【TED】面对未知与危机，像母亲一样思考

hello大家好，我是达达。面对世界上最紧迫的危机，有一个简单而有效的方法，Yifat Susskind认为是，像母亲一样思考。正如她所说:“当你像母亲一样思考时，你优先考虑的是多数人的需求，而不是少数人的奇想。”

演讲中，她分享了世界各地体现这种心态的人的感人故事，并展示了这种心态如何也能帮助你超越痛苦，采取行动，建设一个更美好的世界。

演讲者：Yifat Susskind

演讲题目：面对未知与危机，像母亲一样思考

One morning, 18 years ago, I stepped out of a New York City subway on a beautiful day in September. The sun was warm and bright, the sky was a clear, perfect blue. I had my six-month-old son in one of those front-facing baby carriers, you know, so he could see everything. And when I turned right on Sixth Avenue, what he saw was the World Trade Center on fire.

18年前的一天早上，9月的一天，天气很好，我走出了纽约市的地铁。太阳是温暖和明亮的，天空是清晰，完美的蓝色。我有一个六个月大的儿子，你知道，这样他就能看到一切。当我在第六大道右转时，他所看到的是世贸中心着火了。

As soon as I realized that this was an attack, the first thing I did, without even really thinking about it, was to take my baby and turn him around in that carrier. I didn't want him to see what was going on. And I just remember feeling so grateful that he was still young enough that I didn't have to tell him that someone had done this on purpose.

当我意识到这是一次袭击，来不及思考，我做的第一件事是，把摇椅里的孩子转了个方向。我不想让他看到发生了什么。我只记得我当时很庆幸，庆幸他还小，我不需要告诉他，是有人故意这样做。

9/11 was like crossing a border, a hostile border into dangerous, uncharted territory. The world was suddenly in this terrifying new place, and I was in this place as a new mother. I remember my thoughts kind of ping-ponging around from, "How am I ever going to protect this baby?" to, "How am I ever going to get some sleep?"

9/11就像穿越边境，穿越敌对的边界，进入危险的、未知的领域。世界变成了可怕的新地方，我作为一个新手妈妈来到这里。我记得我的想法就像乒乓一样，忽左忽右。从“我该如何保护这个孩子?”到“我怎么能睡得着呢?”

Well, my son turned 18 this year, along with millions of other people who were babies on 9/11. And in that time, we have all crossed into this hostile, uncharted territory of climate breakdown, of endless wars, of economic meltdowns, of deep political divisions, of the many crises around the world that I don't need to list off, because they are blaring at you every single day from your news feed.

我儿子今年满18岁了，还有成千上万在911事件中还是婴儿的人。在那段时间里，我们都进入了这个充满敌意的未知领域。气候崩溃，无休止的战争，经济危机，深刻的政治分歧，世界上有很多危机，我不需要一一列举，因为他们每天都从你的新闻推送中对你大吼大叫。

But there is something I've learned in these 18 years of parenting and in my years leading a global women's rights organization. There is a way to face these big crises in the world without feeling overwhelmed and despairing. It's simple, and it's powerful. It's to think like a mother.

但在这18年的育儿过程中，我学到了一些东西，在我领导一个全球妇女权利组织的这些年里。有一种方法可以应对世界上的这些大危机，而不会感到不知所措和绝望。它很简单，也很强大。那就是，像母亲一样思考。

Now, to be clear, you don't have to be a woman or a parent to do this. Thinking like a mother is a lens that's available to everybody. The poet Alexis De Veaux writes, "Motherhood is not simply the organic process of giving birth. It's an understanding of the needs of the world."

现在，澄清一下，你不需要是一个女人或是父母才能如此做。像母亲一样思考是每个人都可以拥有的思考方式。诗人Alexis De Veaux写道，“做母亲不仅仅是生孩子的有机过程，这是对世界需求的一种理解。”

Now, it's easy to focus on all of the obstacles to making this the world we want: greed, inequality, violence. Yes, there is all of that. But there's also the option to plant a seed, a different seed, and cultivate what you want to see grow, even in the midst of crisis.

现在，我们很容易关注那些阻止成为我们想要的世界的障碍：贪婪、不平等、暴力。是的，都有。但是你也可以选择种下一颗种子，一颗不同的种子，培养你想要成长的东西，即使在危机之中。

Majid from Iraq understands this. He is a housepainter by trade and someone who believes deeply in equal rights for women. When ISIS invaded northern Iraq where he lives, he worked with a local women's organization to help build an underground railroad, an escape network for women's rights activists and LGBTIQ folks who were targeted with assassination.

