TED演讲 | 谈呵护创造力及减轻创作压力

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| 简介

吉尔伯特泰勒所拥有的研究机会不是每一位脑科学家都所希望拥有的：她有严重中风，并且观察到她大脑的功能--运动，语言，自我意识-一个接一个关闭。这真是令人惊讶的故事。

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I am a writer. Writing books is my profession but it's more than that, of course.

我是个作家，写作不仅仅是我的职业，

It is also my great lifelong love and fascination. And I don't expect that that's ever going to change.

更是我一辈子的挚爱与迷恋，我认为这是永远不会改变的事情。

But, that said, something kind of peculiar has happened recently in my life and in my career,

尽管如此，最近在我的生活工作中，发生了一个特殊事件。

which has caused me to have to recalibrate my whole relationship with this work.

使我不得不重新思考我与我的工作之间的关系。

And the peculiar thing is that I recently wrote this book, this memoir called "Eat, Pray, Love" which,

这个特殊事件就是：我最新出版的那本回忆录《美食、祈祷、爱》，

decidedly unlike any of my previous books, went out in the world for some reason, and became this big, mega-sensation, international bestseller thing.

与我以前那些普普通通的作品大不一样，不知怎么的，它成了一本轰动一时、令人激动的国际畅销书。

The result of which is that everywhere I go now, people treat me like I'm doomed.

结果是，现在不论我到哪里，人们都觉得我这一辈子就这样了。

Seriously -- doomed, doomed! Like, they come up to me now, all worried, and they say, "Aren't you afraid you're never going to be able to top that?

真的，就这样了，彻底地，没救了，玩完了！他们会非常忧虑地过来跟我说：“你不怕吗? 不怕你这辈子都超越不了那本书了吗?”

Aren't you afraid you're going to keep writing for your whole life and you're never again going to create a book that anybody in the world cares about at all, ever again?"

“你不怕你会这样写一辈子，却永远再也写不出世人热爱的作品了吗？”

So that's reassuring, you know. But it would be worse, except for that I happen to remember that over 20 years ago,

他们可真是会安慰人呀，我的日子本来会很难熬，幸运的是，我想起了20年前决定成为作家的事情。

when I was a teenager, when I first started telling people that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same sort of fear-based reaction.

那时我才十几岁，我当时遭遇到了同样的质疑，

And people would say, "Aren't you afraid you're never going to have any success?

人们说：你不怕永远都不会成功吗？

Aren't you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you?

你不怕拒绝的耻辱会把你击垮吗？

Aren't you afraid that you're going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing's ever going to come of it

你不怕努力终身却一无所成吗？

and you're going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?"

你最后会在支离破碎的梦想中绝望死去，满含着失败的痛楚，你最后会在支离破碎的梦想中绝望死去。

Like that, you know. The answer -- the short answer to all those questions is, "Yes." Yes, I'm afraid of all those things.

我当时一直得到诸如此类的质疑。对于这些质疑，最简单的回答是：“怕” 是的，这种种一切都让人害怕。

And I always have been. And I'm afraid of many, many more things besides that people can't even guess at, like seaweed and other things that are scary.

直到今天也一样，其实除了这些，我还害怕很多别人猜不到的东西比方说海草，还有其他吓人的东西。

But, when it comes to writing, the thing that I've been sort of thinking about lately, and wondering about lately, is why?

但是，说到害怕写作，我最近一直在想，我为什么要害怕写作呢？

You know, is it rational? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do.

这难道是一种理性的想法吗？人们害怕从事自己命中注定的工作？这符合逻辑吗？

And what is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each other's mental health in a way that other careers kind of don't do, you know?

创造性工作究竟有着怎样的特殊性，以至于让我们为彼此的心智健康担心起来了呢？别的行业可不太会这样，不是吗？

Like my dad, for example, was a chemical engineer and I don't recall once in his 40 years of chemical engineering anybody asking him if he was afraid to be a chemical engineer, you know?

比方说，我爸爸是个化学工程师，在他40年的化学工程生涯中，我不曾记得有人问他是否害怕成为化学工程师。

"That chemical-engineering block, John, how's it going?" It just didn't come up like that, you know?

没人说：“约翰，化学工作遇到瓶颈了吗？怎么样了？” 从来不曾发生过这种问话。

But to be fair, chemical engineers as a group haven't really earned a reputation over the centuries for being alcoholic manic-depressives.

