向2013应届毕业生的致辞

　　Thank you, President and Trustees.

　　谢校长，谢谢校董们。

　　I have to confess that coming here to speak today raised a question in my mind: Now that high-school students are so accomplished and work so hard, would I even be admitted today to this eminent liberal arts school, from which I graduated 25 years ago? I was curious enough about this that I contacted an admissions officer here. I asked her to dig up my old application and give me a quick opinion.

　　我必须承认，今天来到这儿演讲使我的脑海中冒出一个问题：现在的高中生都那么有才华，学习又如此刻苦，如果放在今日，我还能被这所我于25年前毕业的名牌文科高校录取吗？对此我非常好奇，于是我联系了学校的一名招生人员，请她找出我以前的申请材料并迅速给我一个意见。

　　This turned out to be a grave mistake. Not only was her answer 'absolutely not, 'but a few days later I received a letter informing me that I had been retroactively denied admission to my own alma mater. To make matters worse, they culled through the entire cabinet of applications from my year and decided to revoke admission for 73% of my classmates.

　　事实证明这么做大错特错。她不仅以“绝对不能录取”回答我，几天之后我还收到一封信，通知我说我已被自己的母校追溯过往、拒绝录取了。更糟糕的是，他们还筛选了我申请入学那一年整个柜子的申请材料，决定撤销我73%的同学的入学资格。

　　If that includes any parents here today, I'm really sorry. I've printed out the non-admit list, and after my speech I'll nail it to the door of our 300-year-old memorial church, which has recently been transformed into the student-run coffee shop Jitters and Beans.

　　如果这其中包括今天在座的任何家长，我真的很抱歉。我已经把未予录取的名单打印出来，演讲结束之后我会把它钉在我们那座有300年历史的纪念教堂的门上，前不久它已被改造成了学生经营的Jitters and Beans咖啡馆。

　　If it happens that you're on the list, you will have the opportunity to reapply, so you'll probably want to work on bulking up your application right away. A good start would be to show up tomorrow at 8 a.m. for dorm cleaning crew. And maybe this summer you'll want to get an unpaid internship at the charity that you pretend to care about the most.

　　如果你的名字在那份名单上，你还有机会重新申请，所以你大概会想马上去充实你的申请材料。明早八点出现在打扫宿舍的队伍中会是一个不错的开端。另外，今年夏天你或许还想在你假装最关注的慈善组织获得一份无报酬的实习工作。

　　My own sudden lack of credentials caused me to reflect on the fact that I and apparently most of your parents couldn't hold a candle to you when we were applying to college. So I want to pay tribute to the spectacular collection of new graduates sitting here today.

　　突然失去文凭促使我开始反思，我──显然也包括大多数的家长──在申请大学时无法与你们相比。因此，我想向今天在座的人数蔚为壮观的应届毕业生们致敬。

　　In high school you were National Merit Scholars, student council presidents and captains of your fencing teams. You took dozens of practice SATs, practiced viola for thousands of hours (violinists are a dime a dozen) and French-braided the hair of homeless veterans.

　　你们在高中时是全国优秀学生奖学金(National Merit Scholarship)获得者、学生会主席、击剑队队长。你们参加了数十次SAT模拟考试，练习了几千个小时的中提琴（因为会拉小提琴的人比比皆是），并且还为无家可归的老兵编法式发辫。

　　You masterfully tied together a set of emotional symptoms that looked enough like attention deficit disorder to buy you extra time on all your finals and standardized tests. Plus, you got to take the exams in special quiet rooms, where a test facilitator would sharpen the pencils outside, because the grinding sound triggered your acute sensory overload. (Which somehow didn't preclude your part-time summer job at Blenders Juicery.)

　　你们巧妙地将一系列看上去足够像注意力缺失症的情绪症状结合在一起，以此在所有期末考试和标准化测试中赢取更多时间。此外，你们还得在安静的特殊考场考试，考试协调员会在考场外削铅笔，因为削笔的刺耳声音会刺激你们超负荷的敏锐神经。（不过这一点不会排除你曾于暑期在Blenders Juicery兼职的经历。）

　　You hired private college advisers to read your essays and hone your interview skills. Just think back to those valuable sessions where you learned to practically leap out of the chair talking about your passion for writing one-act plays in Cherokee, or how your heart raced that summer on the Mongolian steppes when you first spotted an ovoo monitor lizard, once thought to be extinct.

　　你们还聘请私立大学的指导老师阅读你的文章、磨炼你的面试技巧。回想一下那些助益匪浅的培训，你学会了要适时从椅子上蹦起来，当在谈论你多么想写一部有关切罗基人(Cherokee)的独幕剧时，又或是那年夏天你在蒙古大草原第一次见到曾被认为已经灭绝的敖包巨蜥时，你的心脏是如何剧烈地跳动。

　　And you learned to deftly walk the college interviewer through your many achievements while still showing carefully modulated self-effacement: 'Yes, I helped design the CO2 scrubber that will save humanity from global warming, but it was totally a team effort.'

　　不止于此，你还学会了灵巧地引导大学面试官了解你的众多成就，同时仍能表现出已经过细致调整的谦逊态度，比方说“是的，我帮助设计了将使人类免受全球变暖影响的二氧化碳洗涤器，但那完全是团队的努力。”

　　Then you arrived at this great institution, where you dabbled in a couple of your passions, only to quit them after freshman year because you found new ones: playing hundreds of rounds of 'Settlers of Catan' and having long debates into the night over which Stark son is hotter on 'Game of Thrones.'

　　后来，你们来到这所著名学府，在这儿浅尝了一两样爱好，但在大一过后就放弃了，因为你们找到了新爱好──打上数百轮《卡坦岛拓荒者》(Settlers of Catan)游戏，或是与人争辩《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)中史塔克(Stark)家的儿子哪个更帅气，直至深夜。

　　The keys of your $20, 000 Powell flute became rusted shut after it was put to use as a bong for the last two years. Your Wilson Pro H22 tennis racquet quickly became a drying rack for your underwear once you found out that the college tennis team was filled with power-hitting recruits from Estonia and the Ukraine who could knock a flash drive off the top of your head with a backhand.

　　你那管花了20,000美元的鲍威尔(Powell)长笛的吹孔已经生锈堵塞，因为它在前两年就一直被当作烟筒使用。当你发现校网球队满是来自爱沙尼亚和乌克兰的新生，他们击球强劲有力，能用一招反手抽击把你打得晕头转向时，你那副威尔逊(Wilson) Pro H22系列的球拍很快就变成了你晾晒内衣的架子。

　　So you relaxed into college life a well-deserved break after the exhausting race to get here. You've spent four years percolating in a warm stew of beer, gender studies and online pornography which led to the subject of your senior thesis, 'Jacobean Dramatic Tropes in Modern 'Massage Surprise' Videos.'

　　于是乎，你开始放松享受大学生活，在经历了那场把你送到这儿的让人筋疲力尽的竞争之后，休息一下理所应当。这四年时间你沉醉于令人兴奋的啤酒、性别研究以及网络色情图片──所以你毕业论文的题目就是《现代‘按摩惊喜’视频中詹姆斯一世时期的戏剧隐喻》(Jacobean Dramatic Tropes in Modern 'Massage Surprise' Videos)。

　　Fortunately, your parents, who had become so accustomed to guiding you through the myriad decisions you had to make to get into this place, have been able to stay in constant smartphone contact. You've been able to call them when you were at the salad bar and couldn't remember which salad dressing you like. You were able to email them your sociology paper and luckily, Dad's colleague Elliot at the firm had an M.A. in sociology and was able to make a few helpful suggestions, such as the central argument, supporting evidence and the pull-it-all-together conclusion.

　　幸运的是，在你们为进入这所学校必须做出无数决定的过程中，习惯了全程指引你们的父母能借助智能手机与你们保持联系。当你站在沙拉台旁、记不起自己喜欢哪种沙拉调料时，你还能给他们打个电话。你还能通过电子邮件把社会学论文发给他们，幸而你爸爸的公司同事艾略特(Elliot)是一名社会学硕士，能够给你提一些有用的建议，比如要有中心论点、支持论据以及总括全文的结论等等。

　　Mostly, though, you've spent your last four years being ... well, at home.

　　然而，在这过去的四年中，大部分时间你们都...呆在家里。

　　When I said goodbye to my son at freshman drop-off day, I was thrown into a black despair over how much I'd miss him. But as it turned out, he had so few weeks of actually being at college that I never had time to miss him. Misty-eyed, when the rest of the family was having dinner, I'd say, 'I wonder what Johnny's doing right now, 'and then I'd hear him call from the family room, 'I'm watching 'Arrested Development.''

　　把刚上大学的儿子送到学校的那一天，和他告别后，想到今后我会无比地想念他，我陷入了深深的绝望之中。然而，事实证明，他真正呆在学校的时间实在太短了，我还从来没时间去想念他。当家人围坐在一起吃晚饭时，我眼眶湿润地感慨道：“不知道强尼(Johnny)现在在干吗”，接着我就听到了他从家中房间传来的喊声：“我在看《发展受阻》((Arrested Development)呢。”

　　But let's not understate the big achievements you've racked up during the 70 or so days you've actually spent on campus. The first, and perhaps finest accomplishment, is having persuaded your parents to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to extend your childhood for four years.

　　尽管如此，我们还是别低估了你们在实际呆在校园的那70来天的时间中取得的巨大成就。第一项，或许也是你们最杰出的一项成就是，你们说服了父母花费数万美元让你们的儿童期再延长四年。

　　Let's also not forget how hard you've worked to find something to protest against. In my day, it was apartheid in South Africa. In yours, it's championing people who wanted the God-given right to use a gender-neutral bathroom. Thrillingly, you petitioned the President and Trustees and won: Now guys can make both bathrooms on every dorm floor equally disgusting.

　　我们也别忘了你们多么努力地去寻找要加以抗议的事情。在我们那个年代，我们抗议的是南非的种族隔离制度。在你们这个年代，你们做的是群起响应，要求获得使用“无性别卫生间”这一上天赐予的权利。令人振奋的是，你们为此向校长和校董们请愿并且获胜，如今大家可以把每一间宿舍的两个卫生间都弄得一样让人恶心了。

　　But there is another huge achievement that your generation will take away from college. A great stroke of genius that you have collectively devised, marshaling all of the intelligence and drive that got you admitted here in the first place: the hookup culture.

　　你们这代人在大学毕业之时还取得了另一项巨大成就。这一过人的天才之举是由你们集体构想出来的，调集了把你们送到这所学府的所有才能和动力，它就是“勾搭文化”。

　　You've had vast amounts of sex weekends upon weekends of bed-swapping that began on Thursday nights. There is not a single bed, couch, lab counter, library desk, football end zone, university founder's statue, Henry Moore sculpture or monkey research cage on top of which you, the outstanding class of 2013, haven't copulated.

　　你们纵情于性爱，从每周四晚开始，一周接一周地滚床单。无论是床、沙发、实验室的操作台、图书馆的书桌、橄榄球场的球门区、学校创建人的塑像、亨利·摩尔(Henry Moore)的雕塑还是研究猴子的笼子，没有一处是你们──你们这些杰出的2013届毕业生──没有在上面媾合过的。

　　And you young straight men, in particular, have had amazing advantages. This school, like every other liberal arts institution today, is 60% women. Factor in a gay population of 8% to 10%, and the odds were massively, groaningly in your favor.

　　特别是那些年轻的“直男们”，你们的优势令人艳羡。与其他每一所文科高校相同，这所学校60%的学生为女生，考虑到还有8%至10%的男同性恋人群，机会对你们是极其有利的。

　　In my day, the male/female ratio was 50-50. Sadly, it was decades before women saw 'The Social Network' and realized that by inviting the awkward kid next to them at the cafeteria's gluten-free station to bed, they could get in on the ground floor of a Zuckerberg or even a Winklevoss.

　　在我读大学的时候，男女生比率是50比50。悲哀的是，那是在几十年前，女孩们没看过《社交网络》(The Social Network)，不知道在食堂的无麸质食品站旁，如果邀请身边那个傻小子上床的话，她们可能会近水楼台先得月，得到一个扎克伯格(Zuckerberg)或是文克莱沃斯(Winklevoss)兄弟那样的人物。

　　We didn't have a hookup culture. We had a dating culture. And even that was a culture I was on the periphery of, much like Jane Goodall watching chimpanzees through binoculars hopeful that the chimps would invite her over but more terrified that they would rip her face off.

　　我们那时候没有勾搭文化，只有约会文化，而且我对约会文化也没摸着门道，很像珍妮·古道尔(Jane Goodall)拿着望远镜观察黑猩猩，既希望那些猩猩会邀请她过去，但又更害怕它们会撕烂她的脸。

　　So I stand here, looking at this beautiful, 60% female crowd, and wonder what the hookup culture would have meant to me if I'd been in school today. I suspect it would have given me many more opportunities to be the only person not having sex.

　　所以，当我站在这儿，看着比例达60%的漂亮女生，心里想着假如我现在还在学校读书的话，“勾搭文化”对我来说将意味着什么。我怀疑那会让我有更多机会成为唯一没有性经验的人。

　　I want all of you to take a moment and honor yourselves for this signature sexual revolution. Take heart in the idea that no matter how hard things get, no matter what failures you endure, you will always have the memories of the night when you and a drunk sophomore did it on top of two passed-out lacrosse players.

　　我希望你们大家都抽出些时间，为这个标志性的性革命向你们自己致敬。你们要铭记在心，无论事情变得多艰难，无论你遭受了什么失败，你将一直拥有那晚的回忆──你和一个醉酒的大二学生在两个烂醉如泥的长曲棍球球员的身上做爱。

　　Unfortunately, those are memories you'll have to cling to a lot, because here is your dilemma: You, the best-prepared college generation ever, have just spent four of the most formative years of your lives in an environment that's the exact opposite of the real world. Every room you've walked into here was filled with ambitious, fascinating people who shared your interests in which pizza places took online orders and what your zombie kill count was in 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II.'

　　可惜的是，你得时常守着那些回忆，因为你们面临着这么一个困境：作为有史以来准备最充分的一代大学生，你们在一个与现实世界截然相反的环境中度过了最能塑造你们人生的四年。在这儿，你们走进的每个房间都满是雄心勃勃、让人着迷的人，他们也和你一样关心哪家匹萨店可以网上订餐，你们在《使命召唤：黑色行动II》(Call of Duty: Black Ops II)中杀死僵尸的点数是多少。

　　Your life has been a nonstop ride of work, study and fun. Now, though, you're about to walk out of those iron gates and ㄒ what? You're headed into the most challenging labor market of the last 80 years.

　　你们在人生路途上不断忙碌、学习和享乐。但是，现在你们即将迈出那些铁门而且...什么？进入过去80年来最艰难的劳动力市场？

　　Because you're driven and have been told over and over in speeches like this one to follow your passion, you're going to write eye-catching job query letters and send them with bulging resumes to the heads of Greenpeace, the Aspen Music Festival, ESPN, the Clinton Global Initiative, 'The Colbert Report' and Tesla Motors.

　　你们动力十足。而且与这次一样的演讲一次又一次地告诉你们要遵从自己的热情，所以你们会写些吸引眼球的求职信，把它连同厚厚的简历一起发给“绿色和平”组织(Greenpeace)、阿斯本音乐节(Aspen Music Festival)、娱乐与体育节目电视网(ESPN)、“克林顿全球倡议”(Clinton Global Initiative)、《扣扣熊播报》(The Colbert Report)以及特斯拉汽车(Tesla Motors)的主管。

　　That will take three days. Then you're going to have months and possibly years of free time ahead of you. Free time that you won't know how to fill, because you've never really had any before.

