Karen Thompson Walker在TED演講：What fear can teach us恐懼可以教會我們什么

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One day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of Chile, in one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, 20 American sailors watched their ship flood with seawater.

1819年的某一天， 在距離智利海岸3000英里的地方， 有一個太平洋上的最偏遠的水域， 20名美國船員目睹了他們的船只進水的場面。

They'd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ship's hull. As their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together in three small whaleboats.

他們和一頭抹香鯨相撞，給船體撞了 一個毀滅性的大洞。 當船在巨浪中開始沉沒時， 人們在三條救生小艇中抱作一團。

These men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest scrap of land. In their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.

這些人在離家10000萬英里的地方， 離最近的陸地也超過1000英里。 在他們的小艇中，他們只帶了 落后的導航設備 和有限的食物和飲水。

These were the men of the whaleship Essex, whose story would later inspire parts of "Moby Dick."

他們就是捕鯨船ESSEX上的人們， 后來的他們的故事成為《白鯨記》的一部分。

Even in today's world, their situation would be really dire, but think about how much worse it would have been then.

即使在當今的世界，碰上這種情況也夠杯具的，更不用說在當時的情況有多糟糕。

No one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. No search party was coming to look for these men. So most of us have never experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, but we all know what it's like to be afraid.

岸上的人根本就還沒意識到出了什么問題。 沒有任何人來搜尋他們。 我們當中大部分人沒有經歷過 這些船員所處的可怕情景， 但我們都知道害怕是什么感覺。

We know how fear feels, but I'm not sure we spend enough time thinking about what our fears mean.

我們知道恐懼的感覺， 但是我不能肯定我們會花很多時間想過 我們的恐懼到底意味著什么。

As we grow up, we're often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates.

我們長大以后，我們總是會被鼓勵把恐懼 視為軟弱，需要像乳牙或輪滑鞋一樣 扔掉的幼稚的東西。

And I think it's no accident that we think this way. Neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists.

我想意外事故并非我們所想的那樣。 神經系統科學家已經知道人類 生來就是樂觀主義者。

So maybe that's why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. "Don't worry," we like to say to one another. "Don't panic." In English, fear is something we conquer. It's something we fight.

這也許就是為什么我們認為有時候恐懼， 本身就是一種危險或帶來危險。 “不要愁。”我們總是對別人說。“不要慌”。 英語中，恐懼是我們需要征服的東西。 是我們必須對抗的東西，是我們必須克服的東西。

It's something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?

但是我們如果換個視角看恐懼會如何呢? 如果我們把恐懼當做是想象力的一個驚人成果， 是和我們講故事一樣 精妙而有見地的東西，又會如何呢?

It's easiest to see this link between fear and the imagination in young children, whose fears are often extraordinarily vivid.

在小孩子當中，我們最容易看到恐懼與想象之間的聯系， 他們的恐懼經常是超級生動的。

When I was a child, I lived in California, which is, you know, mostly a very nice place to live, but for me as a child, California could also be a little scary.

我小時候住在加利福尼亞， 你們都知道，是非常適合居住的位置， 但是對一個小孩來說，加利福尼亞也會有點嚇人。

I remember how frightening it was to see the chandelier that hung above our dining table swing back and forth during every minor earthquake, and I sometimes couldn't sleep at night, terrified that the Big One might strike while we were sleeping.

我記得每次小地震的時候 當我看到我們餐桌上的吊燈 晃來晃去的時候是多么的嚇人， 我經常會徹夜難眠，擔心大地震 會在我們睡覺的時候突然襲來。

And what we say about kids who have fears like that is that they have a vivid imagination. But at a certain point, most of us learn to leave these kinds of visions behind and grow up.

我們說小孩子感受到這種恐懼 是因為他們有生動的想象力。 但是在某個時候，我們大多數學會了 拋棄這種想法而變得成熟。

We learn that there are no monsters hiding under the bed, and not every earthquake brings buildings down. But maybe it's no coincidence that some of our most creative minds fail to leave these kinds of fears behind as adults.

我們都知道床下沒有魔鬼， 也不是每個地震都會震垮房子。但是我們當中最有想象力的人們 并沒有因為成年而拋棄這種恐懼，這也許并不是巧合。

The same incredible imaginations that produced "The Origin of Species," "Jane Eyre" and "The Remembrance of Things Past," also generated intense worries that haunted the adult lives of Charles Darwin, Charlotte BrontĂŤ and Marcel Proust. So the question is, what can the rest of us learn about fear from visionaries and young children?