来自伊拉克的马吉德明白这一点。他的职业是刷房子。同时，他也是一个深信妇女应享有平等权利的人。当ISIS入侵他居住的伊拉克北部时，他在当地一个妇女组织工作帮助修建地下铁路，这是一个服务于妇女权利活动家及被暗杀的LGBTIQ人群的逃亡网络。

And when I asked Majid why he risked his own life to bring people to safety, he said to me, "If we want a brighter future, we have to build it now in the dark times so that one day we can live in the light." That's what social justice work is, and that's what mothers do. We act in the present with an idea of the future that we want to bring about.

当我问马吉德为什么要冒生命危险把人们带到安全的地方，他对我说，“如果我们想要一个更光明的未来，我们必须在黑暗时期建造它，这样有一天我们就可以生活在光明中。”这就是社会正义的工作，这就是母亲们所做的。我们带着对未来的想法活在当下，这是我们想要实现的。

All of the best ideas seem impossible at first. But just in my lifetime, we've seen the end of apartheid, the affirmation that women's rights are human rights, marriage equality, the fall of dictators who ruled for decades and so much more. All of these things seemed impossible until people took action to make them happen, and then, like, almost right away, they seemed inevitable.

所有最棒的想法在一开始似乎都是不可能的。但就在我的有生之年，我们见证了种族隔离的终结，妇女权利就是人权的主张，婚姻平等，统治了几十年的独裁者的倒台，还有更多。所有这些事情似乎都是不可能的，直到人们采取行动，让他们实现。然后，几乎马上，他们似乎不可避免。

When I was growing up, whether we were stuck in traffic or dealing with a family tragedy, my mother would say, "Something good is going to happen, we just don't know what it is yet."

在我成长的过程中，无论是交通堵塞还是处理家庭悲剧，我母亲会说，“会有好事发生，只是我们还不知道是什么。”

Now, I will admit that my brothers and I make fun of her for this, but people ask me all the time how I deal with the suffering that I see in my work in refugee camps and disaster zones, and I think of my mom and that seed of possibility that she planted in me.

现在，我承认我和我的兄弟们会因此取笑她，但是人们总是问我，我如何处理我在工作中看到的痛苦？在难民营和灾区，我想到了我的母亲，和那颗充满可能性的种子，这种子是她在我心中种下的。

Because, when you believe that something good is coming and you're part of making it happen, you start to be able to see beyond the suffering to how things could be.

因为，当你相信有好事要发生的时候，你是促成这一切的一部分。你开始能够看到痛苦之外，事情可能会怎样。

Today, there is a new set of necessary ideas that seem impossible but one day will feel inevitable: that we could end violence against women, make war a thing of the past, learn to live in balance with nature before it's too late and make sure that everybody has what they need to thrive.

今天，出现了一套新的必要观念。今天看似不可能，但总有一天会觉得不可避免：我们可以结束对妇女的暴力，让战争成为过去，学会与自然和谐相处，以免为时过晚。确保每个人都拥有他们想要的东西。

Of course, being able to picture a future like this is not the same thing as knowing what to do to make it come about, but thinking like a mother can help with that, too. A few years ago, East Africa was gripped by a famine, and women I know from Somalia walked for days carrying their hungry children in search of food and water.

当然，能够描绘出这样的未来，与知道要做什么才能让它发生，并不是一回事。但是像母亲一样思考也能帮助你。几年前，东非陷入饥荒，我在索马里认识的女人们带着饥饿的孩子走了好几天寻找食物和水。

A quarter of a million people died, and half of them were babies and toddlers. And while this catastrophe unfolded, too much of the world looked away. But a group of women farmers in Sudan, including Fatima Ahmed -- that's her holding the corn -- heard about what was happening. And they pooled together the extra money that they had from their harvest and asked me to send it to those Somali mothers.

25万人死亡，其中一半是婴幼儿。当灾难发生时，世界上有太多的人都把目光移开了。但是苏丹的一群妇女农民，包括法蒂玛·艾哈迈德，她拿着玉米听说发生了什么事后，她们把丰收后赚的结余凑在一起，让我把这些钱带给索马里的母亲们。

Now, these farmers could have decided that they didn't have the power to act. They were barely getting by themselves, some of them. They lived without electricity, without furniture. But they overrode that. They did what mothers do: they saw themselves as the solution and they took action.

