Ted英文演讲稿What fear can teach us精选.docx

1、Ted英文演讲稿What fear can teach us精选Ted英文演讲稿:What fear can teach us one day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of chile, in one of the most remote regions of the pacific ocean, 20 american sailors watched their ship flood with seawater. 1819年的某一天， 在距离智利海岸3000英里的地方， 有一个太平洋上的最偏远的水域， 20名美国船员目睹了他们的船只进水的场面。

2、theyd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ships hull. as their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together in three small whaleboats. 他们和一头抹香鲸相撞，给船体撞了 一个毁灭性的大洞。 当船在巨浪中开始沉没时， 人们在三条救生小艇中抱作一团。 these men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,0

3、00 miles from the nearest scrap of land. in their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water. 这些人在离家10000万英里的地方， 离最近的陆地也超过1000英里。 在他们的小艇中，他们只带了 落后的导航设备 和有限的食物和饮水。 these were the men of the whaleship essex, whose story would later inspire

4、parts of “moby dick.” 他们就是捕鲸船essex上的人们， 后来的他们的故事成为白鲸记的一部分。 even in todays world, their situation would be really dire, but think about how much worse it would have been then. 即使在当今的世界，碰上这种情况也够杯具的，更不用说在当时的情况有多糟糕。 no one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. no search party was ing to loo

5、k for these men. so most of us have never experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, but we all know what its like to be afraid. 岸上的人根本就还没意识到出了什么问题。 没有任何人来搜寻他们。 我们当中大部分人没有经历过 这些船员所处的可怕情景， 但我们都知道害怕是什么感觉。 we know how fear feels, but im not sure we spend

6、enough time thinking about what our fears mean. 我们知道恐惧的感觉， 但是我不能肯定我们会花很多时间想过 我们的恐惧到底意味着什么。 as we grow up, were often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates. 我们长大以后，我们总是会被鼓励把恐惧 视为软弱，需要像乳牙或轮滑鞋一样 扔掉的幼稚的东西。 and i think its no ac

7、cident that we think this way. neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists. 我想意外事故并非我们所想的那样。 神经系统科学家已经知道人类 生来就是乐观主义者。 so maybe thats why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. “dont worry,” we like to say to one another. “dont panic.” in e

8、nglish, fear is something we conquer. its something we fight. 这也许就是为什么我们认为有时候恐惧， 本身就是一种危险或带来危险。 “不要愁。”我们总是对别人说。“不要慌”。 英语中，恐惧是我们需要征服的东西。 是我们必须对抗的东西，是我们必须克服的东西。 its something we overe. but what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? what if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, someth

9、ing that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself? 但是我们如果换个视角看恐惧会如何呢? 如果我们把恐惧当做是想象力的一个惊人成果， 是和我们讲故事一样 精妙而有见地的东西，又会如何呢? its easiest to see this link between fear and the imagination in young children, whose fears are often extraordinarily vivid. 在小孩子当中，我们最容易看到恐惧与想象之间的， 他们的恐惧经常是超级生动的。

10、when i was a child, i lived in california, which is, you know, mostly a very nice place to live, but for me as a child, california could also be a little scary. 我小时候住在加利福尼亚， 你们都知道，是非常适合居住的位置， 但是对一个小孩来说，加利福尼亚也会有点吓人。 i remember how frightening it was to see the chandelier that hung above our dining ta

11、ble swing back and forth during every minor earthquake, and i sometimes couldnt sleep at night, terrified that the big one might strike while we were sleeping. 我记得每次小地震的时候 当我看到我们餐桌上的吊灯 晃来晃去的时候是多么的吓人， 我经常会彻夜难眠，担心大地震 会在我们睡觉的时候突然袭来。 and what we say about kids who have fears like that is that they have