当然，平心而论，化学工程师这一群体，并没有在过去几个世纪里，因酗酒吸毒、狂躁抑郁而享誉全球。

We writers, we kind of do have that reputation, and not just writers,

而我们作家，倒确确实实有着那样的名声，不仅作家，

but creative people across all genres, it seems, have this reputation for being enormously mentally unstable.

各个领域的创作人才似乎都有着情绪极不稳定的恶名。

And all you have to do is look at the very grim death count in the 20th century alone,

只需看看上个世纪，各个领域伟大创作天才们英年早逝的案例，

of really magnificent creative minds who died young and often at their own hands, you know?

常常是年纪轻轻死于自杀，

And even the ones who didn't literally commit suicide seem to be really undone by their gifts, you know.

即使那些没有自杀的，往往也没有完全展现出他们的才华。

Norman Mailer, just before he died, last interview, he said, "Every one of my books has killed me a little more."

诺曼梅勒，在去世前的最后一次采访中说：“我的每一本书都蚕食了一部分的我”。

An extraordinary statement to make about your life's work.

对于你毕生的作品，这是多么激进的说法啊。

But we don't even blink when we hear somebody say this,

但我们对此类说法却视若无睹，

because we've heard that kind of stuff for so long and somehow we've completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity

因为我们早已见怪不怪了，且不知为何，人们都已经完全内化接受了这一观念。

and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish.

这种观念就是：创造力和痛苦息息相关，艺术创造最终一定会导致极度苦闷。

And the question that I want to ask everybody here today is are you guys all cool with that idea?

我今天想问在座各位的是：你们大家都对此毫无异议吗？

Are you comfortable with that? Because you look at it even from an inch away and, you know -- I'm not at all comfortable with that assumption.

你们都觉得这一观点毫无问题吗? 哪怕稍稍离远点看这个观点，我也不能同意这种臆断。

I think it's odious. And I also think it's dangerous, and I don't want to see it perpetuated into the next century.

这个观点不但可憎，而且可怕，我不希望这样的想法一直延续到下个世纪。

I think it's better if we encourage our great creative minds to live.

我觉得鼓励我们伟大的创作天才们继续活下去会更加好。

And I definitely know that, in my case -- in my situation -- it would be very dangerous for me to start sort of leaking down that dark path of assumption,

而且就我自己来说，持这一观点必然将我引入黑暗的绝境，

particularly given the circumstance that I'm in right now in my career.

尤其是在我目前的事业阶段。

Which is -- you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old.

你看，我还年轻，我才四十来岁。

I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me.

我今后还有大约四十年的创作生涯。

And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book, right?

而且很有可能的是，从这一刻起，我所写的每一部作品，都会被用来和我上一本轰动一时的巨作进行比较，不是吗？

I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now -- it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me.

坦率地说吧，看在我们都聊了这么久，我就说句朋友间的掏心话吧，极有可能的是，我这辈子最大成功已经过去了。

So Jesus, what a thought! That's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there.

天啊，这是何种的想法！就是这种想法，让人踏上了一大清早就喝琴酒的不归路啊，我可不想变成那样。

I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love.

我希望继续从事我所热爱的写作事业。

And so, the question becomes, how? And so, it seems to me, upon a lot of reflection,

所以问题就变成：我应该怎么办呢？经过一番深入思考，

that the way that I have to work now, in order to continue writing, is that I have to create some sort of protective psychological construct, right?

在我看来，要想继续写作，我必须要创造出某种心理保护机制。

I have to sort of find some way to have a safe distance between me, as I am writing,

我必须以某种方式，建立起一个安全距离，区别开写作本身，

and my very natural anxiety about what the reaction to that writing is going to be, from now on.

以及我对于作品反响的极度焦虑。

And, as I've been looking, over the last year, for models for how to do that, I've been sort of looking across time,

前一年，我到处找寻可以参考的模式，在历史中找，也在不同文化中找

and I've been trying to find other societies to see if they might have had better

看他们是否有比我们更好、更理智的观点。

and saner ideas than we have about how to help creative people sort of manage the inherent emotional risks of creativity.

来帮助艺术工作者处理艺术创作所固有的内在情感风险。

And that search has led me to ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

这一寻找最后把我带到了古希腊和古罗马。

So stay with me, because it does circle around and back.

所以请耐心听我讲，因为最后会绕回到我们的问题。

But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome -- people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK?

在古希腊和古罗马，人们并不认为创造力来自于人类本身。

People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.