同樣不可思議的想象力創造了《物種起源》， 《簡·愛》和《追憶似水年華》， 也就是這種與生俱來的深深的擔憂一直纏繞著成年的 查爾斯·達爾文， 夏洛特·勃朗特和馬塞爾·普羅斯特。 問題就來了， 我們其他人如何能從這些 夢想家和小孩子身上學會恐懼?

Well let's return to the year 1819 for a moment, to the situation facing the crew of the whaleship Essex. Let's take a look at the fears that their imaginations were generating as they drifted in the middle of the Pacific.

讓我們暫時回到1819年， 回到ESSEX捕鯨船的水手們面對的情況。 讓我們看看他們漂流在太平洋中央時 他們的想象力給他們帶來的恐懼感覺。

Twenty-four hours had now passed since the capsizing of the ship. The time had come for the men to make a plan, but they had very few options.

船傾覆后已經過了24個小時。 這時人們制定了一個計劃， 但是其實他們沒什么太多的選擇。

In his fascinating account of the disaster, Nathaniel Philbrick wrote that these men were just about as far from land as it was possible to be anywhere on Earth.

在納撒尼爾·菲爾布里克(Nathaniel Philbrick)描述這場災難的 動人文章中，他寫到“這些人離陸地如此之遠， 似乎永遠都不可能到達地球上的任何一塊陸地。”

The men knew that the nearest islands they could reach were the Marquesas Islands, 1,200 miles away. But they'd heard some frightening rumors.

這些人知道離他們最近的島 是1200英里以外的馬克薩斯群島(Marquesas Islands)。 但是他們聽到了讓人恐怖的謠言。

They'd been told that these islands, and several others nearby, were populated by cannibals. So the men pictured coming ashore only to be murdered and eaten for dinner. Another possible destination was Hawaii, but given the season, the captain was afraid they'd be struck by severe storms.

他們聽說這些群島， 以及附近的一些島嶼上都住著食人族。 所以他們腦中都是上岸以后就會被殺掉 被人當做盤中餐的畫面。 另一個可行的目的地是夏威夷， 但是船長擔心 他們會被困在風暴當中。

Now the last option was the longest, and the most difficult: to sail 1,500 miles due south in hopes of reaching a certain band of winds that could eventually push them toward the coast of South America.

所以最后的選擇是到最遠，也是最艱險的地方： 往南走1500英里希望某股風 能最終把他們 吹到南美洲的海岸。

But they knew that the sheer length of this journey would stretch their supplies of food and water. To be eaten by cannibals, to be battered by storms, to starve to death before reaching land.

但是他們知道這個行程中一旦偏航 將會耗盡他們食物和飲水的供給。 被食人族吃掉，被風暴掀翻， 在登陸前餓死。

These were the fears that danced in the imaginations of these poor men, and as it turned out, the fear they chose to listen to would govern whether they lived or died.

這就是縈繞在這群可憐的人想象中的恐懼， 事實證明，他們選擇聽從的恐懼 將決定他們的生死。

Now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. What if instead of calling them fears, we called them stories?

也許我們可以很容易的用別的名稱來稱呼這些恐懼。 我們不稱之為恐懼， 而是稱它們為故事如何?

Because that's really what fear is, if you think about it. It's a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. And fears and storytelling have the same components.

如果你仔細想想，這是恐懼真正的意義。 這是一種與生俱來的， 無意識的講故事的能力。 恐懼和講故事有著同樣的構成。

They have the same architecture. Like all stories, fears have characters. In our fears, the characters are us. Fears also have plots. They have beginnings and middles and ends. You board the plane.

他們有同樣的結構。 如同所有的故事，恐懼中有角色。 在恐懼中，角色就是我們自己。 恐懼也有情節。他們有開頭，有中間，有結尾。 你登上飛機。

The plane takes off. The engine fails. Our fears also tend to contain imagery that can be every bit as vivid as what you might find in the pages of a novel. Picture a cannibal, human teeth sinking into human skin, human flesh roasting over a fire.

飛機起飛。結果引擎故障。 我們的恐懼會包括各種生動的想象， 不比你看到的任何一個小說遜色。 想象食人族，人類牙齒 咬在人類皮膚上， 人肉在火上烤。

Fears also have suspense. If I've done my job as a storyteller today, you should be wondering what happened to the men of the whaleship Essex. Our fears provoke in us a very similar form of suspense.

