You graduates have every right to expect penetrating words of profound wisdom.
即將畢業的你們，完全有權利期待一場極富人生智慧的演講。
Unfortunately, though, I am going to have to disappoint you and present to you a multiple-choice test the last of your college career.
但不巧的是，我要讓你們失望了。接下來，我需要你們做一個離開校園之前最后一個單選測試題。
The only consolations that I can offer in presenting the test are that you may consult texts freely, the test is self-scoring, and you have a lifetime at your disposal now to complete it.
我唯一能給予你們寬慰的是：測試中，大家可以自由交流，自己為自己的測試結果打分，而你，從現在起，可以用一生來完成這個測試。
This exam will be proctored, though.
不過，這場測試還是會受到嚴格監督的。
The proctors will be two – the community in which you live and, hardest taskmaster of all, your inner self.
監考官有兩個：一個是你所生活的社會；另一個則是內在的自我。
The question: What do you do with your education now that you have it – and now that it is beginning to become obsolete even as you sit here?
測試的問題是：對于你已經獲得的學歷，你會用他來做什么呢？
Choose one of five possible answers.
從以下五個可能的答案中選擇一個。
Choice One: Put your diploma in a convenient drawer and close the drawer.
選項一：把你的學位證書塞進抽屜里，不再理會。
Put whatever textbooks you've accumulated in a bookcase and close the bookcase.
把你學過的所有課本放進書柜里，不再打開。
Put your mind to the dailiness of earning a satisfactory livelihood and close your mind.
讓你日常的所思所想，變成如何過一個舒適的人生，并停止思考。
I should warn you that it will take a bit of doing to follow this course with the rigour that it deserves. You will have to take care not to read anything except, in the case of men, the sports pages or, in the case of women, columns of household hints.
整個過程其實并不容易：你必須保證自己不去閱讀，對于男人體育新聞除外，對于女人來說，只讀讀那些雜志上的主婦持家小技巧。
You'll have to choose your friends with extreme care to make sure that you don't rub up against any stimulating personalities.
在交友上你得慎重再慎重：確保你不會遇上任何一位有趣的人。
You'll have to build your own defences against a world of complex realities that will insist on trying to intrude on you at the most inconvenient times.
你還需要為自己建一堵墻，抵御這復雜的現實世界，這個無時無刻不來打擾你的真實世界。
But it can be done.
雖然很難，但這些都是可以做到的。
I've known college graduates who have achieved it.
我知道一些畢業生，他們已經做到了。
They've wrapped themselves in an apathy so thick that they're in position to say in all truth, "No opinion," to any pollster who might question them on any subject.
他們將自己牢牢封鎖在冷漠之中，無論民意調查還是問他們對任何事情的態度，他們的回應永遠是：怎樣都行，我沒意見。
It's a choice that's available to you.
這是可以做的一個選擇。
Choice one.
這是選項一。
Choice Two: Go forth into that waiting world, carefully assess the prevailing opinions, and then conform.
選項二：走進這個世界，先等等，別急著做什么，先去謹慎評估那些普世的價值觀，然后服從，隨大流。
Forget this theoretical nonsense they've been feeding you here.
忘記學校交給你們的那些“胡說八道”的理論。
You'll have your degree. That certifies you're educated. Let it go at that.
你雖然有文憑了，但那只能證明你接受了教育而已，但就那樣吧。
You can scan the whole of the daily newspaper, as long as you make sure it's a newspaper that agrees with you and all other right-thinking citizens on all critical issues.
你可以把每天的報紙讀完，只要你確定報紙上傳達的觀點與你所想的完全一致，而且所有同樣滿懷正義感的市民們，也都在關注這些關鍵問題。
You are even permitted, if you take this choice, to buy two books a year as long as you make sure they're best best-sellers.
如果你選了這個選項，你甚至會被準許每年買兩三本書，只要確保他們都是暢銷書就行。
Reading the books is optional.
讀不讀其實無所謂的。
You don't have to be nearly so selective in making friends if you go this route instead of the first one.
如果你選了這個選項，而不是第一個，那么，在交友上，你就不會有那么多條條框框。
After all, about 80, perhaps 85% of the people with whom you'll come in contact fit nicely in this choice-two category.
畢竟你即將交往的那些朋友里，差不多有80%-85%的人都完全屬于選項二。
It isn't that they're particularly talented at blending into the background.
這并不是說，他們有多擅長融入到人群和背景環境里。
They are the background.
因為他們本身就是背景。
You, too, can be a pillar-of-society conformist. No strain, no pain. Well, almost no pain.
你，也一樣可以做一個默守陳規的一磚一瓦，沒有焦慮痛苦。
The anguish of those moments in your middle age when you lie sleepless at 2 a. m. or 3 and wonder whatever happened to all your bright ambitions.
當你人到中年，凌晨兩三點在床上輾轉反側難以入眠，或許會突然問自己：我當初那些雄心壯志的夢想哪去了？
That anguish and those moments don't count too much.
不過這種失眠的情況也不會太多啦！
Most of the time you can be comfortable with choice two, and who could ask for more than that?
選項二大多數情況下是非常舒適的，所以還奢求什么呢？
Choice Three: Refuse to relax into the commoner forms of conformity. Find yourself, instead, a clique of the elite, an "in" group, and conform yourself to it.
選項三：拒絕平庸，尋找自己擅長的領域并加入精英隊伍，并讓自己完全融入。
You might imagine, from that bare description of this choice, that this would be a difficult thing to do.
你可能會覺得，這是一個多么蒼白的解釋，這也很難做到。
It isn't at all.
其實一點不難。
There are just two requisites: First, you must have a speciality of your own, some field – or, better, part of a field – in which you're expert.