12、a vivid imagination. but at a certain point, most of us learn to leave these kinds of visions behind and grow up. 我们说小孩子感受到这种恐惧 是因为他们有生动的想象力。 但是在某个时候，我们大多数学会了 抛弃这种想法而变得成熟。 we learn that there are no monsters hiding under the bed, and not every earthquake brings buildings down. but maybe its no coinc

13、idence that some of our most creative minds fail to leave these kinds of fears behind as adults. 我们都知道床下没有魔鬼， 也不是每个地震都会震垮房子。但是我们当中最有想象力的人们 并没有因为成年而抛弃这种恐惧，这也许并不是巧合。 the same incredible imaginations that produced “the origin of species,” “jane eyre” and “the remembrance of things past,” also generated

14、 intense worries that haunted the adult lives of charles darwin, charlotte bront and marcel proust. so the question is, what can the rest of us learn about fear from visionaries and young children? 同样不可思议的想象力创造了物种起源， 简爱和追忆似水年华， 也就是这种与生俱来的深深的担忧一直缠绕着成年的 查尔斯达尔文， 夏洛特勃朗特和马塞尔普罗斯特。 问题就来了， 我们其他人如何能从这些 梦想家和小

15、孩子身上学会恐惧? well lets return to the year 1819 for a moment, to the situation facing the crew of the whaleship essex. lets take a look at the fears that their imaginations were generating as they drifted in the middle of the pacific. 让我们暂时回到1819年， 回到essex捕鲸船的水手们面对的情况。 让我们看看他们漂流在太平洋中央时 他们的想象力给他们带来的恐惧感觉。

16、 twenty-four hours had now passed since the capsizing of the ship. the time had e for the men to make a plan, but they had very few options. 船倾覆后已经过了24个小时。 这时人们制定了一个计划， 但是其实他们没什么太多的选择。 in his fascinating account of the disaster, nathaniel philbrick wrote that these men were just about as far from la

17、nd as it was possible to be anywhere on earth. 在纳撒尼尔菲尔布里克描述这场灾难的 动人文章中，他写到“这些人离陆地如此之远， 似乎永远都不可能到达地球上的任何一块陆地。” the men knew that the nearest islands they could reach were the marquesas islands, 1,200 miles away. but theyd heard some frightening rumors. 这些人知道离他们最近的岛 是1200英里以外的马克萨斯群岛。 但是他们听到了让人恐怖的谣言。 t

18、heyd been told that these islands, and several others nearby, were populated by cannibals. so the men pictured ing ashore only to be murdered and eaten for dinner. another possible destination was hawaii, but given the season, the captain was afraid theyd be struck by severe storms. 他们听说这些群岛， 以及附近的一

19、些岛屿上都住着食人族。 所以他们脑中都是上岸以后就会被杀掉 被人当做盘中餐的画面。 另一个可行的目的地是夏威夷， 但是船长担心 他们会被困在风暴当中。 now the last option was the longest, and the most difficult: to sail 1,500 miles due south in hopes of reaching a certain band of winds that could eventually push them toward the coast of south america. 所以最后的选择是到最远，也是最艰险的地方：

20、 往南走1500英里希望某股风 能最终把他们 吹到南美洲的海岸。 but they knew that the sheer length of this journey would stretch their supplies of food and water. to be eaten by cannibals, to be battered by storms, to starve to death before reaching land. 但是他们知道这个行程中一旦偏航 将会耗尽他们食物和饮水的供给。 被食人族吃掉，被风暴掀翻， 在登陆前饿死。 these were the fears

21、 that danced in the imaginations of these poor men, and as it turned out, the fear they chose to listen to would govern whether they lived or died. 这就是萦绕在这群可怜的人想象中的恐惧， 事实证明，他们选择听从的恐惧 将决定他们的生死。 now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. what if instead of calling them fears, we

22、 called them stories? 也许我们可以很容易的用别的名称来称呼这些恐惧。 我们不称之为恐惧， 而是称它们为故事如何? because thats really what fear is, if you think about it. its a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. and fears and storytelling have the same ponents. 如果你仔细想想，这是恐惧真正的意义。 这是一种与生俱来的， 无意识的讲故事的能力。 恐

