名人演講:失敗的好處和想象力的重要性[羅琳]

The Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination 失敗的好處和想象力的重要性

——J.K.羅琳

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[00:10.55]President Faust,

[00:12.56]members of the Harvard Corporation

[00:14.79]and the Board of Overseers,

[00:16.99]members of the faculty,

[00:18.60]proud parents,

[00:20.18]and, above all,

[00:21.92]graduates:

[00:23.82]The first thing I would like to say

[00:25.43]is "thank you".

[00:27.30]Not only has Harvard given me

[00:28.74]an extraordinary honour,

[00:30.41]but the weeks of fear and nausea

[00:33.59]I've endured

[00:37.23]at the thought of giving

[00:38.29]this commencement address

[00:40.26]have made me lose weight.

[00:47.16]A win-win situation!

[00:50.44]Now all I have to do is take deep breaths,

[00:53.55]squint at the red banners

[00:54.66]and convince myself

[00:56.71]that I am at the world's largest

[00:58.64]Gryffindors' reunion.

[01:10.77]Delivering a commencement address

[01:12.02]is a great responsibility;

[01:14.35]or so I thought

[01:16.55]until I cast my mind back

[01:18.20]to my own graduation.

[01:20.55]The commencement speaker that day

[01:22.36]was the distinguished British philosopher

[01:24.83]Baroness Mary Warnock.

[01:27.37]Reflecting on her speech

[01:29.34]has helped me enormously

[01:30.44]in writing this one,

[01:32.24]because it turns out

[01:33.16]that I can't remember

[01:33.93]a single word she said.

[01:42.71]This liberating discovery

[01:44.46]enables me to proceed

[01:48.47]without any fear that

[01:49.67]I might inadvertently influence you

[01:54.54]to abandon promising careers in business,

[01:57.16]law or politics for the giddy delights

[01:59.73]of becoming a gay wizard.

[02:12.81]You see?

[02:13.97]If all you remember

[02:14.86]in years to come

[02:15.72]is the "gay wizard" joke,

[02:17.20]I've still come out ahead

[02:18.42]of Baroness Mary Warnock.

[02:24.64]Achievable goals

[02:26.35]the first step to selfimprovement.

[02:31.43]Actually,

[02:32.58]I have wracked my mind and heart

[02:35.13]for what I ought to say to you today.

[02:37.20]I have asked myself

[02:38.49]what I wish I had known

[02:39.86]at my own graduation,

[02:41.97]and what important lessons

[02:43.24]I have learned

[02:44.26]in the 21 years

[02:45.80]that has expired between

[02:46.84]that day and this.

[02:49.53]I have come up with two answers.

[02:52.33]On this wonderful day

[02:53.42]when we are gathered together

[02:55.09]to celebrate your academic success,

[02:57.75]I have decided to talk to you

[02:59.41]about the benefits of failure.

[03:02.76]And as you stand on the threshold

[03:04.50]of what is sometimes called

[03:05.79]"real life",

[03:07.45]I want to extol the crucial

[03:08.98]importance of imagination.

[03:12.26]These may seem quixotic

[03:13.51]or paradoxical choices,

[03:14.56]but bear with me.

[03:17.89]Looking back at the 21-year-old

[03:20.00]that I was at graduation,

[03:21.82]is a slightly uncomfortable experience

[03:24.10]for the 42-yearold that she has become.

[03:27.30]Half my lifetime ago,

[03:29.61] I was striking an uneasy balance

[03:31.49]between the ambition I had for myself,

[03:34.01]and what those closest

[03:35.46]to me expected of me.

[03:38.28]I was convinced that

[03:39.44]the only thing I wanted to do,

[03:41.07]ever, was to write novels.

[03:44.04]However, my parents,

[03:45.83]both of whom came

[03:46.81]from impoverished backgrounds

[03:48.16]and neither of whom had been to college,

[03:50.39]took the view that my overactive imagination

[03:52.76]was an amusing personal quirk

[03:55.41]that could never pay a mortgage,

[03:56.80]or secure a pension.

[03:59.62]I know the irony strikes like

[04:00.81]with the force of a cartoon anvil now,

[04:04.02]but…

[04:05.64]So they had hoped

[04:06.61]that I would take a vocational degree;

[04:08.85]I wanted to study English Literature.

[04:11.15]A compromise was reached

[04:13.09]that in retrospect satisfied nobody,

[04:16.05]and I went up to study Modern Languages.

