TED | 我从2000个讣告中学到的

在日渐浮躁的今天

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What I learned from 2,000 obituaries

TED简介：2014 | 2017年1月，Lux Narayan 在TED做了一个短小精悍的演讲。演讲只有6分钟，却引来了近73万次的播放量。原因是他花了一年多的时间，研究了《纽约时报》上2000份讣告，竟然找到了令人流芳百世的秘密。

演讲者：Lux Narayan

片长：06：13

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=d0386mspgfn&width=500&height=375&auto=0

中英文对照翻译

Joseph Keller used to jog around the Stanford campus, and he was struck by all the women jogging there as well. Why did their ponytails swing from side to side like that? Being a mathematician, he set out to understand why.

约瑟夫·凯勒习惯在斯坦福大学校园周围慢跑，在那裡慢跑的其他女性，引发了他的好奇：为什么她们的马尾总是左右晃动着？身为一名数学家，他决定要弄清楚原因。

Professor Keller was curious about many things: why teapots dribble or how earthworms wriggle. Until a few months ago, I hadn't heard of Joseph Keller. I read about him in the New York Times, in the obituaries. The Times had half a page of editorial dedicated to him, which you can imagine is premium space for a newspaper of their stature.

凯勒教授对许多事情都很好奇：为什么茶水会顺著壶嘴滴下来，或是蚯蚓如何蠕动。几个月之前，我还不知道约瑟夫·凯勒是谁。我在纽约时报看到他的消息，在讣闻版。纽约时报的编辑用了半个版面来向他致敬。你可以想像得到，对一家大报社来说，这代表著极高的尊崇。

I read the obituaries almost every day. My wife understandably thinks I'm rather morbid to begin my day with scrambled eggs and a "Let's see who died today."

我几乎每天都会阅读讣闻版。我的妻子晓得我这个有点病态的习惯：每天早晨，我会一边吃著炒蛋，一边阅读讣闻版：「我们来看看今天有谁去世了」。

But if you think about it, the front page of the newspaper is usually bad news, and cues man's failures.An instance where bad news cues accomplishment is at the end of the paper, in the obituaries.

但是如果你仔细想想，报纸的头版通常刊登坏消息，这暗示我们某人失败了。然而有一种情况：坏消息却暗示了某人的成就，那就是在报纸的最后一版，在讣闻版。

In my day job, I run a company that focuses on future insights that marketers can derive from past data — a kind of rearview-mirror analysis. And we began to think: What if we held a rearview mirror to obituaries from the New York Times? Were there lessons on how you could get your obituary featured —even if you aren't around to enjoy it?

我平常的工作，是经营一间企管顾问公司，我们关注未来的发展趋势，并分析过去所累积的数据──这是一种称为「回顾分析」的技术。我们开始思考：如果我们对纽约时报的讣闻版，进行回顾分析？能否从里面学到「如何让讣闻变得更为独特」── 即使你以后也看不到自己的讣闻？

Would this go better with scrambled eggs?

这样做能让讣闻更适合搭配炒蛋吗？

And so, we looked at the data. 2,000 editorial, non-paid obituaries over a 20-month period between 2015 and 2016. What did these 2,000 deaths — rather, lives — teach us?

所以，我们检视了数据。我们分析了总共2000 篇由编辑部刊登，非付费的讣闻，范围是 2015到2016年的20个月之间。究竟这2000个死亡──应该说是生命──教导了我们什么？

Well, first we looked at words. This here is an obituary headline. This one is of the amazing Lee Kuan Yew. If you remove the beginning and the end, you're left with a beautifully worded descriptor that tries to, in just a few words, capture an achievement or a lifetime. Just looking at these is fascinating. Here are a few famous ones, people who died in the last two years. Try and guess who they are.

好，首先来看讣闻的用字。这是一篇讣闻的标题。这一位是传奇人物李光耀。移除开头和结尾后的内容，只剩短短的几句话，一些优美的描述词汇，能让你捕捉到亡者的成就，或是他的一生。看著这些词汇就够令人著迷了。这里有几位，在这两年内过世的名人。试着猜猜看他们是谁。

[An Artist who Defied Genre] That's Prince.

[Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century] Oh, yes.

[Muhammad Ali]

[Groundbreaking Architect] Zaha Hadid.

「一位颠覆形式的艺术家」这是王子。

「二十世纪的拳击巨星」是的，拳王阿里。

「开创未来的建筑师」札哈．哈蒂。

So we took these descriptors and did what's called natural language processing, where you feed these into a program, it throws out the superfluous words — "the," "and," — the kind of words you can mime easily in "Charades," — and leaves you with the most significant words. And we did it not just for these four, but for all 2,000 descriptors. 

