夏虫不可语冰，三季人不可知冬。

没有哲学规划过的人生，不论是霍普金斯普林斯顿哈佛耶鲁又或者是其他常青藤名校，还是身家巨万，于任何人的一生毫无意义。这样的悲剧我早已知晓。我浅显的人生经历，也不过是徒劳验证一遍而已。名利。本枷锁沉重。世间障眼法，无出其右者。

举世而誉之而不加劝，举世而非之而不加沮。只有真正做到了这一点，才称得上是自由人。栩栩然蝴蝶，飘飘然梦境。天地内外，须臾一觉。

你懒吗？当然，我不会问你晚上几点睡，白天几点起。我是问，如果你的灵魂是你的爱人，你此生是否曾云淡风轻，曲径通幽，在当时明月，夜凉如水之妙，与她情意相通，心有灵犀，如人饮水、冷暖尽知？
你有过吗？碌碌一世，临了，你不会压根就没见过你的灵魂吗？

人的一生不是看呼吸了多少次，而是要看有多少个时刻无法呼吸。

不需要用心思量的事情都是根本不值得浪费生命的。喜欢做这种事情的人才是真正的懒惰者。根深蒂固的思想上的侏儒。枉其一生，难有半点自知之明。正所谓，可怜之人必有可恨之处。
迅哥儿哀其不幸，怒其不争。此间思之，唏嘘难免。

作者简介：
William Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor at The New Republic. His next book, A Jane Austen Education, will be published next year by Penguin Press.
威廉·德莱塞维茨（William Deresiewicz）是《国家》杂志撰稿人和《新共和》杂志编辑。他的新书《简•奥斯汀教育》明年将由企鹅出版社出版。”
本文是威廉•德莱塞维茨（William Deresiewicz）在斯坦福大学的演讲，标题：勇气——挣脱身上的网。

兔兔酱以随性所见，试取副标题《初窥道径》

The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science and technology. Whatdoubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree?
（学习文学、艺术或哲学能有什么用呢？所以你肯定纳闷，我为什么在在以科技堡垒而闻名的斯坦福提出这个问题呢？在大学学位给人带来众多机会的问题上还有什么可怀疑的吗？）

But that's not the question I'm asking. By 'do' I don't mean a job, and by 'that' I don't mean your major. We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school. By 'What are you going to do,' I mean, what kind of life are you going to lead? And by 'that,' I mean everything in your training, formal and informal, that has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything you're going to be doing for the rest of the time that you're in school.
（但那不是我提出的问题。这里的“做”并不是指工作，“那”并不是指你的专业。我们不仅仅是要个工作，教育不仅仅是学一门专业。教育也不仅仅是上大学，甚至也不仅是从幼儿园到研究生院的正规学校教育。我说的“你要做什么”的意思是你要过什么样的生活？我所说的“那”指的是你得到的正规或非正规的任何训练，那些把你送到这里来的东西，你在学校的剩余时间里将要做的任何事。）

We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good schools, where the encouragement of your teachers and the example of your peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did extracurricular activities, went to afterschool programs, took private lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got very good at math, or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, several things at once.

（我们不妨先来讨论你是如何考入斯坦福的吧。你能进入这所大学说明你在某些技能上非常出色。你的父母在你很小的时候就鼓励你追求卓越。他们送你到好学校，老师的鼓励和同伴的榜样激励你更努力地学习。除了在所有课程上都出类拔萃之外，你还注重修养的提高，充满热情地培养了一些特殊兴趣。你用几个暑假在本地大学里预习大学课程，或参加专门技能的夏令营或训练营。你学习刻苦、精力集中、全力以赴。所以，你在数学、钢琴、曲棍球等 众多方面都很出色。）

Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your best and to be the best. What's wrong is what the system leaves out: which is to say, everything else. I don't mean that by choosing to excel in math, say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on political science, or that while you're learning the piano, you should also be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.

The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. It cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success that you all hope to achieve, you have completed, by getting into Stanford, only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-narrowing funnel of specialization. You go from being a political-science major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.

（专业化的问题是它让你成为专家，切断你与世界上其他任何东西的联系，不仅如此，还切断你与自身其他潜能的联系。当然，作为大一新生，你的专业才刚刚开始。在你走向所渴望的成功之路的过程中，进入斯坦福是你踏上的众多阶梯中的一个。再读三年大学，三五年法学院或医学院或博士，然后再干若干年住院实习生或博士后或助理教授。总而言之，进入越来越狭窄的专业化轨道。你可能从政治学专业的学生变成了律师或者公司代理人，再变成专门研究消费品领域的税收问题的公司代理人。 你从生物化学专业的学生变成了博士，再变成心脏病学家，再变成专门做心脏瓣膜移植的心脏病医生。）

Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. It's just that, as you get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember who you once were. You start to wonder what happened to that person who played piano and lacrosse and sat around with her friends having intense conversations about life and politics and all the things she was learning in her classes. The 19-year-old who could do so many things, and was interested in so many things, has become a 40-year-old who thinks about only one thing. That's why older people are so boring. 'Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but all he talks about is money and livers.'
（再次，做这些事没有任何错。只不过，在你越来越深入地进入 这个轨道后，再记得你最初的样子就变得越来越困难了。你开始怀念那个曾经谈钢琴和打曲棍球的人，思考那个曾经和朋友热烈讨论人生和政治以及在课堂内容的人在做什么。那个活泼能干的19岁年轻人已经变成了只想一件事的40岁中年人。难怪年长的人这么乏味无趣。“哎，我爸爸曾经是非常聪明的人，但他现在除了谈论钱和肝脏外再无其他。”）

And there's another problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be a cardiac surgeon in the first place. It just kind of happened. It's easy, the way the system works, to simply go with the flow. I don't mean the work is easy, but the choices are easy. Or rather, the choices sort of make themselves. You go to a place like Stanford because that's what smart kids do. You go to medical school because it's prestigious. You specialize in cardiology because it's lucrative. You do the things that reap the rewards, that make your parents proud, and your teachers pleased, and your friends impressed. From the time you started high school and maybe even junior high, your whole goal was to get into the best college you could, and so now you naturally think about your life in terms of 'getting into' whatever's next. 'Getting into' is validation; 'getting into' is victory. Stanford, then Johns Hopkins medical school, then a residency at the University of San Francisco, and so forth.

Or Michigan Law School, or Goldman Sachs, or Mc Kinsey, or whatever. You take it one step at a time, and the next step always seems to be inevitable.

（ 还有另外一个问题。或许你从来没有想过当心脏病医生，只是碰巧发生了而已。随大流最容易，这就是体制的力量。我不是说这个工作容易，而是说做出这种选择很容易。或者，这些根本就不是自己做出的选择。你来到斯坦福这样的名牌大学是因为聪明的孩子都这样。你考入医学院是因为它的地位高，人人都羡慕。你选择心脏 病学是因为当心脏病医生的待遇很好。你做那些事能给你带来好处，让你的父母感到骄傲，令你的老师感到高兴，也让朋友们羡慕。从你上高中开始，甚至初中开始，你的唯一目标就是进入最好的大学，所以现在你会很自然地从“进入下个阶段”的角度看待人生。“进入”就是能力的证明，“进入”就是胜利。先进入斯坦福，然后是约翰霍普金斯医学院，再进入旧金山大学做实习医生等。或者进入密歇根法学院，或高盛集团（Goldman Sachs）或麦肯锡公司（McKinsey）或别的什么地方。你迈出了这一步，下一步似乎就必然在等着你。）