[04:19.04]Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner

[04:21.27]at the end of the road

[04:22.60]than I ditched German

[04:24.47]and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

[04:27.43]I cannot remember telling my parents

[04:29.95]that I was studying Classics;

[04:31.93]they might well have found out

[04:33.18]for the first time on graduation day.

[04:36.84]Of all the subjects on this planet,

[04:39.30]I think they would have been hard put

[04:40.68]to name one less useful

[04:43.14]than Greek mythology

[04:44.27]when it came to securing the keys

[04:45.85]to an executive bathroom.

[04:49.73]I would like to make it clear,

[04:51.63]in parenthesis,

[04:52.88]that I do not blame my parents

[04:54.71]for their point of view.

[04:56.22]There is an expiry date

[04:57.90]on blaming your parents

[04:59.23]for steering you in the wrong direction;

[05:11.75]the moment you are old enough

[05:12.99]to take the wheel,

[05:14.20]responsibility lies with you.

[05:16.86]What is more,

[05:18.17]I cannot CRIticize my parents

[05:20.18]for hoping that I would never experience poverty.

[05:23.61]They had been poor themselves,

[05:25.36]and I have since been poor,

[05:27.77]and I quite agree with them

[05:29.57]that it is not an ennobling experience.

[05:33.28]Poverty entails fear,

[05:34.97]and stress,

[05:36.21]and sometimes depression;

[05:38.62]it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.

[05:42.69]Climbing out of poverty

[05:43.88]by your own efforts,

[05:45.27]that is something on which to pride yourself,

[05:47.40]but poverty itself

[05:49.31]is romanticized only by fools.

[05:53.32]What I feared most for myself

[05:54.83]at your age

[05:56.18]was not poverty,

[05:57.35]but failure.

[05:59.89]At your age,

[06:01.13]in spite of a distinct lack of motivation

[06:03.20]at university,

[06:04.32]where I had spent far too long

[06:06.16]in the coffee bar writing stories,

[06:08.18]and far too little time at lectures,

[06:10.90]I had a knack for passing examinations,

[06:13.70]and that, for years,

[06:15.71]had been the measure of success

[06:17.15]in my life and that of my peers.

[06:21.29]Now I am not dull enough to suppose

[06:23.51]that because you are young,

[06:24.76]gifted and well educated,

[06:27.14]you have never known hardship or heartbreak.

[06:32.14]Talent and intelligence

[06:34.06]never yet inoculated anyone

[06:35.89]against the caprice of the Fates,

[06:38.08]and I do not for a moment suppose

[06:40.38]that everyone here has enjoyed an existence

[06:42.90]of unruffled privilege and contentment.

[06:46.76]However, the fact that you are graduating

[06:50.79]from Harvard suggests

[06:52.01]that you are not very well-acquainted

[06:54.62]with failure.

[06:57.88]You might be driven by a fear of failure

[07:00.45]quite as much as a desire for success.

[07:04.00]Indeed, your conception of failure

[07:06.19]might not be too far

[07:08.35]from the average person's idea of success,

[07:11.07]so high have you already flown.

[07:15.65]Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves

[07:18.97]what constitutes failure,

[07:21.02]but the world is quite eager

[07:22.57]to give you a set of CRIteria if you let it.

[07:26.23]So I think it fair to say

[07:28.16]that by any conventional measure,

[07:30.82]a mere seven years after my graduation day,

[07:34.01]I had failed on an epic scale.

[07:37.68]An exceptionally short-lived marriage

[07:39.70]had imploded,

[07:41.24]and I was jobless,

[07:42.67]a lone parent,

[07:44.34]and as poor As It Is possible

[07:46.18]to be in modern Britain,

[07:47.53]without being homeless.

[07:50.00]The fears my parents had had for me,

[07:52.77]and that I had had for myself,

[07:54.91]had both come to pass,

[07:57.09]and by every usual standard,

[07:59.03]I was the biggest failure I knew.

[08:02.89]Now, I am not going to stand here

[08:04.19]and tell you that failure is fun.

[08:06.88]That period of my life

[08:08.00]was a dark one,

[08:10.00]and I had no idea that there was going to be

[08:11.87]what the presshas since represented

[08:14.26]as a kind of fairy tale resolution.

[08:17.83]I had no idea then

[08:19.56]how far the tunnel extended,

[08:21.41]and for a long time,

[08:22.66]any light at the end of

[08:23.89]it was a hope rather than a reality.

[08:27.50]So why do I talk about the benefits of failure?

[08:32.26]Simply because failure

[08:34.04]meant a stripping away

[08:35.52]of the inessential.