23、惧和讲故事有着同样的构成。 they have the same architecture. like all stories, fears have characters. in our fears, the characters are us. fears also have plots. they have beginnings and middles and ends. you board the plane. 他们有同样的结构。 如同所有的故事，恐惧中有角色。 在恐惧中，角色就是我们自己。 恐惧也有情节。他们有开头，有中间，有结尾。 你登上飞机。 the plane takes of

24、f. the engine fails. our fears also tend to contain imagery that can be every bit as vivid as what you might find in the pages of a novel. picture a cannibal, human teeth sinking into human skin, human flesh roasting over a fire. 飞机起飞。结果引擎故障。 我们的恐惧会包括各种生动的想象， 不比你看到的任何一个小说逊色。 想象食人族，人类牙齿 咬在人类皮肤上， 人肉在火

25、上烤。 fears also have suspense. if ive done my job as a storyteller today, you should be wondering what happened to the men of the whaleship essex. our fears provoke in us a very similar form of suspense. 恐惧中也有悬念。 如果我今天像讲故事一样，留个悬念不说了， 你们也许会很想知道 essex捕鲸船上，人们到底怎么样了。 我们的恐惧用悬念一样的方式刺激我们。 just like all grea

26、t stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: what will happen next? 就像一个很好的故事，我们的恐惧也如同一部好的文学作品一样， 将我们的注意力集中在对我们生命至关重要的问题上： 后来发生了什么? in other words, our fears make us think about the future. and humans, by the way, are the only creatures

27、capable of thinking about the future in this way, of projecting ourselves forward in time, and this mental time travel is just one more thing that fears have in mon with storytelling. 换而言之，我们的恐惧让我们想到未来。 另外，人来是唯一有能力 通过这种方式想到未来的生物， 就是预测时间推移后我们的状况， 这种精神上的时间旅行是恐惧 与讲故事的另一个共同点。 as a writer, i can tell you

28、 that a big part of writing fiction is learning to predict how one event in a story will affect all the other events, and fear works in that same way. 我是一个作家，我要告诉你们写小说一个很重要的部分 就是学会预测故事中一件 事情如何影响另一件事情， 恐惧也是同样这么做的。 in fear, just like in fiction, one thing always leads to another. when i was writing my

29、 first novel, “the age of miracles,” i spent months trying to figure out what would happen if the rotation of the earth suddenly began to slow down. what would happen to our days? 恐惧中，如同小说一样，一件事情总是导致另一件事情。 我写我的第一部小说奇迹时代的时候， 我花了数月的时间想象如果地球旋转突然变慢了之后 会发生什么。 我们的一天变得如何? what would happen to our crops? wh

30、at would happen to our minds? and then it was only later that i realized how very similar these questions were to the ones i used to ask myself as a child frightened in the night. 我们身体会怎样? 我们的思想会有什么变化? 也就是在那之后，我意识到 我过去总是问自己的那些些问题 和孩子们在夜里害怕是多么的相像。 if an earthquake strikes tonight, i used to worry, wh

31、at will happen to our house? what will happen to my family? and the answer to those questions always took the form of a story. 要是在过去，如果今晚发生地震，我会很担心， 我的房子会怎么样啊?家里人会怎样啊? 这类问题的答案通常都会和故事一样。 so if we think of our fears as more than just fears but as stories, we should think of ourselves as the authors of

32、 those stories. but just as importantly, we need to think of ourselves as the readers of our fears, and how we choose to read our fears can have a profound effect on our lives. 所以我们认为我们的恐惧不仅仅是恐惧 还是故事，我们应该把自己当作 这些故事的作者。 但是同样重要的是，我们需要想象我们自己 是我们恐惧的解读者，我们选择如何 去解读这些恐惧会对我们的生活产生深远的影响。 now, some of us naturally read our fears more closely than others. i read abo