现今，这些农民本可以选择袖手旁观。她们几乎无法独立生活，其中的一些人，她们没有电，没有家具。但她们推翻了这一点。她们做了母亲该做的事：她们视自己为解决方案，采取行动。

You do it all the time if you have kids. You make major decisions about their health care, their education, their emotional well-being, even if you're not a doctor or a teacher or a therapist. You recognize what your child needs and you step up to provide it the best you can.

如果你有孩子，你会经常这样做。你对他们的医疗保健做出重大决定，他们的教育，他们的情感健康，即使你不是医生，老师，或治疗师。你知道你的孩子需要什么，并尽你所能提供最好的给他们。

Thinking like a mother means seeing the whole world through the eyes of those who are responsible for its most vulnerable people. And we're not used to thinking of subsistence farmers as philanthropists, but those women were practicing the root meaning of philanthropy: love for humanity.

像母亲一样思考意味着，你可以通过为最脆弱的群体担负责任的那些人的眼睛，看到整个世界。我们不习惯把自耕农当作慈善家，但这些女性践行着慈善事业的根本意义：对人类的爱。

What's at the core of thinking like a mother shouldn't be a surprise: it's love. Because, love is more than just an emotion. It's a capacity, a verb, an endlessly renewable resource -- and not just in our private lives. We recognize hate in the public sphere. Right? Hate speech, hate crimes. But not love.

像母亲一样思考的核心不应该是一个惊喜，而是爱。因为，爱不仅仅是一种情感。它是一种能力，一个动词，无尽的可再生资源，不仅仅是在我们的私人生活中。在公共领域里，我们明白仇恨，对吧？仇恨言论，仇恨犯罪，但不是爱。

What is love in the public sphere? Well, Cornel West, who is not a mother but thinks like one, says it best: "Justice is what love looks like in public." And when we remember that every policy is an expression of social values, love stands out as that superstar value, the one best able to account for the most vulnerable among us.

什么是公共领域的爱?科内尔·韦斯特，他不是母亲，但却像母亲一样思考，他对此的最好定义:“公正就是爱在公众面前的样子。”当我们记得每一项政策都是社会价值观的体现时，爱因其巨星般的价值而脱颖而出，它最能体现对最脆弱群体的责任。

And when we position love as a kind of leading edge in policy making, we get new answers to fundamental social questions, like, "What's the economy for?" "What is our commitment to those in the path of the hurricane?" "How do we greet those arriving to our borders?"

当我们把爱作为衡量首选，在制定政策，我们得到了基本社会问题的新答案，比如，“经济是为了什么?”“我们对那些在飓风路上的人的承诺是什么?”“我们如何欢迎那些来到我们边境的人?”

When you think like a mother, you prioritize the needs of the many, not the whims of the few. When you think like a mother, you don't build a seawall around beachfront property, because that would divert floodwaters to communities that are still exposed. When you think like a mother, you don't try to prosecute someone for leaving water for people crossing the desert. Because, you know --

当你像母亲一样思考时，你优先考虑大多数人的需求，而不是少数人的心血来潮。当你像母亲一样思考时，你不会在海滨地产周围建海堤，因为这将把洪水转移到仍然暴露在外的社区。当你像母亲一样思考时，你不会试图起诉某个为穿越沙漠的人们留下水源的人。因为，你知道——

Because you know that migration, just like mothering, is an act of hope.

因为你知道迁徙，就像母亲一样，是一种希望的行为。

Now, not every mother thinks like a mother. When presented with a choice, some of us have made the wrong one, hiding behind weapons or barbed wire or privilege to deny the rest of the world, thinking they can see their way to safety in some kind of armed lifeboat fueled by racism and xenophobia.

不是每个母亲都像母亲一样思考。当面临选择的时候，我们中的一些人做出了错误的选择，躲在武器、铁丝网或特权后面，拒绝其他以外的世界。认为他们可以乘坐某种以种族主义和仇外情绪为燃料的武装救生艇到达安全的地方。

Not every mother is a role model, but all of us have a choice. Are we going to jump on that armed lifeboat or work together to build a mother ship that can carry everyone?

不是每个母亲都是榜样，但我们所有人都有选择。我们要跳上那艘武装救生艇吗？或者一起建造一艘能运载所有人的母船?

You know how to build that mother ship, how to repair the world and ease the suffering. Think like a mother. Thinking like a mother is a tool we can all use to build the world we want.

你知道如何建造母舰，如何修复世界，减轻痛苦。像母亲一样思考。像母亲一样思考，是我们都可以使用的工具，它将帮助建立我们想要的世界。

Thank you.

谢谢！

长按识别二维码可关注该微信公众平台

经典回顾