因此，我们找出这些描述词，进行所谓的自然语言处理。也就是你将文字输入程式，它能剔除不必要的文字，例如 「the」——并且剔除在玩「比手画脚」游戏时，很容易以手势表示的文字，最后留下最重要的词汇。我们不只分析上面这四则，而是分析了所有2000则讣闻的描述词汇。

And this is what it looks like. Film, theatre, music, dance and of course, art, are huge. Over 40 percent. You have to wonder why in so many societies we insist that our kids pursue engineering or medicine or business or law to be construed as successful. And while we're talking profession, let's look at age — the average age at which they achieved things. That number is 37. What that means is, you've got to wait 37 years ... before your first significant achievement that you're remembered for — on average — 44 years later, when you die at the age of 81 — on average.

我们来看看结果是什么样子。电影、戏剧、音乐、舞蹈。当然「艺术」是最明显的。出现的频率多出40%。你不得不惊讶的是，为什么在大多数的社会中，我们一直认为让孩子读工程、医学、商业或法律科系，才是所谓的成功。当我们关注职业时，也来看看年龄──这些人功成名就的平均年龄。这个数字是37年。这意味着什么？就是你平均必须等待37 年…… 才能获得第一个成就，44 年后，当你过世时才会被纪念，平均年龄是81岁。

Talk about having to be patient.

这告诉我们要有耐心。

Of course, it varies by profession. If you're a sports star, you'll probably hit your stride in your 20s. And if you're in your 40s like me, you can join the fun world of politics.

当然，这会因职业而异。如果你是体育明星，你可能会在20多岁打破纪录。如果你和我一样已经40多岁了，你可以加入有趣的政治圈。

Politicians do their first and sometimes only commendable act in their mid-40s.

政治家完成他们的第一项成就，可能也是唯一的一次，大约是在45岁左右。

If you're wondering what "others" are, here are some examples. Isn't it fascinating, the things people doand the things they're remembered for?

如果你想知道「其他职业」是什么， 这里有一些例子。这些人所做的，和他们被纪念的事迹，是不是很令人著迷？

Our curiosity was in overdrive, and we desired to analyze more than just a descriptor. So, we ingested the entire first paragraph of all 2,000 obituaries, but we did this separately for two groups of people:people that are famous and people that are not famous. Famous people — Prince, Ali, Zaha Hadid —people who are not famous are people like Jocelyn Cooper, Reverend Curry or Lorna Kelly. 

我们的好奇心被点燃了，我们不只想要分析描述词。所以，我们输入了2000则讣闻的第一段全文，但是将亡者分为两群：知名人士，以及非知名人士。知名人士例如：王子、阿里、札哈．哈蒂。

I'm willing to bet you haven't heard of most of their names. Amazing people, fantastic achievements, but they're not famous. So what if we analyze these two groups separately — the famous and the non-famous? What might that tell us?

非知名人士例如：乔斯林库柏、嘉里牧师或罗娜．凯利。我敢打赌，你绝对没听过大多数这些人的名字。这些人有著令人惊讶，稀奇古怪的成就，但是他们并不出名。因此，如果我们分析一下这两群人，知名和非知名人士，可能得到什么结果？

Take a look. Two things leap out at me. First: "John."

我们来看一下。有两个结果让我惊讶。第一个：「约翰」。

Anyone here named John should thank your parents —and remind your kids to cut out your obituary when you're gone. And second: "help."

如果这裡有人也叫约翰的，应该感谢你的父母──而且记得提醒你的孩子，当你过世时要把讣闻剪下来。另一个结果是：「帮助」。

We uncovered, many lessons from lives well-led, and what those people immortalized in print could teach us. The exercise was a fascinating testament to the kaleidoscope that is life, and even more fascinating was the fact that the overwhelming majority of obituaries featured people famous and non-famous, who did seemingly extraordinary things. They made a positive dent in the fabric of life. They helped.

我们发现了，这些已经逝去，在报纸上令我们缅怀的事迹，教导我们许多事情，教导我们如何好好活着。这次的实验就是万花筒般生命的迷人见证。甚至更迷人的是，在大多数的讣闻中，无论是知名或非知名人士，他们所做的不平凡事迹。他们在不停编织的人生中， 留下了有意义的印记。他们帮助他人。

So ask yourselves as you go back to your daily lives: How am I using my talents to help society?Because the most powerful lesson here is, if more people lived their lives trying to be famous in death,the world would be a much better place.

所以问问自己，当你回到日常生活中：我如何运用我的才华，帮助这个社会？因为在这里，最重要的一课是：如果有更多的人，在活著时努力过著自己的人生，而能在过世时变得知名，这个世界将会变得更加美好。

Thank you.(Applause)

谢谢大家。（掌声）

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