[08:37.68]I stopped pretending to myself

[08:39.74]that I was anything

[08:40.91]other than what I was,

[08:42.74]and began to direct all my energy

[08:44.52]into finishing the only work

[08:46.59]that mattered to me.

[08:48.19]Had I really succeeded

[08:49.71]at anything else,

[08:50.76]I might never have found the determination

[08:52.66]to succeed in the one arena

[08:54.78]I believed I truly belonged.

[08:57.75]I was set free,

[08:59.64]because my greatest fear

[09:00.82]had already been realised,

[09:02.30]and I was still alive,

[09:04.14]and I still had a daughter

[09:05.27]whom I adored,

[09:06.51]and I had an old typewriter

[09:07.81]and a big idea.

[09:10.47]And so rock bottom

[09:11.94]became the solid foundation

[09:13.83]on which I rebuilt my life.

[09:16.66]You might never fail on the scale I did,

[09:20.35]but some failure in life is inevitable.

[09:23.67]It is impossible

[09:25.33]to live without failing at something,

[09:28.01]unless you live so cautiously

[09:30.31]that you might as well not have lived at all

[09:32.80]in which case,

[09:34.13]you fail by default.

[09:36.33]Failure gave me an inner security

[09:38.75]that I had never attained

[09:40.31]by passing examinations.

[09:42.20]Failure taught me things

[09:43.53]about myself that I could have learned

[09:45.11]no other way.

[09:46.75]I discovered that I had a strong will,

[09:48.69]and more discipline

[09:50.24]than I had suspected;

[09:51.94]I also found out

[09:53.22]that I had friends

[09:55.19]whose value was truly

[09:56.27]above the price of rubies.

[09:58.44]The knowledge

[09:59.63]that you have emerged wiser

[10:01.16]and stronger from setbacks

[10:02.76]means that you are, ever after,

[10:04.75]secure in your ability to survive.

[10:07.65]You will never truly know yourself,

[10:10.22]or the strength of your relationships,

[10:12.61]until both have been tested by adversity.

[10:16.00]Such knowledge is a true gift,

[10:19.21]for all that it is painfully won,

[10:21.70]and it has been worth more to me

[10:24.43]than any qualification I ever earned.

[10:26.43]Given a Time Turner,

[10:28.47]I would tell my 21-year-old self

[10:30.37]that personal happiness lies in knowing

[10:32.20]that life is

[10:33.34]not a checklist of acquisition

[10:35.69]or achievement.

[10:37.10]Your qualifications,

[10:38.12]your CV,

[10:39.70]are not your life,

[10:41.17]though you will meet many people

[10:42.69]of my age and older who confuse the two.

[10:44.56]Life is difficult,

[10:47.23]and complicated,

[10:48.62]and beyond anyone's total control

[10:51.64]and the humility to know that

[10:53.10]will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

[10:57.30]You might think that I chose my second theme,

[11:00.80]the importance of imagination,

[11:02.04]because of the part it played in rebuilding my life,

[11:05.17]but that is not wholly so.

[11:07.67]Though I will defend

[11:10.97]the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp,

[11:13.10]I have learned to value imagination

[11:14.85]in a much broader sense.

[11:17.58]Imagination is not only

[11:21.51]the uniquely human capacity

[11:23.88]to envision that which is not,

[11:26.43]and therefore the fount of all invention

[11:28.08]and innovation.

[11:28.92]In its arguably most transformative

[11:30.90]and revelatory capacity,

[11:33.00]it is the power that enables us to

[11:35.48]empathize with humans

[11:37.09]whose experiences we have never shared.

[11:39.42]One of the greatest formative experiences

[11:43.33]of my life preceded Harry Potter,

[11:44.99]though it informed much of

[11:46.46]what I subsequently wrote in those books.

[11:48.83]This revelation

[11:50.19]came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs.

[11:53.10]Though I was sloping off to write stories

[11:55.68]during my lunch hours,

[11:57.39]I paid the rent in my early 20s

[11:59.92]by working at the research department

[12:03.12]at Amnesty International's headquarters

[12:05.34]in London.

[12:07.61]There in my little office

[12:08.97]I read hastily sCRIbbled letters

[12:11.49]smuggled out of totalitarian regimes

[12:14.22]by men and women

[12:15.57]who were risking imprisonment

[12:17.26]to inform the outside world of

[12:18.72]what was happening to them.

[12:20.67]I saw photographs of those

[12:22.36]who had disappeared without trace,

[12:24.33]sent to Amnesty by their desperate families

[12:26.50]and friends.

[12:28.18]I read the testimony of torture victims

[12:30.96]and saw pictures of their injuries.

