Greetings, thanks, and congratulations to Canyons Graduating Class of 2005!向 Canyons(凯尼恩) 2005 届毕业生致以问候、感谢和祝贺！
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?"有两条小鱼正在游着，它们恰好遇到了一条朝反方向游来的老鱼。老鱼向它们点了点头，说：“早上好，小伙子们。水怎么样？”
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?"这两条小鱼继续游了一会儿，然后，其中一条终于看向另一条，说道：“水到底是什么鬼东西？”
This is a standard requirement of U.S. commencement speeches: the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshit-y 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.这是美国毕业典礼演讲的一个标准要求：讲述一些具有说教意味的小寓言故事。讲故事这一环节最终成为了这个类型中比较好的、较少废话的惯例之一。但如果你担心我打算在这里扮演一位智慧的老鱼，向你们这些小鱼解释水的意义，请不要担心。
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.我并不是那条智慧的老鱼。这个鱼的故事想要表达的是，那些最显而易见、最重要的现实，往往是最难被看到和谈论的。
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, then all platitudes can have a life-or-death importance.当然，如果把它当作一句英语句子来说，这仅仅是一句陈词滥调，但事实是，在成年人日复一日的艰难生活中，所有的陈词滥调都可能具有生死攸关的重要性。
Or so. I wish to suggest to you, on this dry and lovely morning.大致如此。在这个干燥而美好的早晨，我想向你们建议
Of course, the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about the meaning of your liberal arts education, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value, instead of just a material payoff.当然，这类演讲的主要要求是，我应该谈谈你们的文科教育的意义，试着解释为什么你们即将获得的学位具有实际的人类价值，而不仅仅是物质上的回报。
Of course, the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about the meaning of your liberal arts education, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value, instead of just a material payoff.当然，这类演讲的主要要求是，我应该谈谈你们的文科教育的意义，试着解释为什么你们即将获得的学位具有实际的人类价值，而不仅仅是物质上的回报。
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've 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.如果你和我一样，作为一名学生，你从来不喜欢听到这样的言论，并且你往往会因为别人声称你需要别人来教你如何思考而感到有点被冒犯，因为你甚至能被这样一所优秀的大学录取，这似乎就证明了你已经知道如何思考了。
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.但我要向你们提出的是，文科教育的陈词滥调其实并不具有侮辱性，因为我们在这样的地方应该获得的真正重要的思维教育，并不是关于思考的能力，而是关于思考什么内容的选择。
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 skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.如果你认为关于思考什么内容的完全自由选择权太过显而易见，以至于不值得浪费时间讨论，那么我想请你思考一下鱼和水的故事，并且请你在接下来的几分钟里，暂时搁置你对显而易见之物的怀疑。
Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness.这是另一个具有说教意味的小故事。有两个男人坐在阿拉斯加一个偏远地区的酒吧里。
One of the guys is religious, the other's an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer.其中一个男人是信徒，另一个是无神论者，他们两人正在争论上帝的存在，这种争论在喝了大约第四杯啤酒后变得尤为激烈。
And the atheist says, "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God."无神论者说：“你看，我不是没有不相信上帝的实际理由。”
"It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing."“我不是没有尝试过整个上帝和祈祷的事情。”
Just last month, I got caught away from 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 going to die if you don't help me."就在上个月，我被困在了那场可怕的暴风雪中，远离了营地，我完全迷路了，什么也看不见，气温降到了零下50度。所以我试着做了。我跪在雪地里，大声喊道：“哦，上帝，如果你真的存在，我迷失在这场暴风雪中了，如果你不帮我，我就要死了。”
And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist, all puzzled.现在，在酒吧里，那个信徒疑惑地看着无神论者。
"Well, then you must believe now," he says. "After all, here you are alive."“那么，你现在一定相信了吧，”他说。“毕竟，你现在还活着。”
The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man. All that was was a couple of Eskimos happened to come wandering by and they showed me the way back to camp."无神论者只是翻了个白眼。“不，老兄。那只是碰巧有几个爱斯基摩人路过，他们带我回到了营地。”
It's easy to run the story through a kind of 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.很容易通过一种标准的文科分析来解读这个故事：对于两个不同的人来说，完全相同的经历可能意味着两件完全不同的事情，因为这两个人有着两种不同的信仰模板和两种不同的从经历中构建意义的方式。
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.因为我们珍视信仰的宽容和多样性，所以在我们的文科分析中，我们不想声称某个人的解释是正确的，而另一个人的解释是错误的或不好的。
Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from.这很好，但我们也从未真正讨论过这些个人的信仰模板和信仰是从哪里来的。
Meaning, where do they come from inside the two guys?我的意思是，这两个人的信仰和模板是从哪里来的？
As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hardwired, like height or shoe size, or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language.就好像一个人对世界的最基本定位和他经历的意义是某种固有的，就像身高或鞋码一样，或者像语言一样自动从文化中吸收而来。
As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal intentional choice.就好像我们如何构建意义并不是个人有意选择的问题。
Plus, there's the matter of arrogance. The non-religious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help.此外，还有傲慢的问题。那个非宗教信徒非常肯定地排除了路过的爱斯基摩人与他的祈祷求助有任何关系的可能性。
True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogantly certain of their own interpretations too.确实，也有很多宗教信徒对自己的解释也显得傲慢而肯定。
They are probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us.他们可能比我们大多数人更反感无神论者。
But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a closed-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.但是宗教原教旨主义者的问题与故事中的无神论者的问题是完全一样的：盲目的肯定，一种封闭的思想，这相当于一种完全的监禁，以至于囚犯甚至不知道自己被锁起来了。
The point here is that I think this is one part of what "teaching me how to think" is really supposed to mean.这里的重点是，我认为这是“教我如何思考”所真正应该包含的一部分内容。
To be just a little less arrogant, to have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties.要稍微不那么傲慢，对自己和自己的肯定要有一点批判性的认识。
Because a huge percentage of stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.因为我往往自动确信的大部分事情，事实证明都是完全错误和误导的。
I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will too.我是通过艰难的方式学到这一点的，正如我预测你们毕业生也会一样。
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 center of the universe.这里只是一个例子，说明了我往往自动确信的某件事情的完全错误性：我所有的直接经验都支持我深信不疑的观点，即我是宇宙的中心。
The realist: the most vivid and important person in existence.现实主义者：存在中最生动、最重要的人。
We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us.我们很少谈论这种自然的、基本的以自我为中心，因为它在社会上是令人反感的，但几乎我们所有人都是如此。
It is our default setting, hardwired into our brains at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not at the absolute center of.这是我们默认的设定，从出生时就被硬编码在我们的大脑中。想想看：你没有过任何一次不是以你自己为中心的经历。
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.你所体验到的世界就在你面前，或在你身后，或在你的左边或右边，或在你的电视或显示器上，等等。
Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.其他人的想法和感受必须以某种方式传达给你，但你自己的想法和感受却是如此直接、紧迫、真实。
Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues.请不要担心我准备要给你们讲关于同情、利他主义或所有所谓的美德。
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, hardwired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.这不是一个美德的问题。这是关于我选择去做一些工作的问题，以某种方式改变或摆脱我天生的、硬编码的默认设置，那就是深刻而纯粹地以自我为中心，并通过这种自我视角来看待和解释一切。
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.能够以这种方式调整自己天生的默认设置的人，通常被描述为“适应良好的”，我认为这个词并非偶然。
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.鉴于这里充满胜利气氛的学术环境，一个显而易见的问题是，调整我们默认设置的工作中有多少涉及到实际的知识或智力。
This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.这个问题非常棘手。在我看来，学术教育中最危险的事情可能是，它助长了我过度将事物知识化的倾向，让我沉迷于自己头脑中的抽象论证，而不是简单地关注眼前发生的事情，关注自己内心的感受。
As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head, maybe happening right now.我相信你们现在都知道，保持警觉和专注是非常困难的，而不是被自己脑海中不断进行的独白所催眠，这种情况可能现在正在发生。
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.在我自己毕业20年后，我逐渐明白，文科教育中关于“教你如何思考”的陈词滥调，实际上是对一个更深层次、更严肃的想法的简化表达：学会如何思考。
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.“学会如何思考”的真正含义是学习如何对你的思考方式和思考内容进行一定程度的控制。它意味着你要有足够的意识和觉知来选择你关注的内容，以及如何从经验中构建意义。
Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.因为如果你在成年生活中不能做出这种选择，你将会陷入困境。
Think of the old cliché about the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.想想那个老套的比喻，说心灵是一个优秀的仆人，但也是一个可怕的主人。
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth.这个比喻，和许多陈词滥调一样，表面上看起来既平淡又无趣，但实际上却表达了一个伟大而可怕的真理。
It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head.成年人用枪自杀时几乎总是朝自己的头部开枪，这绝非巧合。
They shoot the terrible master, and the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.他们射杀了可怕的主人，而事实是，这些自杀者中的大多数在扣动扳机之前就已经“死了”。
And I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head, and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely imperially alone, day in and day out.我认为，你接受文科教育的真正价值（没有任何虚夸的成分）应该在于：如何避免在舒适、繁荣、受人尊敬的成年生活中变得麻木不仁、毫无意识，成为自己头脑的奴隶，日复一日地沉浸在那种“独特地、完全地、帝王般地孤独”的自然默认状态中。
That may sound like hyperbole or abstract nonsense, but let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you, graduating seniors, do not yet have any clue what day in, day out really means.这听起来可能像是夸张或抽象的无稽之谈，但让我们具体一点。事实是，你们这些即将毕业的高年级学生，还完全不知道日复一日的生活意味着什么。
There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches.美国成年人的生活中有很多重要的部分，在毕业典礼的演讲中却无人提及。
One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.其中一个方面涉及无聊、日常琐事和琐碎的不满。这里的父母和年长者将非常清楚我在说什么。
By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day. You get up in the morning, go to your challenging white-collar, college graduate job, and you work hard for 8 or 10 hours. And at the end of the day, you're tired and somewhat stressed, and all you want is to go home and have a good suffer and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early, because of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again.以一天为例，假设这是一个普通的成年人的一天。你早上醒来，去你充满挑战的白领、大学毕业生的工作岗位，努力工作8到10个小时。一天结束时，你感到疲惫和有些压力，你只想回家吃一顿好饭，也许放松一个小时，然后早点上床睡觉，因为当然，你第二天还得早起，再重复这一切。
But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now, after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket.但这时你记起家里没有食物了。你这周都没有时间购物，因为工作太忙了。所以现在下班后，你得上车开车去超市。
It's the end of a workday, and the traffic is apt to be very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should. And when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course, it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping.这是一天工作结束的时间，交通很可能非常拥堵，所以到超市的路比预期的要长得多。当你终于到达时，超市里人满为患，因为当然，这是所有其他有工作的人也会尽量挤出时间买些杂货的时候。
And the store is hideously fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be. But you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, overlit store, through confusing aisles, to find the stuff you want. And you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts.而且超市里的灯光刺眼的荧光灯让人难受，充斥着让人灵魂枯萎的“Muzak”音乐或企业流行乐，这几乎是你最不想去的地方。但你不能只是进去然后迅速离开；你不得不在巨大的、灯光过亮的超市里游荡，穿过混乱的过道，寻找你想要的东西。而且你不得不在这些同样疲惫、匆忙推着购物车的人中穿梭，操控着你那破旧的购物车。
Etc., etc. (cutting stuff out because it's a long ceremony), and eventually, you get all your supper supplies. Except now, it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open, even though it's the end of the day rush.等等，等等（因为是长篇演讲，所以省略了一些内容），最终，你拿到了所有晚餐所需的食材。但这时，你发现即使是下班高峰时段，开放的结账通道也不够多。
So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who has overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpass the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.所以结账的队伍长得令人难以置信，这既愚蠢又令人愤怒，但你不能把你的沮丧发泄到那位在收银台工作的紧张的女士身上，她已经超负荷工作了，这份工作的日常单调和无意义超出了我们在这里的任何一位名牌大学生的想象。
But anyway, you finally get to the front of the checkout line, and you pay for your food and get told to have a nice day in a voice that is the absolute voice of death.但无论如何，你终于排到了结账队伍的前面，你付了钱，然后收银员用那种绝对死气沉沉的声音对你说“祝你今天过得愉快”。
And then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls magnally to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot. And then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush hour traffic. Etc., etc. Everyone here has done this, of course.然后，你不得不推着你那装着诡异、脆弱的塑料袋子的购物车，那个轮子疯狂地向左偏的购物车，穿过拥挤、颠簸、满是垃圾的停车场。然后，你还得开车穿过缓慢、拥堵、满是SUV的高峰期交通，一路回家。等等，等等。当然，这里的每个人都经历过这些。
But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week, after month, after year, but it will be.但这还不是你们毕业生实际生活中的日常，日复一日，周复一周，月复一月，年复一年，但它将会是。
And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides, but that is not the point. The point is that petty frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is going to come in.除此之外，还有很多枯燥、烦人、看似毫无意义的日常琐事，但这并不是重点。重点是，像这样的琐碎、令人沮丧的事情正是我们需要做出选择的地方。
Because the traffic jams, crowded aisles, and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop.因为交通堵塞、拥挤的过道和漫长的结账队伍给了我思考的时间，如果我不有意识地决定如何思考和注意什么，那么每次购物时我都会感到愤怒和痛苦。
Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me - about my hunger, my fatigue, and my desire to just get home. And it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way.因为我的自然默认设置是确信这样的情况都是关于我自己的——关于我的饥饿、我的疲惫、和我只想回家的愿望。而且，对于全世界来说，其他人似乎都只是在挡我的路。
And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and non-human they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line.这些挡我路的人都是谁？看看他们中的大多数人是多么令人厌恶，在结账队伍中，他们看起来是多么愚蠢、像牛一样呆滞、眼神空洞、非人性化，或者看看人们在队伍中间大声讲电话是多么令人恼火和粗鲁。
And look at how deeply personally unfair this is. Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious, liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish 40-gallon tanks of gas.看看这是多么不公平。当然，如果我更倾向于社会意识强的文科生的默认设置，我可以在傍晚的交通中，对那些巨大的、愚蠢的、占用车道的SUV、悍马和V12皮卡感到厌恶，它们燃烧着浪费的、自私的40加仑汽油。
And I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate, and aggressive drivers. This is an example of how not to think absolutely.我可以一直纠结于这样一个事实：那些爱国的或宗教的保险杠贴纸，似乎总是贴在最大、最自私、最令人厌恶的车辆上，而这些车辆往往是由最丑陋、最不顾及他人、最咄咄逼人的司机驾驶的。这是一个关于如何避免绝对化思考的例子。
And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so on and so forth.我可以思考我们的孙子孙女将如何鄙视我们，因为我们浪费了未来所有的燃料，并可能搞砸了气候，以及我们所有人是多么被宠坏、愚蠢、自私和令人厌恶，以及现代消费社会是多么糟糕，等等。
"You get the idea. If I choose to think this way, in the store and on the freeway, fine, lots of us do."“你明白我的意思了。如果我在商店和高速公路上选择这样思考，没问题，很多人都会这么做。”
Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice; it is my natural default setting.但这样想往往太容易且自动化，以至于它不需要成为一个选择；它成了我自然的默认设置。
It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life, when I'm operating on the automatic unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.当我以自动且无意识的信念行事，认为自己是世界的中心，认为我的即时需求和感受应该决定世界的优先级时，这就是我体验成年人生活中无聊、沮丧和拥挤部分的自动方式。
"The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations."“问题是，当然，对于这些情况，我们有完全不同的思考方式。”
In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that the therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive.在这个交通拥堵中，所有车辆都停滞不前，挡在我的路上。很有可能，其中一些驾驶SUV的人过去曾经历过可怕的汽车事故，现在他们发现驾驶是如此可怕，以至于心理医生几乎要求他们购买一辆巨大笨重的SUV，这样他们才能感到足够安全去驾驶。
Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am. It is actually I who am in his way.或者，那辆刚刚超我车的悍马可能是由一位父亲驾驶的，他旁边座位上坐着的是他受伤或生病的小孩，他正试图尽快把孩子送到医院，他比我更加迫切、更加合理地需要赶时间。实际上，是我挡了他的路。
Or, I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious, or painful lives than I do.或者，我可以选择强迫自己去考虑这样一个可能性：超市里收银台前排队的其他人和我一样感到无聊和沮丧，而且其中一些人可能过着比我更加艰难、乏味或痛苦的生活。
Again, please don't think I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard.再次说明，请不要认为我在给你道德上的建议，或者说我认为你应该这样思考，或者说任何人期望你自然而然地就做到这些，因为这很难。
It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.这需要意志和努力，而且如果你像我一样，有时候你可能做不到，或者你就是完全不想这么做。
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line.但在大多数日子里，如果你足够清醒，能够给自己一个选择的机会，你可以选择以不同的眼光看待这位刚刚在收银台前对着孩子大喊大叫的肥胖、眼神呆滞、妆容过浓的女士。
Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer.也许她平时并不是这样的。也许她已经连续三个晚上没有合眼了，一直守在她患有骨癌、生命垂危的丈夫身边，紧握着他的手。
Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles department who just, yesterday, helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating red tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.或者，这位女士可能就是机动车辆管理局的低薪职员，就在昨天，她通过一些小小的官僚主义的善意之举，帮助你的配偶解决了一个可怕且令人愤怒的繁琐手续问题。
Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends on what you want to consider.当然，这些事情都不太可能发生，但也不是完全不可能。这完全取决于你想要考虑什么。
If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important, if you want to operate on your default setting, then, like me, you probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable.如果你自动地认为自己了解什么是现实，以及谁和什么才是真正重要的，如果你想按照你的默认设置去行动，那么，就像我一样，你可能不会考虑那些不令人烦恼和痛苦的可能性。
But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options.但如果你已经真正学会了如何思考，如何集中注意力，那么你就会知道你还有其他的选择。
It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow consumer hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.你实际上有能力将一种拥挤、炎热、缓慢的、如地狱般的消费环境体验为不仅有意义，而且是神圣的，它燃烧着与点亮星辰相同的力量：爱、友谊、万物深处神秘的合一。
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true, the only thing that's capital T True is that you get to decide how you are going to try to see it.并不是说那些神秘的东西就一定是真实的，唯一真正重要的是，你有权决定你要如何去看待它。
This, I submit, is the freedom of real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted: you get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.我认为，这就是真正教育的自由所在，是学习如何适应生活的关键：你有意识地决定什么是有意义的，什么是没有意义的。
You get to decide what to worship, because here's something else that's weird, but in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.你有权决定要崇拜什么，因为还有一件奇怪的事情是，在成年人日复一日的艰难生活中，实际上并不存在无神论这回事。
There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.不存在不崇拜这回事。每个人都在崇拜。我们唯一的选择就是崇拜什么。
And a compelling reason for perhaps choosing some sort of god or spiritual thing to worship, be it JC (Jesus Christ), Allah, Yahweh, the wicked Mother Goddess, the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles, is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.一个令人信服的理由，促使我们选择某种神或精神层面的东西来崇拜，无论是耶稣基督、真主安拉、耶和华、邪恶的女神，还是四圣谛，或是一套不可侵犯的道德原则，那就是你几乎崇拜的任何其他东西都会将你吞噬殆尽。
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth.如果你崇拜金钱和物质，如果你从这些地方寻找生命的真正意义，那么你将永远不会感到满足，永远不会觉得自己拥有得足够多。这是事实。
Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die 1 million deaths before they finally plant you.如果你崇拜自己的身体、美丽和性魅力，那么你将永远觉得自己丑陋。而当时间和年龄开始显现时，在你最终被埋葬之前，你将经历无数次的死亡。
On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, cliches, epigrams, parables— the skeleton of every great story.在某种层面上，我们早已知晓这些事物。它们已被编纂为神话、谚语、陈词滥调、警句和寓言——这些构成了每个伟大故事的骨架。
The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear.整个诀窍在于在日常生活中保持清醒，直面真相。崇拜权力，最终你会感到软弱和恐惧，而你将需要越来越多的权力去控制他人，以此来麻痹你对自身恐惧的感受。
Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.崇拜你的智力，追求被视为聪明，最终你会感到自己很愚蠢，像个骗子，总是处于即将被揭穿的边缘。
Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful. It is that they are unconscious. They are default settings.看，这些崇拜形式的阴险之处不在于它们是邪恶的或有罪的，而在于它们是无意识的，是默认设置。
They are the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value, without ever being fully aware that that is what you are doing.它们是你日复一日逐渐陷入的崇拜形式，你对所看到的事物和衡量价值的方式变得越来越挑剔，却从未完全意识到你正在这样做。
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men, money, and power comes merrily along on the fuel of fear, anger, frustration, and craving, and the worship of self.而所谓的现实世界，非但不会阻止你按照你的默认设置去行动，反而会因为人的世界、金钱和权力而更加愉快地前行，这些都建立在恐惧、愤怒、沮丧、渴望和自我崇拜的燃料之上。
Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth, and comfort, and personal freedom.我们当前的文化已经以某种方式利用了这些力量，从而创造了巨大的财富、舒适和个人自由。
The freedom to all be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it.我们都有自由成为自己那微小如头骨大小的王国之主，独自位于所有创造的中心。这种自由有很多值得称道之处。
But of course, there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious, you will not hear much talk about, much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and displaying.但当然，自由有很多种，而最珍贵的那一种，你在外面这个充满欲望、追求和展示的大世界里，不会听到太多关于它的谈论。
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty, little, unsexy ways, every day.真正重要的自由涉及注意力、意识和自律，以及能够真正地关心他人，日复一日地以无数琐碎、不起眼、不吸引人的方式为他们牺牲。
That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think.这才是真正的自由。这是受过教育并懂得如何思考的结果。
The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.另一种选择是无意识，即默认设置，就像一场永无止境的竞赛，不断啃噬着一种曾经拥有却又失去某种无限之物的感觉。
I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational, the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound.我知道这些话可能听起来并不轻松有趣，也不像毕业演讲那样慷慨激昂，充满灵感。
What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish, but please don't just dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon.据我所能看到的，它就是大写的‘真相’，去除了所有修辞上的华丽辞藻。你当然可以随便怎么想，但请不要仅仅把它当作是某种指责性的劳拉博士布道。
None of this stuff is really about morality or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital T Truth is about life before death.这些都不是关于道德、宗教、教条或死后生活的大而空的问题。大写的‘真相’是关于生前的生活。
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness: awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, 'This is water. This is water.它关乎真正教育的真正价值，这与知识几乎无关，而完全关乎简单的意识：意识到那些如此真实和本质的东西，它们一直隐藏在我们周围显而易见的地方，以至于我们不得不不断提醒自己，‘这是水。这是水。
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world, day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really is the job of a lifetime, and it commences now.在成人世界中保持清醒和活力是难以想象的困难，日复一日。这意味着又一个老生常谈被证明是真实的：你的教育真的是一生的工作，而它现在就开始了。
