比尔·盖茨夫妇在2014斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲

2015-03-13 14:07:53来源：网络

　　Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me. But what I remember most is how muchthey wanted to touch me and be touched. It was as if physical contact somehow proved theirworth. As I was leaving, we took a photo of all of us with our arms linked together.

　　Later that day, I spent some time in a home for the dying. I walked into a large hall and sawrows and rows of cots. Every cot was attended except for one far off in the corner that no onewas going near, so I walked over there. The patient was a woman who seemed to be in herthirties. I remember her eyes. She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes. She was emaciated,on the verge of death. Her intestines weren’t holding anything – so they had put her on a cotwith a hole cut out in the bottom, and everything just poured through into a pan below.

　　I could tell she had AIDS, both from the way she looked, and the fact that she was off in thecorner alone. The stigma of AIDS is vicious – especially for women – and the punishment isabandonment.

　　When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt totally helpless. I had absolutely nothing I couldoffer her. I knew I couldn’t save her, but I didn’t want her to be alone. So I knelt down next toher and reached out to touch her – and as soon as she felt my hand, she grabbed it andwouldn’t let go. We sat there holding hands, and even though I knew she couldn’t understandme, I just started saying: “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”

　　We had been there together for a while when she pointed upward with her finger. It took mesome time to figure out that she wanted to go up to the roof and sit outside while it was stilllight out. I asked one of the workers if that would be okay, but she was overwhelmed by all thepatients she had to care for. She said: “She’s in the last stages of dying, and I have to passout medicine.” Then I asked another, and got the same answer. It was getting late and the sunwas going down, and I had to leave, and no one seemed willing to take her upstairs.

　　So finally I just scooped her up – she was just skinover a skeleton, just a sack of bones – and I carriedher up the stairs. On the roof, there were a few ofthose plastic chairs that will blow over in a strongbreeze, and I set her down on one of those, and Ihelped prop her feet up on another, and I placed ablanket over her legs.

　　And she sat there with her face to the west,watching the sunset. I made sure the workers knewthat she was up there so they would come get her after the sun went down. Then I had toleave her.

　　But she never left me.

　　I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman’s death.

　　But sometimes it’s the people you can’t help who inspire you the most.

　　I knew that the sex workers I linked arms with in the morning could become the woman Icarried upstairs in the evening – unless they found a way to defy the stigma that hung overtheir lives.

　　Over the past 10 years, our foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so theycould empower each other to speak out for safe sex and demand that their clients usecondoms. Their brave efforts helped keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers, and a lot ofstudies show that is a big reason why the AIDS epidemic in India hasn’t exploded.

　　When these sex workers gathered together to help stop AIDS transmission, somethingunexpected and wonderful happened. The community they formed became a platform foreverything. They were able to set up speed-dial networks to respond to violent attacks. Policeand others who raped and robbed them couldn’t get away with it anymore. The women set upsystems to encourage savings. They used financial services that helped some of them startbusinesses and get out of sex work. This was all done by people society considered the lowliestof the low.

　　Optimism for me isn’t a passive expectation that things will get better; it’s a conviction thatwe can make things better – that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we canhelp people if we don’t lose hope and we don’t look away.

　　Bill: Melinda and I have described some devastating scenes. But we want to make thestrongest case we can for the power of optimism. Even in dire situations, optimism can fuelinnovation and lead to new tools to eliminate suffering. But if you never really see the peoplewho are suffering, your optimism can’t help them. You will never change their world.

　　And that brings me to what I see as a paradox.

　　The world of science and technology is driving phenomenal innovations – and Stanford standsat the center of that, creating new companies, prize-winning professors, ingenious software,miracle drugs, and amazing graduates. We’re on the verge of mind-blowing breakthroughs inwhat human beings can do for each other. And people here are really excited about the future.

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