Youtube最受欢迎的毕业演讲：你并不特别

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Youtube最火毕业演讲：你并不特别

　　更多名人演讲访问：http://open.sina.com.cn/commencementspeeches.html

　　关于David McCullough, Jr。

　　David McCullough Jr。是普立兹奖得主及知名历史学家David McCullough之子，也是卫斯里高中资深英语教师。

　　David McCullough, Jr. 为韦斯利高中毕业生演讲〈你并不特别〉

　　Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful.  Thank you。

　　王博士、Keough博士、Novogroski女士和Curran小姐；教育委员会委员和毕业生的亲朋好友；韦斯利高中2012年毕业班的女士先生们；有机会能在这个下午对你们演讲令我感到十分荣幸与感激，谢谢。好，进入主题吧！

　　So here we are… commencement… life’s great forward-looking ceremony.  (And don’t say, “What about weddings?”  Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective.  Weddings are bride-centric pageantry.  Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there.  No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me procession.  No being given away.  No identity-changing pronouncement.  And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos?  Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy.  Left to men, weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous, almost inadvertent… during halftime… on the way to the refrigerator.  And then there’s the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced.  A winning percentage like that’ll get you last place in the American League East.  The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings。)

　　毕业典礼－生命中重要的前瞻性仪式。别问说，“那婚礼呢？”婚礼是单方面的，而且效率不高。婚礼是以新娘为中

　　心的盛会，除了同意一长串无理的要求外，新郎只能呆站在一旁。没有庄严的、“大家看着我”的过程；没有像新娘被长辈送出的仪式；没有改变身份的宣告。你们能想象一个专门看男人试穿燕尾服的电视节目吗？他们的父亲坐在那里，泪汪汪的眼中透着喜悦和不可置信的神情；他们的兄弟躲在角落，羡慕地喃喃自语。对男人来说，在挑战极限的拖延后，婚礼就像自发性地，几乎是无意识地，在球赛中场休息时间去冰箱拿饮料。然而，婚姻的失败率如下：统计数据显示，现场观众有一半会离婚；这样的胜率会让你荣登美国联盟东区的炉主。巴尔的摩金莺队的胜率都比婚姻成功率来得高。

　　But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works every time.  From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health, through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and your diploma as one, ‘til death do you part。

　　但这个仪式－毕业典礼，总是能圆满结束。从今天开始－确实如此；无论你生病或健康；经历过财务困境、中年危机；在辛辛那提贸易展遇见还算迷人的销售代表－家长(微博)了解我的意思；对恼人之事的容忍度越来越低；历经过每次的改变、自我矛盾和其他种种；你从高中毕业这个

　　事实永远不会改变，你的文凭一生都会与你相伴。

　　No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism.  Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue.  Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field.  That matters.  That says something.  And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all.  Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same.  And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same。

　　不，毕业典礼代表生命中一个伟大仪式的开始，它有其本身的附加价值和高度的象征意义；例如象征让我们在这个下午找到自己定位的美妙仪式。通常我会像避瘟疫似地避免陈腔烂调，闪得远远的，但现在我们处于平等的竞技场上；这点很重要，它代表某些意义。你们的毕业礼服－毫无造型、外观统一、尺码相同；无论男女、高矮、会不会读书；无论是晒成一身古铜色的舞会皇后或Xbox的星际刺客；你会发现，每个人的穿著都一模一

　　样。而你们的文凭…除了名字以外，其它完全一样。

　　All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special。

　　You are not special.  You are not exceptional. Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special。

　　这一切本应如此，因为，你们没有任何人是特别的。

　　你并不特别，你并非与众不同；

　　尽管你有U9足球奖杯、辉煌的七年级成绩单；尽管你确信世上必定有肥胖的紫色恐龙、亲切的罗杰斯先生(著名儿童电视节目主持人)和古怪的Sylvia阿姨；无论女蝙蝠侠曾奋不顾身

　　地救过你多少次；你依然没什么特别。

　　Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped.  Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again.  You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored.  You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie.  Yes, you have.  And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet.  Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman! [Editor’s upgrade: Or The Swellesley Report!]