[12:33.16]I opened handwritten,

[12:34.97]eye-witness accounts of summary trials

[12:38.19]and executions,

[12:39.74]of kidnappings and rapes.

[12:43.49]Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners,

[12:46.28]people who had been displaced from their homes,

[12:49.04]or fled into exile,

[12:50.91]because they had the temerity

[12:52.43]to speak against their government.

[12:55.07]Visitors to our office included those

[12:56.68]who had come to give information,

[12:58.30]or to try and find out

[13:00.45]what had happened to those

[13:03.23]who they had left behind.

[13:04.46]I shall never forget

[13:06.04]the African torture victim,

[13:08.32]a young man no older than I was at the time,

[13:11.05] who had become mentally ill

[13:13.20]after all he had endured

[13:14.59]in his homeland.

[13:16.62]He trembled uncontrollably

[13:18.58]as he spoke into a video camera

[13:20.22]about the brutality inflicted upon him.

[13:24.58]He was a foot taller than I was,

[13:26.40]and seemed as fragile as a child.

[13:28.79]I was given the job of escorting him

[13:31.64]back to the underground station afterwards,

[13:33.48]and this man whose life had been shattered

[13:36.59]by cruelty

[13:37.88]took my hand with exquisite courtesy,

[13:41.06]and wished me future happiness.

[13:44.43]And as long as I live

[13:46.05]I shall remember walking along

[13:47.44]an empty corridor

[13:48.38]and suddenly hearing,

[13:50.23]from behind a closed door,

[13:52.36]a scream of pain and horror

[13:54.62]such as I have never heard since.

[13:57.10]The door opened,

[13:58.70]and the researcher poked out her head

[14:01.94]and told me to run and make a hot drink

[14:04.04]for the young man sitting with her.

[14:07.39]She had just given him the news

[14:09.86]that in retaliation for his own outspokenness

[14:12.68]against his country's regime,

[14:15.19]his mother had been seized and executed.

[14:20.74]Every day of my working week

[14:22.52]in my early 20s

[14:24.04]I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was,

[14:27.70]to live in a country with a democratically

[14:29.45]elected government,

[14:31.02]where legal representation

[14:32.48]and a public trial

[14:33.73]were the rights of everyone.

[14:36.91]Every day,

[14:38.15]I saw more evidence

[14:39.37]about the evils humankind will inflict

[14:42.16]on their fellow humans,

[14:43.65]to gain or maintain power.

[14:47.06]I began to have nightmares,

[14:48.62]literal nightmares,

[14:50.33]about some of the things I saw,

[14:52.26]heard and read.

[14:56.02]And yet I also learned

[14:58.65]more about human goodness

[15:00.70]at Amnesty International

[15:02.15]than I had ever known before.

[15:05.03]Amnesty mobilizes thousands of people

[15:07.76]who have never been tortured

[15:09.15]or imprisoned for their beliefs

[15:10.87] to act on behalf of those who have.

[15:14.32]The power of human empathy,

[15:17.37]leading to collective action,

[15:18.50]saves lives,

[15:19.69]and frees prisoners.

[15:21.85]Ordinary people,

[15:23.41]whose personal well-being

[15:24.75]and security are assured,

[15:26.74]join together in huge numbers

[15:28.80]to save people they do not know,

[15:30.94]and will never meet.

[15:33.04]My small participation

[15:34.51]in that process

[15:35.74]was one of the most humbling

[15:37.08]and inspiring experiences of my life.

[15:41.79]Unlike any other creature on this planet,

[15:44.53]human beings can learn and understand,

[15:47.16]without having experienced.

[15:49.57]They can think themselves

[15:51.04]into other people's places.

[15:56.50]Of course,

[15:58.26]this is a power,

[15:59.18]like my brand of fictional magic,

[16:00.34]that is morally neutral.

[16:02.30]One might use such an ability

[16:03.82]to manipulate, or control,

[16:06.47]just as much as to understand or sympathize.

[16:10.97]And many prefer

[16:12.01]not to exercise their imaginations at all.

[16:13.66]They choose to remain comfortably

[16:16.72]within the bounds of their own experience,

[16:19.14]never troubling to wonder

[16:20.53]how it would feel

[16:21.33]to have been born other than they are.

[16:24.07]They can refuse to hear screams

[16:25.77]or to peer inside cages;

[16:28.02]they can close their minds

[16:29.64]and hearts to any suffering

[16:31.31]that does not touch them personally;

[16:33.65]they can refuse to know.

