我还是领先了Baroness Mary Warnock一步的。能够达成的目标是自我改善的第一步。

事实上，为了确定今天应该对你们说些什么，我真是绞尽了脑汁。我问自己，在我自己的毕业典礼上，我曾期待知道什么？而自那天开始到现在的21年间，我又学到了那些教训？

我想到了两个答案。在今天这个美妙的时刻，当我们齐聚一堂庆祝你们取得学业成功的时候，我决定跟你们谈谈失败带来的好处。另外，在你们正要一脚踏入所谓“真实的生活”的时候，我还要高声赞颂想象力的重大意义。

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

这些决定看起来颇为荒诞而矛盾，但是啊，请听我慢慢道来。

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

对于一个已经42岁的妇人来说，回顾21岁毕业典礼的时刻并不是一件十分舒服的事情。在前半生中我一直奋力挣扎，为了在自己的雄心壮志与亲人对我的期盼之间取得一个平衡。

我自己认定今生唯一想做的事情就是写小说。然而，我的出身贫寒、从未受过大学教育的父母却认为，我那过于活跃的想象力只不过是个人的怪癖而已，永远也不能帮我偿还贷款，也不能帮我弄到养老金。

他们希望我取得一个职业技能学位；而我却向往在英国文学方面深造。最后我们互有妥协并达成一致，让我去学习现代语言；而事后想来，这份妥协其实没有让任何一方满意。于是，没等父母的车绕过路尽头的拐角从视野里消失，我就丢下了德语，转而沿着古典文学的道路快步走下去。

我记不得是否有告诉父母我其实在学习古典文学；他们也可能在出席毕业典礼的时候终于觉察了事实真相。在地球上所有的学科当中，当涉及到“获得使用正式员工专用洗手间的权利”的时候，我估计他们很难想到比希腊神话更没用的学科了。

顺便提一句，我必须声明自己并没有为父母的观点而责怪他们的意思。你不能总是责怪父母指错了方向；当你长大成人、可以独立掌舵的时候，这份责任就应该由你独立承担了。况且，父母希望我永远都不要经受贫穷，而我不能谴责这一期望。他们自己饱受贫寒之苦，而我也曾经是个穷人，我十分赞同他们的想法——贫穷决不是什么高贵的经历。伴随贫穷而来的是恐惧和紧张，有时还会陷入忧伤沮丧之中；这些都意味着无尽的卑微和艰难。凭借自己的力量挣脱贫困境地，这的确是值得自豪的事情，但是只有愚蠢的人才会一厢情愿的为贫穷本身涂抹浪漫的色彩。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

当我像你们这么大的时候，我最害怕的甚至还不是贫穷，而是失败。

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

当我像你们这么大的时候，我对大学里的课程没什么动力，总是在咖啡馆里花上大把的时间写小说，而用于听课的时间则寥寥无几。尽管如此，我却有些让自己能通过考试的窍门；而考试，在若干年中，就成了衡量我和我同龄人的成败的标准。

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

我不会笨到认为你们这些年轻、有天赋、受过良好教育的孩子就从来不知道困难和心碎的滋味。天赋和智力并不能让人免受命运的捉弄；我也从不认为在这里的所有人都享有不可破坏的特权与满足。

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

然而，毕业于哈佛大学这一事实暗示着你们并不十分熟悉失败。驱动你们前行的对于失败的恐惧可能更为接近对于成功的渴望。事实上，你们心目中的失败很可能与普通人设想的成功相差无几，毕竟你们在学业上的成功已经高到遥不可及。

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

最终，我们都要按自己的想法给失败下一个定义；但是如果你允许的话，这个世界会迫不及待的为你设定一套标准。因此我觉得，不管按照什么惯行标准，仅仅在毕业七年之后，我都确确实实的失败了，而且败得彻彻底底。我那罕见的短暂婚姻走到了尽头，自己又失业了。一个单身母亲，沦落到当代英国最为贫困的境地，只不过还没到无家可归的程度而已。我父母害怕发生在我身上的事情，我害怕发生在自己身上的事情，都降临了。无论按照什么标准来看，我都是我所知道的最大的失败。

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

现在，我站在这里，告诉你们失败可是件一点也不好玩的事情。那个时候我的人生被黑暗笼罩，根本想不到在未来的时光里这段经历竟会被报道为神话般的坚定意志。那时候我不知道黑暗的隧道何时才是尽头，而尽头的任何光亮都像是渺茫的希望而非稳固的现实。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