人们相信，创造力是一种神圣的守护精灵，从遥远而不可知的地方来到艺术家身边，带着某种遥远而不可知的目的。

The Greeks famously called these divine attendant spirits of creativity "daemons."

希腊人普遍地称这种伴随着创造力的守护精灵为“守护神”。

Socrates, famously, believed that he had a daemon who spoke wisdom to him from afar.

当时人们普遍地认为苏格拉底就有这样一个守护神，从远处赋予他智慧。

The Romans had the same idea, but they called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius.

古罗马人有着相似的观点，他们把这种无形的创造精灵称为“天才”。

Which is great, because the Romans did not actually think that a genius was a particularly clever individual.

这种观点很妙，因为罗马人并没有认为“天才”是某个特别聪慧的个人。

They believed that a genius was this, sort of magical divine entity, who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist's studio,

他们认为“天才”是某种奇妙的神圣存在，他们甚至认为“天才”居住在艺术家工作室的墙壁中，

kind of like Dobby the house elf, and who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work and would shape the outcome of that work.

就像小精灵多比一样，它们会悄悄地钻出来，无形地帮助艺术家创作，并影响作品成败。

So brilliant -- there it is, right there, that distance that I'm talking about --

这个观点简直绝了，这就是我在找寻的那个安全距离，

that psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work.

这就是让人免受作品成败影响的心理保护机制。

And everyone knew that this is how it functioned, right?

我们都可以理解它的运作模式，不是吗？

So the ancient artist was protected from certain things, like, for example, too much narcissism, right?

古代艺术家由这个观点而得到保护，避免了过度自恋。

If your work was brilliant, you couldn't take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you.

如果你的作品很伟大，那可不能完全归功于你，因为大家都知道你是在一个无形的“天才”帮助下完成作品的。

If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame.

如果你的作品很烂，同样也不全是你的错，人人都知道那是因为你的“天才”很差劲。

And this is how people thought about creativity in the West for a really long time.

这就是西方人在过去很长一段时间里看待创作力的方式。

And then the Renaissance came and everything changed, and we had this big idea, and the big idea was,

接着文艺复兴来临，一切都变了，人们产生了一个伟大的想法：

let's put the individual human being at the center of the universe above all gods and mysteries,

“让我们把人类置于宇宙中心，超越众神和神秘未知”，

and there's no more room for mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine.

于是再也没有空间留给传递神圣意志的小精灵。

And it's the beginning of rational humanism, and people started to believe that creativity came completely from the self of the individual.

这就是理性人文主义的开端，人们开始相信创造力完全来源于人类个体本身。

And for the first time in history, you start to hear people referring to this or that artist as being a genius, rather than having a genius.

有史以来，人们第一次将某个艺术家称为“天才”，而非拥有一个“天才”。

And I got to tell you, I think that was a huge error.

而我要说的是，我认为那是一个巨大的错误。

You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel, you know,

让一个人，区区一个个体，去相信他(她)是承载着神圣、创造、未知

like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable,

和永恒这些事物的源泉与圣器，

eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche.

这对于脆弱的个体而言，是太大的责任。

It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It just completely warps and distorts egos,

无异于要求他(她)吞下太阳，这彻底地扭曲了一个人的自我认知，

and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance.

并导致对于个人成就无比膨胀的预期。

And I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the last 500 years.

我认为就是这种压力，在过去的500年间扼杀了无数艺术家。

And, if this is true, and I think it is true, the question becomes, what now?

如果真是这样，至少我认为是这样的，那么我们的问题就是：现在该怎么办？

Can we do this differently? Maybe go back to some more ancient understanding about the relationship between humans and the creative mystery.

我们能够改变这种状况吗？也许我们应回到更古老的过去，去参考他们对于人类与创造力的理解？

Maybe not. Maybe we can't just erase 500 years of rational humanistic thought in one 18 minute speech.

也许不行，我们无法用一个短短18分钟的演讲，抹杀掉发展了500多年的理性人文思想。

And there's probably people in this audience who would raise really legitimate scientific suspicions about the notion of, basically,

况且或许今天的听众中，就有人能够提出有理有据的科学质疑，

fairies who follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects and stuff.

批驳这种童话精灵跟着艺术家主人，给作品上点上神仙水的可笑想法。

I'm not, probably, going to bring you all along with me on this.

也许，我无法说服你们大家都同意我的看法。

But the question that I kind of want to pose is -- you know, why not? Why not think about it this way?