只有兩個前提條件即可：首先，你必須有自己擅長的某些領域，
It might be something in the arts – music before Vivaldi, for instance, or the epic poetry of Afghanistan.
它可能是藝術方面的——例如維瓦爾第之前存在的音樂，或者阿富汗的史詩。
On the whole, though, it's better if your speciality is a little more practical, intellectual but money-making.
當然，最好你的特長是頗具實用性的、智慧的，又能賺錢的。
Then to the speciality, whatever it is, you add a dedication to everything that is advance guard and an amused contempt for everything else that isn't.
第二，不管你擅長的是什么，你都應該是這個領域的先鋒，不斷深耕，而對其他東西非常蔑視。
You mustn't read the daily papers, or at a minimum you mustn't admit it if you do.
你絕不可以去讀每日報紙，或者就算讀了也不能承認。
No best-sellers, of course - that goes without saying, although you should read enough to be able to say it nauseated you so much you couldn't finish it.
當然不是暢銷書。盡管這需要你已經讀了足夠的書，才能聲稱：哦這本書令人作嘔，根本沒法兒讀。
Choice Four: Choice four, though, offers an alternative for those who cannot erase their political-social-economic consciousness. Join an extremist group.
選項四：給那些逃不開政治、社會、經濟意識的人提供了一個選擇：加入一個極端團體。
There is real effort involved in this at the very beginning.
在初期可能會付出許多努力。
You have to study the various groups that present themselves and make your initial commitment.
你可以遇見不同的人，他們會表達自己，幫助你做出選擇。
The beauty of this choice, though, is that once you've made it, you can turn off your thinking and let yourself be carried by the forward surge of what is obviously a significant movement.
這個選項的好處在于，一旦加入了某個組織，你便永遠不需要在思考了，你只需要任憑自己被前進的浪潮帶動著，被動參與即可。
Choice Five: And then, finally, there's choice five.
選項五：最后的最后，就是選項五。
It's hard to state this one. About as close as I can come to it is this: Hang loose, but stay vibrantly alive.
這個選項說起來有些復雜，我能表達出來的最貼切的解釋是：保持鎮靜，不急不躁，但依然有激情的活著。
This one's strenuous. This one's demanding.
這個選擇是最費勁的，要求最高的。
Choice five would demand of you that you consider today's graduation no more than a pause to catch your breath before continuing the life-long job of education. It would demand of you that you be your own unique best self. And there is no higher demand that that.
選項五要求你，把今日的畢業看作是你繼續一生學習事業之前的一次短暫停歇，他要求你成為最獨特最優秀的自己，我覺得沒有比這個更高的要求了。
Choice five entails wide-ranging reading and deep-probing thought.
選項五要求你，需要做大量廣泛的閱讀，進行深入的獨立思考。
It calls for a contradictory thing - a mind that is constantly open to new facts that dictate change but at the same time is resolutely committed to what seems best at any given point of time.
他需要矛盾主義，一種對一切改變和新鮮事物的開放性態度，但同時又在任何時候，都堅決擁護時下最正確的選擇。
It calls for human involvement, a compassionate concern for everyone on this fast-shrinking little planet of ours and for the generations to come.
選項五要求你去參與，對生活在這日益萎縮的小小星球上的每一個人，以及他們的下一代，給予慈悲和關注。
It calls for the resolute rejection of all stereotypes and insists on the thoughtful examination of even the most widely held assumptions that are too easily taken for granted.
選項五要求你，拒絕任何偏見和先入為主，并對那些已經被普遍認可的觀點保持深刻的批判思維。
If only choice five involved only one thing or the other thought or action - it would be ever so much easier.
如果選項五只要求你的思想或行為，那就會很容易。
It doesn't, though. It involves both.
但是它需要兩者兼顧。
And as if that weren't bad enough, this choice usually brings with it a certain amount of inner ache, because this way is a lonely way.
選擇選項五的人，往往都帶著一些內心折磨，因為這條路很孤獨。
But those who make choice five are never fully comfortable.
而且不會很舒服。
They are nagged at by their realisation that they could be wrong.
他們會因為意識到自己錯了而感到惱火。
They're prodded by their recognition that they've still so much more to learn and even more than that to understand.
他們會因為覺得自己還有太多東西要繼續學習、思考而被深深刺痛。
They're made restless by their knowledge that no matter how much they do, there's still ever so much more left to be done.
無論他們已經汲取了多少知識，這世界上，仍然有很多事情等著他們去完成。
Choice-five people have to live constantly with an acceptance of the fact that there are no simple answers in this world because there are no simple questions.
選擇五的人，只能不斷接受一個事實：這個世界上沒有簡單的答案，因為這個世界上沒有簡單的問題。
This makes life exciting for them, challenging, at least intermittently rewarding.
對于他們，生活是如此的激動澎湃富有挑戰，至少生活斷斷續續一直有所回報，一切都值得。
But comfortable?
但過得舒服嗎？
No.
并不一定。
I would not urge choice five on any of you graduates.
我不會勸你們選擇選項五。
It asks so much of you.
因為它的要求太多了。
Any of the other four will see you through to age 60 or 65, retirement, and a modest pension.
其他四個選項中的任何一個都能幫助你渡過難關，走到60或65歲，直到退休，拿到足夠的退休金，
They might easily do better than that and make you rich. In dollars, that is.
這要比選項五容易完成得多，還能讓你生活富裕。
Five is there, though, one of the multiple choices on the test.
選項五只是多項選擇中的其中一個選項。
If any of you in this class makes that fifth choice, I wish you'd let me know about it.
選項五，如果在座的任何一位選擇了選項五，我希望你能告訴我。
You I'd like to know better.
因為這個人，我愿意再多了解一點。
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