为什么我还要谈起失败的好处呢？简单的说，是因为失败会为我们揭去表面那些无关紧要的东西。我不再装模作样，终于重新做回自己，开始将所有的精力投入到自己在意的唯一作品。如果我此前在其它的任何什么方面有所成功，我恐怕都会失去在自己真正归属的舞台上获得成功的决心。我最大的恐惧终于成为现实，而我却因此获得了自由，我还活着，还有我深爱的女儿，我还有一架老式打字机和一个宏大的梦想。这片顽固的低谷成为我脚下坚定的基石，在此之上，我重筑了自己的人生。

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

你们也许不会像我摔得这样惨，但是人生路上总会有些失败。你也许可以毫无失败的度过一生，但你将活得如此小心翼翼，就好像你几乎没有活过——不管从什么意义上讲，你都注定要失败的。

失败赋予我内心的安全感，而这是考试及格也不能让我感受到的。失败让我明白关于自己的一些东西，这是除了失败以外我决不可能获得的认知。我意识到自己拥有坚强的意志，而且比我以前设想的还要自律；我还发现我拥有的朋友们是如此宝贵，其价值连宝石也不能媲美。

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

你在挫折中成长，更聪明，更强壮，这意味着从此以后你已拥有了牢不可催的生存能力。直到通过逆境的考验，你才会真正了解自己，以及你周围的人赋予你的力量。这些认知都是宝贵的财富，我历经艰辛才获得的财富，这比我得到的任何资格证书都更有价值。

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

如果能够让时光倒流，我会告诉21岁的自己，幸福在于懂得人生不是收获和成就的清单。你的资格证书或你的简历，并不是你的生活；尽管你将遇到很多我这样年纪、甚至比我更老的人，他们却还分不清楚两者间的区别。生活是严酷的，也是复杂的，更不处于任何人的掌控；谦逊的懂得并接受这一点，会帮助安然你度过生活中的风浪。

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

也许你们会以为，我之所以选择第二个主题——想象力的重要性，是因为想象力在我重筑人生时发挥了巨大作用。但这并不是全部的原因。我固然到死也会捍卫睡前故事的价值，但我还认识到要在更为广阔的范围内珍视想象力。想象力是人类独有的预见未知的能力，它还是所有发明创造的源泉。它具有已被证实的最富变革性和启示性的力量，而正是想象力让我们能够切身体会他人的经验——虽然我们自己并未身临其境。

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

对我影响最为深远的经历发生在哈里波特之前，而这一经历为我后来完成著作提供了很多信息。我在最早的全日制工作中获得了启示。在二十几岁的时候，我在位于伦敦的国际特赦组织总部的研究部门工作，以获得付房租的钱，而午餐的时候我就溜掉去写小说。

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

在那里，我坐在小小的办公室里阅读来自集权统治下的地区的信件。男人和女人们急切的写下潦草的文字，将信偷偷寄出来，冒着坐牢的风险告诉外界自己遭受了怎样的对待。我看到那些无声无息地失踪了的人的照片，是由他们的绝望的亲人和朋友寄到特赦组织来的。我读着被严刑拷打的受害人的证词，看着记录他们的惨状的照片。我打开手写的亲眼见证的记录，记载着对于绑架和强奸案件的简单审讯和执行。

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

我的很多同事以前都是政治犯。他们被迫离开家庭或流亡国外，因为他们有勇气以独立意志评判他们的政府。我们的办公室的访客有些是来提供信息的，也有人前来了解他们被迫放弃的同伴的情况。

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

我永远也无法忘记一个来自非洲的经受严刑拷打的受害者。他是个年轻人，不会比那时的我年纪更大，在自己的祖国遭受的一切已经使他有些精神失常。对着摄影机讲述自己遭受的痛苦的时候，他无法抑制的战栗着。他比我高一英尺，看上去却像孩子一样脆弱无助。随后，在我按照吩咐护送他去地铁的路上，这个人生已被残暴摧毁的男人却优雅有礼的拉着我的手，祝我未来幸福快乐。

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

在我有生之年，我都会记得自己走过一条空旷的走廊的时候，从身后一扇紧闭的门内传出的尖叫。其中包含的痛苦和恐惧是如此强烈，我以后再没听过那样的声音。门打开了，一个工作人员探出头，告诉我赶快跑去，给坐在她身边的青年男子拿一杯热饮。她刚刚告诉那位年青人，由于他本人公开反对自己国家的专制，他的母亲已被抓走并处决了。

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

在我二十几岁的时候，工作中的每一天，我都不断被提醒着自己是多么的幸运，能够生活在一个民选政府管理的国家，人人都享有法律代理和公开审判的权利。

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

每天我都看见更多的人类的邪恶加诸于同胞的证据，这样的罪恶仅仅是为了获得或者维持权力。我开始做恶梦，彻头彻尾的恶梦，梦到那些我看到、听到和读到的事情。

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

然而，在国际特赦组织里我还了解了很多关于人类的好的一面，有些是我从不知道的。

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

国际特赦组织调动了几千人，他们从未因自己的信念而被折磨或监禁，他们代表那些饱受折磨的人并为之行事。人类的同情心的力量引导了集体行动，拯救生命，释放被关押的人们。那些个人幸福和安全已经得到保证的普通人，为了拯救他们并不认识、甚至再也不会见面的陌生人而集结起来，汇聚成强大的群体。我个人在其中的参与，是我今生最为卑微、却最为振奋的经历。

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

人类与地球上的其它生物不同。就算没有亲身经历，人类也可以学习和理解。人类可以将自己代入别人的思想之中，设想自己处于他人的境地。

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

当然，这也是力量，就好像我的小说中的魔法。这是在道德上中立的力量，可以被用于操纵和控制，也可以被用于理解和同情。

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

还有很多人宁愿不去使用他们的想象力。他们选择舒舒服服的呆在自己的经历之内，从不费事去想象如果他们生下来是别的人，那一切将会怎样。他们可以拒绝倾听叫喊声，也不会窥视笼子内的情况；对于任何没有降临到自身的痛苦，他们都可以关闭自己的头脑和心灵；他们可以拒绝知道。

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

也许我禁不住会想要嫉妒这样生活的人，只可惜我不相信他们做的恶梦会比我少。选择生活在狭窄的范围里，会导致某种精神上的对于陌生环境的恐惧症，并由此产生相应的害怕心理。我认为那些自己决定不去想象的人会看到更多的怪物。他们通常会更害怕。

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

另外，选择不去同情的人会养育现实中的怪物。就算我们自己没有亲自作出邪恶的事情，我们对于邪恶的无动于衷就等同于和它同谋。

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

十八岁时，为了寻找那时我无法描述的目的，我踏上了古典文学的探险道路；当走到尽头的时候，我学到了很多东西，其中之一就是希腊作家Plutarch的这句话：我们在内心的所得，将改变外界的现实。

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

这句惊人的宣言却每天都被我们的生活证实无数次。在某种程度上，它表达了我们与外面世界的无法逃避的联系；它道出这样一个事实，仅仅是我们自身的存在，就已经触碰到了他人的生活。

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

但是，哈佛大学2008届的毕业生们，你们又将对他人的生活深入多少呢？你们的智慧、你们应对高难度工作的才能、你们谋求并接受到的教育，都赋予你们独一无二的身份，以及独一无二的责任。即使你们的国籍将你们区隔开来。你们中的大多数，属于这个世界目前仅存的超级大国。你们投票的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们对于政府施加的压力，其影响都会远远超出你们自身的界限。那就是你们的特权，也是你们背负的重任。

如果你选择了，用你的身份和影响力来提高你的声音，为那些没有声音的人呐喊；如果你选择了，不仅认同权势群体，更要与弱势群体为伍；如果你保留了想象的能力，能够与不具备你的优势的那些人感同身受。那么，不仅仅是你的家人会为你自豪，更有成千上万的、因为你而生活得更好的人会为你欢呼。我们并不需要魔法来改造世界。我们在内心深处已经拥有了所需的所有力量：我们拥有想象更好的世界的力量。

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

我的话快要说完了。最后，我对你们还有一个期望，在我21岁的时候我就怀有这个期望。在毕业典礼上与我坐在一起的朋友们，后来成了我一生的朋友。他们是我的孩子们的教父和教母。他们是我陷入困境时可以寻求帮助的人。他们是如此宽容的朋友，就连名字被我用来命名食死徒的时候也没有起诉我。在毕业典礼上，我们被心中澎湃的激情紧密联结，被共同分享的宝贵时光紧密联结，当然，也被某个共识紧密联结——如果我们中的某人有朝一日当选为英国首相，那我们持有的合影照片肯定会价值不菲。

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

因此，今天，我能够送给你们的最好的祝福，就是这样的友谊。明天，我希望就算你记不起我说过的任何一个字，你还是能够想起Seneca说过的话。那时我已远离职业生涯的阶梯，转而寻找古代的智慧。我在沿着古典文学的走廊飞奔时遇到了这个古罗马的家伙。

他说：

人生就像故事，不在于漫长，而在于精彩。

我祝你们所有人一生幸福。

非常感谢。

生命之旅

English Speech

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

Text as delivered follows.