但我想说的是：为何不呢？为什么不换个角度思考呢？

Because it makes as much sense as anything else I have ever heard in terms of explaining the utter maddening capriciousness of the creative process.

就各种解释人类变化无常的创作过程的理论而言，这个精灵理论和我听过的所有其他理论一样地合理（或者说一样地无理）。

A process which, as anybody who has ever tried to make something -- which is to say basically everyone here --- knows does not always behave rationally.

这个过程，对于任何一个曾试图创作的人来说，相信在坐各位都曾有这方面的经历，都会知道创作过程并不总是理性的。

And, in fact, can sometimes feel downright paranormal.

实际上，创作过程有时简直就是超乎常理。

I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone,

比方说，我最近见到杰出的美国诗人露丝.斯通，

who's now in her 90s, but she's been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia,

露丝已经九十多岁，她一直是一位诗人，她对我说她少年时生活在弗吉尼亚乡间的事情。

she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape.

她会在田间劳作着，然后突然听到并感觉到一首诗，从远处冲她而来。

And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape.

像一股雷鸣般的气息，朝她倾泻而下。

And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet.

她可以感受到它的来临，因为这股力量会撼动她脚下的大地。

She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell."

每当此时，她唯一能做的只有一件事，用她的话说，就是“死命地狂奔”。

And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem,

她会狂奔回家里，这首诗则会一路追逐着她。

and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her,

她需要飞快地找到纸笔，从而在这股力量穿过她时，

she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn't be fast enough,

捕捉住那首诗，把它记在纸上，有些时候她则不够快。

so she'd be running and running, and she wouldn't get to the house and the poem would barrel through her

她拼命地跑，还没到家，那首诗已经奔腾而过，

and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it "for another poet."

于是她便错过了那首诗，她说那首诗会继续在田野间穿行，寻找“下一位诗人” 。

And then there were these times -- this is the piece I never forgot --

在另一些时候，这是最叫我难忘的部分：在另一些时候，这是最叫我难忘的部分：

she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right?

她说有些时候她几乎就要错过一首诗了，

So, she's running to the house and she's looking for the paper and the poem passes through her,

她飞奔回家，寻找纸笔，而那首诗即将穿越她而去，

and she grabs a pencil just as it's going through her, and then she said,

她在它正要穿过之际抓住了笔，而那首诗即将穿越她而去，

it was like she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it.

然后她会伸出另一只手，抓住那首诗的尾巴。

She would catch the poem by its tail, and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page.

然后她会伸出另一只手，抓住那首诗的尾巴，把它顺势拉回来，另一只手则一边将诗句誊写在纸上，把它顺势拉回来，

And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first.

每当这种时候，诗会完好无缺地呈现在纸上，只不过顺序是颠倒的，从最后那个词开始，由后往前，一直到第一个词。

So when I heard that I was like -- that's uncanny, that's exactly what my creative process is like.

我听了她的故事后，心想：太不可思议了，这和我的创作过程一模一样！

That's not at all what my creative process is -- I'm not the pipeline!

当然这并非我创作过程的全部，我不是管道，

I'm a mule, and the way that I have to work is I have to get up at the same time every day,

我的工作方式更像是一头骡子。

and sweat and labor and barrel through it really awkwardly.

我必须每天同一时间起床，然后笨拙地，勤恳地工作。

But even I, in my mulishness, even I have brushed up against that thing, at times.

不过即使古板如我，偶尔也会意外地得到不可思议的灵感，

And I would imagine that a lot of you have too.

在坐很多人或许也有类似经历。

You know, even I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify.

你想，即使像我这样墨守成规的人，也会遇到不知何处而来的灵感。

And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds,

这到底是怎么回事呢？我们要以怎样的方式看待它，才不会丧失理智呢？

but, in fact, might actually keep us sane?

我们要以怎样的方式看待它，才不会丧失理智呢？

And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits,

就我所知的当代艺术家中，将这一问题处理得最好的是音乐家汤姆·威兹。

who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment.

几年前，我就一个杂志工作采访过他，

And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life,

当时我们谈及了这一问题，

he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist,

汤姆是备受创作压力折磨的现代艺术家的典型，

trying to control and manage and dominate these sort of uncontrollable creative impulses that were totally internalized.

大半生时间，他都在努力地控制，管理并主宰那不可控的内在创作灵感。

But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles, and this is when it all changed for him.