恐懼中也有懸念。 如果我今天像講故事一樣，留個懸念不說了， 你們也許會很想知道 ESSEX捕鯨船上，人們到底怎么樣了。 我們的恐懼用懸念一樣的方式刺激我們。

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

就像一個很好的故事，我們的恐懼也如同一部好的文學作品一樣， 將我們的注意力集中在對我們生命至關重要的問題上： 后來發生了什么?

In other words, our fears make us think about the future. And humans, by the way, are the only creatures capable of thinking about the future in this way, of projecting ourselves forward in time, and this mental time travel is just one more thing that fears have in common with storytelling.

換而言之，我們的恐懼讓我們想到未來。 另外，人來是唯一有能力 通過這種方式想到未來的生物， 就是預測時間推移后我們的狀況， 這種精神上的時間旅行是恐懼 與講故事的另一個共同點。

As a writer, I can tell you that a big part of writing fiction is learning to predict how one event in a story will affect all the other events, and fear works in that same way.

我是一個作家，我要告訴你們寫小說一個很重要的部分 就是學會預測故事中一件 事情如何影響另一件事情， 恐懼也是同樣這么做的。

In fear, just like in fiction, one thing always leads to another. When I was writing my first novel, "The Age Of Miracles," I spent months trying to figure out what would happen if the rotation of the Earth suddenly began to slow down. What would happen to our days?

恐懼中，如同小說一樣，一件事情總是導致另一件事情。 我寫我的第一部小說《奇跡時代》的時候， 我花了數月的時間想象如果地球旋轉突然變慢了之后 會發生什么。 我們的一天變得如何?

What would happen to our crops? What would happen to our minds? And then it was only later that I realized how very similar these questions were to the ones I used to ask myself as a child frightened in the night.

我們身體會怎樣? 我們的思想會有什么變化? 也就是在那之后，我意識到 我過去總是問自己的那些些問題 和孩子們在夜里害怕是多么的相像。

If an earthquake strikes tonight, I used to worry, what will happen to our house? What will happen to my family? And the answer to those questions always took the form of a story.

要是在過去，如果今晚發生地震，我會很擔心， 我的房子會怎么樣啊?家里人會怎樣啊? 這類問題的答案通常都會和故事一樣。

So if we think of our fears as more than just fears but as stories, we should think of ourselves as the authors of those stories. But just as importantly, we need to think of ourselves as the readers of our fears, and how we choose to read our fears can have a profound effect on our lives.

所以我們認為我們的恐懼不僅僅是恐懼 還是故事，我們應該把自己當作 這些故事的作者。 但是同樣重要的是，我們需要想象我們自己 是我們恐懼的解讀者，我們選擇如何 去解讀這些恐懼會對我們的生活產生深遠的影響。

Now, some of us naturally read our fears more closely than others. I read about a study recently of successful entrepreneurs, and the author found that these people shared a habit that he called "productive paranoia," which meant that these people, instead of dismissing their fears, these people read them closely, they studied them, and then they translated that fear into preparation and action.

現在，我們中有些人比其他人更自然的解讀自己的恐懼。 最近我看過一個關于成功的企業家的研究， 作者發現這些人都有個習慣 叫做“未雨綢繆“， 意思是，這些人，不回避自己的恐懼， 而是認真解讀并研究恐懼， 然后把恐懼轉換成準備和行動。

So that way, if their worst fears came true, their businesses were ready.

這樣，如果最壞的事情發生了， 他們的企業也有所準備。

And sometimes, of course, our worst fears do come true. That's one of the things that is so extraordinary about fear. Once in a while, our fears can predict the future.

當然，很多時候，最壞的事情確實發生了。 這是恐懼非凡的一面。 曾幾何時，我們的恐懼預測將來。

But we can't possibly prepare for all of the fears that our imaginations concoct. So how can we tell the difference between the fears worth listening to and all the others? I think the end of the story of the whaleship Essex offers an illuminating, if tragic, example.

但是我們不可能為我們想象力構建的所有 恐懼來做準備。 所以，如何區分值得聽從的恐懼 和不值得的呢? 我想捕鯨船ESSEX的故事結局 提供了一個有啟發性，同時又悲慘的例子。

After much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. Terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to South America.