　　这一过程会耗费三天时间。接下来你们会有几个月甚至可能是几年的空闲时间。你们都不知道如何填补这些时间，因为你们以前从来没有过。

　　Here's where I'd like to give you some concrete suggestions. One: Write a movie or graphic novel (six months, minimum) and then put it on Kickstarter, asking for $25, 000 to put it into production. That will give you another t30 days to track the progress of your contributions from friends and relatives, who secretly hope your goal won't be reached so they won't have to fork over the money, read your book or see your film.

　　在这里我想给你们提一些具体的建议。首先，写部电影或漫画小说（最少六个月时间），然后把它放到创意项目募资网站Kickstarter上，号召大家捐资25,000美元将其拍出来。你将获得另外30天时间来跟踪朋友和亲戚的捐资进度，他们私下都希望你不能达成目标，这样一来他们就不必出钱、看你写的书或是看你创作的电影。

　　Idea two: On the social media app Foursquare, a person who spends the most time in a venue becomes its 'mayor.' Achieve this distinction at your local Starbucks, beating out the guy who's constantly on his cellphone trying to sell medical office furniture and the woman in the corner who makes doll house furniture out of wooden coffee stirrers.

　　第二个主意：在社交媒体应用程序Foursquare上，在某个地方呆的时间最长的人会成为它的“市长”。在你们当地的星巴克(Starbucks)获得这一殊荣，击败那个不停地打手机试图卖出医护办公室家具的家伙，以及坐在角落里用木制咖啡搅拌棒搭玩具屋的那个女人。

　　Idea three: Constantly monitor news sites for breaking stories and then try to be the first to tweet an edgy joke about what's happening. Speed is of the essence here, because within minutes others will carpet bomb the same territory with comedy, but if you're first out of the gate, you'll get the retweets. This won't land you a job or get you paid, but you can't underestimate bragging rights at friends' engagement parties.

　　第三个主意：不断监控突发新闻网站，然后尽量第一个用“推特”发送一条有关所发生之事的新鲜趣事。速度是重中之重，因为几分钟之内同一件事情就会被其他人用有趣的方式地毯式轰炸。不过如果你是第一个发消息的人，你会得到别人的转发。这不会帮你搞定一份工作，也不会让你得到报酬，但你不可小视在朋友订婚派对上的夸耀资本。

　　A final idea is to go to the least expensive graduate school you can find and just hunker down. You'll want to look as young as possible when actual good jobs come in three to seven years and you're competing against new grads, so try not to get any wrinkles stay out of the sun and don't smoke or react facially to anything, even if the Cubs win the World Series or if they find out that Amelia Earhart ate her navigator Fred Noonan.

　　最后一个主意是去读一所你能找到的最便宜的研究生院，然后收敛自己。等到三至七年后有真正的好工作来到面前，你要与应届毕业生竞争。你当然希望自己看上去尽可能年轻，因此你要尽量避免长出皱纹，不要晒太阳、不要抽烟，也不要对任何事情有面部反应，即使是小熊队(Cubs)赢了世界职业棒球大赛(World Series)，或是人们发现阿梅莉亚·埃尔哈特(Amelia Earhart)吃掉了她的导航员弗雷德·努南(Fred Noonan)，你也别有所反应。

　　I know that I haven't given you the keys to happiness in this speech today, but what more can you expect from someone who's just lost his B.A.? I believe that because most commencement speakers have been so successful, they think they can identify the ingredients that led them to success. But they tend to discount the major role that simple good fortune and timing played in their prosperity. So I advise you to ignore all the cliches of the typical commencement speech and do what your generation does best: get lucky.

　　我知道我在今天的这次演讲中并未给你们带来通往幸福的诀窍，但是你对一个刚刚丢掉学士学位的人还能有更多期盼吗？我认为由于大多数毕业典礼的演讲者都非常成功，所以他们能确认引领他们走向成功的因素。然而，他们往往会低估简单的好运和时机在他们的成功中所起到的重大作用，所以我建议你们不要理会典型的毕业典礼演讲中的那些陈词滥调，做你们这一代最擅长的事情──获得好运。