但随着年纪渐长，他变得沉静内敛了，他告诉我说：一天他在洛杉矶高速公路开车，这时发生了一件改变他一生的事情。

And he's speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody,

他正在加速前行，突然，他隐约听到了一小段优美的旋律，

that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, it's gorgeous,

这旋律莫名地进入他的脑海，就像灵感来临时那样，捉摸不定而诱人心弦，

and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. He doesn't have a piece of paper, or a pencil, or a tape recorder.

他急切地想要捕捉它，但是没有办法，他既没有纸笔，也没有录音机。

So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like,

他感觉到那种熟悉的创作焦虑又在他体内集聚，

"I'm going to lose this thing, and I'll be be haunted by this song forever.

“我就要失去这个灵感了，然后这首曲子会永世阴魂不散地折磨我”。

I'm not good enough, and I can't do it." And instead of panicking, he just stopped.

“我根本不行，我做不到” 突然，他奇异般地停止了。

He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel.

他没有了继续抓狂和焦躁的情绪，然后做了一件不寻常的事情。

He just looked up at the sky, and he said, "Excuse me, can you not see that I'm driving?"

他抬头望向天空，对它说道：“不好意思，您没看到我正在开车吗？”

"Do I look like I can write down a song right now?

我看上去像是能立马记下一首曲子的样子吗？

If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you.

如果你真想在世上流传，另挑个合适的时间再来吧，在我方便的时候。

Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen."

或者，你可以今天去骚扰别人，去找莱昂纳德·科恩去。”

And his whole work process changed after that. Not the work, the work was still oftentimes as dark as ever.

自从那件事以后，汤姆的整个创作过程改变了，不是作品变了，他的作品仍是一如既往的黑暗。

But the process, and the heavy anxiety around it was released when he took the genie,

但当他把创作天才从自身剥离开来时，伴随着创作过程的严重焦虑也被化解了。

the genius out of him where it was causing nothing but trouble, and released it back where it came from,

将创作灵感归于自我，只是带来痛苦与麻烦，将它解放出来，倒像是放归原处。

and realized that this didn't have to be this internalized, tormented thing.

同时他也意识到，他原本无需将创作灵感内化于自身，自我折磨。

It could be this peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration,

创作灵感可以是他和这一外部未知存在之间奇异、奇妙又奇怪的合作关系，

kind of conversation between Tom and the strange, external thing that was not quite Tom.

那是一个自身以外的存在。

When I heard that story, it started to shift a little bit the way that I worked too, and this idea already saved me once.

这个故事潜移默化地改变了我的工作方式，这一转变已经拯救了我一次，这个故事潜移默化地改变了我的工作方式，这一转变已经拯救了我一次。

It saved me when I was in the middle of writing "Eat, Pray, Love,"

那是在写《美食、祈祷、爱》的时候，

and I fell into one of those sort of pits of despair that we all fall into when we're working on something

我陷入了一个焦虑绝望的无底洞那种不断努力却毫无灵感的绝望低潮状态。

and it's not coming and you start to think this is going to be a disaster,

然后你渐渐觉得这部作品将成为一个彻底的失败，

the worst book ever written. Not just bad, but the worst book ever written.

成为有史以来最烂的一本书，不仅是烂，而且是彻底的糟糕透顶。

And I started to think I should just dump this project. But then I remembered Tom talking to the open air and I tried it.

我开始觉得我应该放弃写这本书，这时我想起了汤姆对着天空喊话的事情，然后我试了试。

So I just lifted my face up from the manuscript and I directed my comments to an empty corner of the room.

我从手稿中抬起头，转向房间中的一个空角落。

And I said aloud, "Listen you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn't brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right?

然后大声宣布道：“你这个家伙，给我听着” ，“咱俩都知道，如果这本书不怎么样，那可不是我一个人的错，不是吗？”

Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don't have any more than this.

“因为你可以看到，我已经为之倾尽全力毫无保留了”。

If you want it to be better, you've got to show up and do your part of the deal.

“你若是想要这本书更好一些，现在轮到你出面，做你那部分工作了”。

But if you don't do that, you know what, the hell with it.

“你要是不来帮忙，那就见你的鬼去吧”。

I'm going to keep writing anyway because that's my job.

“我还是会继续写下去的，因为这是我的工作”。

And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job."

我希望今天的历史记录证明：我尽责地坚守了我的岗位

Because -- Because in the end it's like this, OK -- centuries ago in the deserts of North Africa,

因为，因为最后就是这样的，在几个世纪前的北非沙漠里，

people used to gather for these moonlight dances of sacred dance and music that would go on for hours and hours, until dawn.

