一生要坚持的10件事｜斯坦福大学的毕业演讲

美国斯坦福大学今年毕业典礼，邀请了艾美奖得主、知名的历史纪录片导演肯?伯恩斯（Ken Burns）演讲，他在20多分钟的演讲中，他勉励毕业生即便走出校园，依然要保持好奇心和热情，永远热爱科学与艺术，要坚持做个英雄，并且要生儿育女。

在演讲中，他说：“坚持热爱科学与艺术，尤其是艺术。科学帮助我们保卫国家，艺术使我们的国家值得保卫。”

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本文是他的演讲内容摘译

▲艾美奖得主、纪录片导演肯?伯恩斯（Ken Burns）在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上演讲。

现在，让我对斯坦福大学的毕业生说几句肺腑之言。

我是4个女儿的父亲。如果有人告诉你他们被性侵害，你一定要极其严肃地对待此事，听他们怎么说（6月初，斯坦福大学学生性侵案被法院轻判，在美国社会引起很大的争议）。也许，终会有那么一天，我们会将性侵受害者的声明，视为跟马丁路德金博士从伯明翰监狱寄出的书信一样重要。

1. 不要否定一个人。就像我否定某位候选人（暗指总统候选人川普）一样。但可以否定一件事。

2. 保持好奇心，不要装酷。每天都要喂养你的灵魂。也不要只执着于某一专业。全能发展，你会更发展得更健康。不要把自己限制在书本堆里，那只是工具，是手段，但不是终点。

3. 寻找并追随人生导师，并听他们的建议。已故剧院导演泰隆?古瑟里（Tyrone Guthrie）曾说：“我们在寻找大得让人害怕的点子。”拥抱这些新点子。咬下比你能吞下的更多的东西。

4. 旅行。不要泥足于一个地方。逛逛我们的国家公园，它们表面上的壮丽，也许会令你感到自我的渺小；但大自然高深莫测的内涵，会令你发现自己的伟大。你会受到启发，你的自我主义会消失，同时你的自我价值会提升。坚持做个英雄。

5. 阅读。时至今日，书本仍然是人类制造的最伟大的工具——不是电视或智能手机。

6. 生儿育女，这是在你生命中所能发生最美好的一件事。意味着你有更重要的人需要去担心。我是说真正的担心、真正为除了你自己以外的人而担心。这令人解放和振奋。我是说真的，不信去问问你的父母。

7. 不要失去你的热情。“热情”这个英文字源自古希腊文，其字面的意义就是“上帝在我们之中”。

8. 报效你的国家。提醒你的政府：真正的危机会持续不断地临到这块我们所爱的土地上。

9. 坚持热爱科学与艺术，尤其是艺术。科学帮助我们捍卫国家，艺术使我们的国家值得捍卫。

10. 永远相信。在我为我的第一部纪录片《布鲁克林大桥》采访阿瑟?米勒（Arthur Miller，已故剧作家，玛丽莲梦露前夫）时，他告诉我：“永远要相信你也能做出些美丽的东西流传于世。”

祝你们好运，一帆风顺。

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(附英文演讲原文)

Let me speak directly to the graduating class. Watch out. Here comes the advice.

Look. I am the father of four daughters. If someone tells you they’ve been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously. And listen to them! Maybe, some day, we will make the survivor’s eloquent statement as important as Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

Try not to make the other wrong, as I just did with that “presumptive” nominee. Be for something.

Be curious, not cool. Feed your soul, too. Every day.

Remember, insecurity makes liars of us all. Not just presidential candidates.

Don’t confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert penn Warren once told me that “careerism is death.”

Do not descend too deeply into specialism either. Educate all of your parts. You will be healthier.

Free yourselves from the limitations of the binary world. It is just a tool. A means, not an end.

Seek out – and have – mentors. Listen to them. The late theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie once said, “We are looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again.” Embrace those new ideas. Bite off more than you can chew.

Travel. Do not get stuck in one place. Visit our national parks. Their sheer majesty may remind you of your own “atomic insignificance,” as one observer noted, but in the inscrutable ways of Nature, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self-regard.

Insist on heroes. And be one.

Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all – not the car, not the TV, not the smartphone.

Make babies. One of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry – I mean really worry – about someone other than yourself. It is liberating and exhilarating. I promise. Ask your parents.

Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means simply, “God in us.”

Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Convince your government, as Lincoln knew, that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land. Governments always forget that.

Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country – they just make our country worth defending.

Believe, as Arthur Miller told me in an interview for my very first film on the Brooklyn Bridge, “believe, that maybe you too could add something that would last and be beautiful.”

And vote. You indelibly underscore your citizenship – and our connection with each other – when you do.

Good luck. And Godspeed.

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