經過數次權衡，他們最終做出了決定。 由于害怕食人族，他們決定放棄最近的群島 而是開始更長 更艱難的南美洲之旅。

After more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism.

在海上呆了兩個多月后，他們 的食物如預料之中消耗殆盡， 而且他們仍然離陸地那么遠。 當最后的幸存者最終被過往船只救起時， 只有一小半的人還活著， 實際上他們中的一些人自己變成了食人族。

Herman Melville, who used this story as research for "Moby Dick," wrote years later, and from dry land, quote, "All the sufferings of these miserable men of the Essex might in all human probability have been avoided had they, immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for Tahiti.

赫爾曼·梅爾維爾(Herman Melville)將這個故事作為 《白鯨記》的素材，在數年后寫到： ESSEX船上遇難者的悲慘結局 或許是可以通過人為的努力避免的， 如果他們當機立斷地離開沉船， 直奔塔西提群島。

But," as Melville put it, "they dreaded cannibals." So the question is, why did these men dread cannibals so much more than the extreme likelihood of starvation?

“但是”，梅爾維爾說道：“他們害怕食人族” 問題是，為什么這些人對于食人族的恐懼 超過了更有可能的饑餓威脅呢?

Why were they swayed by one story so much more than the other? Looked at from this angle, theirs becomes a story about reading. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov said that the best reader has a combination of two very different temperaments, the artistic and the scientific.

為什么他們會被一個故事 影響如此之大呢? 從另一個角度來看， 這是一個關于解讀的故事。 小說家弗拉基米爾·納博科夫(Vladimir Nabokov)說 最好的讀者能把兩種截然不同的性格結合起來， 一個是藝術氣質，一個是科學精神。

A good reader has an artist's passion, a willingness to get caught up in the story, but just as importantly, the readers also needs the coolness of judgment of a scientist, which acts to temper and complicate the reader's intuitive reactions to the story. As we've seen, the men of the Essex had no trouble with the artistic part.

好的讀者有藝術家的熱情， 愿意融入故事當中， 但是同樣重要的是，這些讀者還要 有科學家的冷靜判斷， 這能幫助他們穩定情緒并分析 其對故事的直覺反應。 我們可以看出來，ESSEX上的人在藝術部分一點問題都沒有。

They dreamed up a variety of horrifying scenarios. The problem was that they listened to the wrong story. Of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to picture: cannibals.

他們夢想到一系列恐怖的場景。 問題在于他們聽從了一個錯誤的故事。 所有他們恐懼中 他們只對其中最聳人聽聞，最生動的故事， 也是他們想象中最早出現的場景： 食人族。

But perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears more like a scientist, with more coolness of judgment, they would have listened instead to the less violent but the more likely tale, the story of starvation, and headed for Tahiti, just as Melville's sad commentary suggests.

也許，如果他們能像科學家那樣 稍微冷靜一點解讀這個故事， 如果他們能聽從不太驚悚但是更可能發生的 半路餓死的故事，他們可能就會直奔塔西提群島， 如梅爾維爾充滿惋惜的評論所建議的那樣。

And maybe if we all tried to read our fears, we too would be less often swayed by the most salacious among them.

也許如果我們都試著解讀自己的恐懼， 我們就能少被 其中的一些幻象所迷惑。

Maybe then we'd spend less time worrying about serial killers and plane crashes, and more time concerned with the subtler and slower disasters we face: the silent buildup of plaque in our arteries, the gradual changes in our climate.

我們也就能少花一點時間在 為系列殺手或者飛機失事方面的擔憂， 而是更多的關心那些悄然而至 的災難： 動脈血小板的逐漸堆積， 氣候的逐漸變遷。

Just as the most nuanced stories in literature are often the richest, so too might our subtlest fears be the truest. Read in the right way, our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how that future will play out.

如同文學中最精妙的故事通常是最豐富的故事， 我們最細微的恐懼才是最真實的恐懼。 用正確的方法的解讀，我們的恐懼就是我們想象力 賜給我們的禮物，借此一雙慧眼， 讓我們能管窺未來 甚至影響未來。

Properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as our favorite works of literature: a little wisdom, a bit of insight and a version of that most elusive thing -- the truth. Thank you.

如果能得到正確的解讀，我們的恐懼能 和我們最喜歡的文學作品一樣給我們珍貴的東西： 一點點智慧，一點點洞悉 以及對最玄妙東西—— 真相的詮釋。 謝謝