人们会在月色下举行神圣的歌舞聚会，聚会持续数个小时直至天亮。

They were always magnificent, because the dancers were professionals and they were terrific, right?

那些表演很精彩，因为他们都是很棒的专业舞者。

But every once in a while, very rarely, something would happen, and one of these performers would actually become transcendent.

偶尔的时候，虽然很少见，但确确实实会发生，某一位舞者会超越当下，超然出世。

And I know you know what I'm talking about, because I know you've all seen, at some point in your life, a performance like this.

你们应该都知道我说的这种情况，因为大家都曾在某个时刻，见识过那样的表演。

It was like time would stop, and the dancer would sort of step through some kind of portal

时间似乎停止了，舞者仿佛穿越了。

and he wasn't doing anything different than he had ever done, 1,000 nights before, but everything would align.

他所做的动作和之前的1000场表演并没有什么不同。

And all of a sudden, he would no longer appear to be merely human.

但所有的一切却奇迹般地统一起来了。

He would be lit from within, and lit from below and all lit up on fire with divinity.

刹那间，他不再是个普通的凡人，他的生命从内部点燃，从心底发光，他被神圣之火照耀。

And when this happened, back then, people knew it for what it was, you know, they called it by its name.

当时的人们，清楚地知道这是什么，他们能叫出它的名字。

They would put their hands together and they would start to chant, "Allah, Allah, Allah, God, God, God." That's God, you know.

他们会拍起手来，开始吟唱：阿拉，阿拉，阿拉，神啊，神啊，神啊。人人都知道：那是神迹显现。

Curious historical footnote: when the Moors invaded southern Spain,

有趣的野史是，当摩尔帝国入侵南西班牙时，他们带去了这一习俗，

they took this custom with them and the pronunciation changed over the centuries from "Allah, Allah, Allah," to "Olé, olé, olé," which you still hear in bullfights and in flamenco dances.

于是几世纪来，颂词的发音渐渐改变，从“阿拉，阿拉”变成“欧嘞，欧嘞”，如今你仍能在斗牛比赛和弗拉明戈舞中听到这一喝彩声。

In Spain, when a performer has done something impossible and magic,

在西班牙，当一个表演者完成了某种不可思议的神奇之举时，

"Allah, olé, olé, Allah, magnificent, bravo," incomprehensible, there it is -- a glimpse of God. Which is great, because we need that.

人们就会喝彩：“阿拉，欧嘞，欧嘞，阿拉，真伟大，太棒了，不可思议”，那就是神迹显现，这种方式很好，因为这正是我们需要的。

But, the tricky bit comes the next morning, for the dancer himself, when he wakes up and discovers that it's Tuesday at 11 a.m., and he's no longer a glimpse of God.

对艺术家来说，最棘手的是第二天早上，舞者悠悠转醒，发现已经是周二上午11点了，他不再是神迹的显现。

He's just an aging mortal with really bad knees, and maybe he's never going to ascend to that height again.

而只是那个腰腿不好，终将老去的凡人，而且，他或许再也无法达到昨晚那样的高度了。

And maybe nobody will ever chant God's name again as he spins, and what is he then to do with the rest of his life?

也许再也不会有人在他跳舞时喝彩神迹显现，他该如何自处呢？

This is hard. This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life.

这是个很棘手的问题，也是创作生涯中最痛苦的自我认知之一。

But maybe it doesn't have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe,

但也许，我们原本无需如此痛苦，如果你本来就从不曾认为，

in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you.

那无与伦比的艺术作品完全来源于你。

But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you're finished, with somebody else.

如果你认为它们是某种神奇的存在，只是暂时借你一用，给你带来精美绝伦的作品，在你完成作品后，继续传递给其他人，

And, you know, if we think about it this way, it starts to change everything.

如果我们这样看待这一问题，一切就都改变了。

This is how I've started to think, and this is certainly how I've been thinking in the last few months

在过去的几个月中，我开始以这种方式看待这一问题，

as I've been working on the book that will soon be published, as the dangerously, frighteningly over-anticipated follow up to my freakish success.

同时从事着我下一本书的写作那本危险的，骇人的，被过度预期的，继我的畅销大作之后的作品。

And what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that is don't be afraid.

而我需要做的，就是不断告诉自己，尤其是在我忧郁焦躁的时候：

Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be.

“不要害怕，不要气馁，只需做好你的那部分工作”，坚守在你的岗位上，无论你的岗位是什么：

If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed,