最近剛開始利用零碎時間讀 Infinite Jest，適逢畢業季，我也正好有機會在課堂上帶到這篇畢業典禮致詞。想想我也太久沒翻工作以外的英文文章了就把這篇拿來當練習。有關這篇格式，因為採用中英對照，篇幅略長，我分為上下兩篇文章發布。希望大家也喜歡 David Foster Wallace 機智風趣的文字與發人深省的見解 📖

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Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

各位家長好，也恭喜各位凱尼恩學院 2005 年的畢業生。兩隻小魚一起游著，途中遇到一隻年長的魚迎面游來。老魚對著他們點點頭，說：「早安，年輕人。水還行嗎？」兩隻小魚繼續往前游了一下，其中一隻終於忍不住看向另一隻，問他：「水是什麼鬼？」

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning. 

這種小故事大啟示的寓言是美國畢業典禮演講的標配。事實證明，這種故事手法相較其它有的沒的文體，還算有點意思。但請你千萬不要因此以為我今天打算當那隻睿智的老魚，向你們這些小魚解釋水是什麼。我不是那隻睿智的老魚。說這則魚的故事，其實只是為了指出一點：最顯而易見、最根本的現實，往往是最難察覺也難以言喻的。單用英文來陳述的話，這不過就是句陳腔濫調。但實際上，對於成年人生活即作戰的日常，這些老生常談其實攸關著生死存亡。在這個乾爽宜人的早晨，我想跟你們說的大抵如此。

Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about "teaching you how to think." If you're like me as a student, you've never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I'm going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your scepticism about the value of the totally obvious.

當然，這種演講的主要任務，就是要談談你們受的博雅教育究竟有什麼意義，試圖說服你們即將拿到的學位，不只是用來換取物質報酬的工具，而是真正具有人文價值。先拿畢業典禮致辭中最常見的一句老話來說：博雅教育的目的不是灌輸知識，而是「教你如何思考」。如果你跟學生時期的我一樣，大概也會對這句話感到不屑，會覺得這是在看不起你。都進到這麼好的大學了，不就代表你早就懂得思考了嗎？怎麼還需要別人指教你怎麼思考？但我想說的是，這種人文教育的老話其實無意貶低你。身在這樣的大學，真正重要的思考教育，並不在於訓練你「學會思考」，而是在於讓你學會「該思考什麼」。如果你覺得這個概念太淺顯，沒什麼好討論的，那不妨回想一下那則魚和水的故事，對於這些顯而易見的事，暫時放下你的懷疑。

Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp."

再分享一個啟示小故事。在阿拉斯加某個偏遠地區的酒吧裡，兩個男人坐在一起喝酒。一個有宗教信仰，另一個則是無神論者。四杯黃湯下肚，他們開始激烈爭論上帝存不存在。無神論者說：「我不是沒憑沒據地不信，也不是沒試過信上帝跟禱告那一套。上個月，我在那場可怕的暴風雪中受困於離營地很遠的地方，完全看不到也找不到路，當時甚至零下 50 度。然後我就試了，我跪在雪地裡大喊：『神啊，要是真的有神，我現在迷路了，你不幫我我就死定了！』」此時，酒吧裡那個信徒滿臉狐疑地看著他：「那你到現在還不相信神嗎？你可是活著在跟我講這些耶。」無神論者只翻了翻白眼：「哪有什麼神，不過就是有兩個愛斯基摩人剛好經過，順便指引我回到營地而已。」

It's easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis: the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from.

我們可以從典型的人文視角切入，探討這個故事：同樣的經驗，會因為兩人各自的信仰模式和解讀經驗的方式不同，產生截然不同的意義。因為我們重視信仰的包容性和多元價值，從人文的視角分析這個故事，我們不會斷言這兩個人孰是孰非。這樣的立場無可厚非，問題在於我們一直沒走到探究的那一步：這一個個樣板和信仰究竟從何而來？也就是說，它們是怎麼從這兩個人「內在」生成的？

Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Plus, there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.

我們似乎默認，一個人面對世界的基本態度，以及他從經驗中建構出來的意義，就像身高或鞋碼一樣與生俱來，抑或是像語言那樣從文化中自然而然地吸收而來；彷彿「我們如何賦予經驗意義」這件事，並不是一種個人主體有意識的選擇。我們甚至還沒談到「傲慢」這件事。深信不疑的無神論者，斷然否定那兩位愛斯基摩人的出現與他的祈禱之間存有任何關聯。沒錯，很多宗教人士同樣傲慢自信，堅守自己的論點，對我們大多數人而言，他們搞不好還比無神論者更讓人反感。但無論信不信教，這些人的問題其實如出一轍：一種盲目的確信，一種封閉到渾然不覺自己早已受困的心靈狀態。

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.

對我來說，這才是「教我怎麼思考」的真正意義。學會收斂一點傲慢，對於自己以及自己的堅持，產生多一點批判意識。因為我們下意識視為理所當然的事物，其實往往大錯特錯，甚至根本是自欺欺人。這一路上我吃了不少苦頭才學到這個教訓，我想在場的畢業生遲早也會有類似的體會。

Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

舉個我自己總是不假思索相信，但其實根本錯得離譜的例子。我曾經深信自己是宇宙的中心，是世界上最真實、最鮮明、最重要的人，而我的所有親身經歷在在強化著這個信念。我們鮮少意識到這種天經地義又根深蒂固的自我中心傾向，畢竟這不是什麼很討喜的事情。但其實我們所有人都一樣；這就是我們的內建模式，打從出生就刻在我們的主機板上。你想想看，這世上有哪一番體會不是以你自己為中心？世界彷彿總是圍繞著你展開，發生在你眼前、你身後，你的左邊右邊，在你的電視裡、你的螢幕中，諸如此類。至於其他人的想法或感受，還得透過某種方式傳達給你，但你自己的念頭和情緒，永遠是最直接、最強烈、最真實的。

Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

大家不用擔心我接下來要高談什麼慈悲為懷、為別人著想，或者所謂的美德。這裡的重點無關德行，而是從自己做起，選擇去調整甚至擺脫這根植於天性的內建模式，不要再慣性地以自我為中心，從自己的視角去認定和解讀一切。我們通常會用「調適良好」來形容這些不受預設所限的人，這個詞我得說，還真不是隨便用的。

Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education–least in my own case–is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualise stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.

相信身在這學術殿堂裡的我們都很好奇，調整我們的內建模式，究竟和我們所學的知識與智慧有多少關聯。這問題其實很棘手。至少對我來說，受學術訓練最大的風險，就是它會強化我過度理論化的傾向，讓我沉溺於自己腦袋裡的抽象論述，忽略眼前正發生的事實，自顧自地專注於自己的精神世界。

As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotised by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master."

現在的你們一定已經明白，要時刻保持警覺和專注有多難，畢竟我們真的很容易被沒完沒了的內心戲催眠（你現在可能就是這樣）。我在自己大學畢業後的二十年間才慢慢理解，「學會思考」這句老掉牙的人文教育口號，其實隱含著更深層、更嚴謹的概念。所謂學習如何思考，意思其實是學習掌握自己思考的方式與內容，要有意識地選擇你注意力的焦點，也要選擇你如何從經驗中建構出意義。在大人的世界裡，若不具備這種選擇的能力，你真的會一敗塗地，畢竟俗話說：「心智既是善僕亦為惡主。」

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

這句話就跟很多老話一樣，乍聽之下無聊又老套，實則揭露了一個重大又殘酷的真相。所有舉槍自盡的成年人，幾乎無一例外地，都朝自己的頭開槍。他們瞄準的，正是那極惡的主人。而事實是，很多人在扣下扳機之前，早已形同死去。

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（英文逐字稿來源：fs.blog）

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