　　是的，你被骄纵、溺爱、宠爱、保护、呵护；是的，忙碌不堪的大人抱着你、亲吻你、喂养你，替你擦嘴、擦屁股；

　　训练你、教导你、指引你、辅导你、倾听你、规劝你、鼓励你、安慰你，并一再地鼓励你。你们被轻拥在怀里，好言哄诱和恳求；你们被赞美讨好，还被称为甜心派。是的，你确实有。当然，我们曾参加你的比赛、戏剧演出、演奏会、科学展览；当然，当你走进房里时，每个人都露出微笑；对你贴出的每一则twitter 讯息发出千百次兴奋的惊叹。为什么？也许你的照片曾登上Townsman(韦斯利高中校内刊物）

　　And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

　　But do not get the idea you’re anything special.  Because you’re not。

　　现在你们已经征服了高中阶段，无疑地，我们全都是为了你们而聚在这里。你们是这个优秀小区的骄傲和喜悦，第一批从那栋宏伟新大楼里走出的人。

　　但不要认为你有什么特别，因为你并不特别。

　　The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can’t ignore.  Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say Needham, yes? …that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give or take, and that’s just the neighborhood Ns.  Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools.  That’s 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000 class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks… 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs.  But why limit ourselves to high school?  After all, you’re leaving it.  So think about this: even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you.  Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by.  And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe.  In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it. 

　　实证无所不在，这个数字大到连一位英语老师都无法忽视。Newton、Natick、Nee…(均为邻近高中)；我可以提Needham，对吗？总共有两千名高中毕业生－大约这个数目，这只是邻近地区。现在，全国共有不止320万名高中生正从37000多所高中毕业，也就是说，有37000名毕业生代表、37000名学生会长、92000名合唱团团员、34万名趾高气扬的运动健将，和2,185,967双靴子。但为何要局限在高中？毕竟你们即将离开它。所以想想：即使你是百万中选一的菁英，以地球上68亿人口来说，这意味着有将近7000人跟你一样。想象一下，在星期一马拉松大赛时站在华盛顿街某处，观看6800个“你”跑过。再以更宏观的角度来想：我得提醒大家，你的星球不是太阳系的中心；你的太阳系不是

　　银河的中心；你的银河不是宇宙的中心。事实上，天文物理学家肯定地说，宇宙没有中心。因此，你也不会是宇宙的中心。

　　Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him… although that hair is quite a phenomenon。

　　即使唐纳。川普也不会是；应该有人告诉他这件事。

　　“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my own version of perfection!  Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!”  And I don’t disagree.  So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus.  You see, if everyone is special, then no one is.  If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. 

　　虽然他的头发确实蔚为奇观。“但Dave，”你喊道，“惠特曼(美国诗人)告诉我，我是自己的完美版本！Epictetus(古希腊哲学家)告诉我，我有宙斯的火花！”我不反对这一点。因此，这代表68亿个完美的例子、68亿个宙斯的火花。你们知道，如果每个人都是特殊的，就没有任何人是特殊的；如果每个人都能拿到奖杯，奖杯就变得毫无意义。

　　In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement.  We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.  No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it…  Now it’s “So what does this get me?”  As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans。

　　虽然我们并未明说，但显而易见地，在达尔文的物竞天择理论中－我认为它源于我们对自身渺小的恐惧和对死亡的忧虑。最近我们美国人－这对我们造成很大的损害－对赞美的喜爱更胜于真正的成就；我们必须认真看待这一点。我们乐于向标准妥协，或忽略事实，如果我们认为这是最快或唯一的方式，让我们能得到某种放在壁炉上炫耀的东西；某种能让我们装腔作势、自吹自擂的东西；某种能让我们在社会图腾柱上爬到更佳位置的东西。我们不再在乎如何比赛、结果是赢是输；是否能藉此学习成长或乐在其中。现在我们在乎的是，“这能给我什么好处？”结果是，我们贬低了努力的价值。建立瓜地马拉医疗中心的目的更倾向于对鲍登学院的应用，而非危地马拉人的福祉。

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