[16:37.21]I might be tempted to envy people

[16:39.44]who can live that way,

[16:41.00]except that I do not think

[16:42.27]they have any fewer nightmares

[16:43.77]than I do.

[16:45.44]Choosing to live in narrow spaces

[16:47.05]lead to a form of mental agoraphobia,

[16:49.68]and that brings its own terrors.

[16:53.33]I think the willfully unimaginative

[16:55.12]see more monsters.

[16:57.58]They are often more afraid.

[16:59.79]What is more,

[17:02.46]those who choose not to empathize

[17:04.39]enable real monsters.

[17:06.54]For without ever committing

[17:07.78] an act of outright evil ourselves,

[17:09.22]we collude with it,

[17:11.61]through our own apathy.

[17:14.67]One of the many things I learned

[17:16.27]at the end of that Classics corridor down

[17:18.13]which I ventured at the age of 18,

[17:20.29]in search of something

[17:21.32]I could not then define,

[17:22.88]was this,

[17:23.84]written by the Greek author Plutarch:

[17:25.62]What we achieve inwardly

[17:28.19]will change outer reality.

[17:32.33]That is an astonishing statement

[17:34.02]and yet proven a thousand times

[17:35.67]every day of our lives.

[17:37.61]It expresses, in part,

[17:39.22]our inescapable connection

[17:40.82]with the outside world,

[17:42.67]the fact that we touch other people's lives

[17:44.65]simply by existing.

[17:47.32]But how much more are you,

[17:49.52]Harvard graduates of 2008,

[17:52.22]likely to touch other people's lives?

[17:55.56]Your intelligence,

[17:57.01]your capacity for hard work,

[17:59.17]the education you have earned

[18:00.79]and received,

[18:02.02]give you unique status,

[18:04.87]and unique responsibilities.

[18:07.56]Even your nationality

[18:08.89]sets you apart.

[18:10.61]The great majority

[18:11.74]of you belong to the world's

[18:13.40]only remaining superpower.

[18:16.26]The way you vote,

[18:17.44]the way you live,

[18:18.45]the way you protest,

[18:20.00]the pressure you bring to bear

[18:21.65]on your government,

[18:23.11]has an impact way

[18:23.95]beyond your borders.

[18:25.77]That is your privilege,

[18:27.00]and your burden.

[18:29.90]If you choose to use your status

[18:31.66]and influence

[18:32.62]to raise your voice

[18:33.38]on behalf of those who have no voice;

[18:35.73]if you choose to identify

[18:37.17]not only with the powerful,

[18:39.07]but with the powerless;

[18:41.10]if you retain the ability

[18:42.54]to imagine yourself

[18:43.81]into the lives of those

[18:44.95]who do not have your advantages,

[18:46.90]then it will not only be your proud families

[18:49.53]who celebrate your existence,

[18:51.47]but thousands and millions of people

[18:53.47]whose reality you have helped to change.

[18:57.06]We do not need magic to transform my world,

[19:00.28]we carry all the power

[19:01.47]we need inside ourselves already:

[19:03.66]we have the power to imagine better.

[19:08.15]I am nearly finished.

[19:09.83]I have one last hope for you,

[19:12.09]which is something

[19:12.75]that I already had at 21.

[19:15.78]The friends with whom I sat on graduation day

[19:18.30]have been my friends for life.

[19:20.54]They are my children's godparents,

[19:22.09]the people to whom I've been able to turn

[19:24.51]in times of real trouble,

[19:28.36]people who have been kind enough

[19:28.78]not to sue me

[19:29.93]when I've took their names for Death Eaters.

[19:40.29]At our graduation

[19:41.84]we were bound by enormous affection,

[19:43.66]by our shared experience

[19:45.54]of a time that could never come again,

[19:48.12]and, of course,

[19:49.35]by the knowledge

[19:50.10]that we held certain photographic evidence

[19:52.99]that would be exceptionally valuable

[19:56.03]if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

[19:59.69]So today,

[20:02.05]I wish you nothing better

[20:03.99]than similar friendships.

[20:06.35]And tomorrow,

[20:08.22]I hope that even if you remember

[20:10.14]not a single word of mine,

[20:12.44]you remember those of Seneca,

[20:14.42]another of those old Romans I met

[20:16.09]when I fled down the Classics corridor,

[20:18.65]in retreat from career ladders,

[20:21.71]in search of ancient wisdom:

[20:25.13]As is a tale,

[20:26.79]so is life:

[20:28.50]not how long it is,

[20:29.95]but how good it is,

[20:31.98]is what matters.

[20:33.73]I wish you all very good lives.

[20:36.05]Thank you very much.