The Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination 失败的好处和想象力的重要性
——J.K.罗琳
[00:10.55]President Faust,
[00:12.56]members of the Harvard Corporation
[00:14.79]and the Board of Overseers,
[00:16.99]members of the faculty,
[00:18.60]proud parents,
[00:20.18]and, above all,
[00:21.92]graduates:
[00:23.82]The first thing I would like to say
[00:25.43]is "thank you".
[00:27.30]Not only has Harvard given me
[00:28.74]an extraordinary honour,
[00:30.41]but the weeks of fear and nausea
[00:33.59]I've endured
[00:37.23]at the thought of giving
[00:38.29]this commencement address
[00:40.26]have made me lose weight.
[00:47.16]A win-win situation!
[00:50.44]Now all I have to do is take deep breaths,
[00:53.55]squint at the red banners
[00:54.66]and convince myself
[00:56.71]that I am at the world's largest
[00:58.64]Gryffindors' reunion.
[01:10.77]Delivering a commencement address
[01:12.02]is a great responsibility;
[01:14.35]or so I thought
[01:16.55]until I cast my mind back
[01:18.20]to my own graduation.
[01:20.55]The commencement speaker that day
[01:22.36]was the distinguished British philosopher
[01:24.83]Baroness Mary Warnock.
[01:27.37]Reflecting on her speech
[01:29.34]has helped me enormously
[01:30.44]in writing this one,
[01:32.24]because it turns out
[01:33.16]that I can't remember
[01:33.93]a single word she said.
[01:42.71]This liberating discovery
[01:44.46]enables me to proceed
[01:48.47]without any fear that
[01:49.67]I might inadvertently influence you
[01:54.54]to abandon promising careers in business,
[01:57.16]law or politics for the giddy delights
[01:59.73]of becoming a gay wizard.
[02:12.81]You see?
[02:13.97]If all you remember
[02:14.86]in years to come
[02:15.72]is the "gay wizard" joke,
[02:17.20]I've still come out ahead
[02:18.42]of Baroness Mary Warnock.
[02:24.64]Achievable goals
[02:26.35]the first step to selfimprovement.
[02:31.43]Actually,
[02:32.58]I have wracked my mind and heart
[02:35.13]for what I ought to say to you today.
[02:37.20]I have asked myself
[02:38.49]what I wish I had known
[02:39.86]at my own graduation,
[02:41.97]and what important lessons
[02:43.24]I have learned
[02:44.26]in the 21 years
[02:45.80]that has expired between
[02:46.84]that day and this.
[02:49.53]I have come up with two answers.
[02:52.33]On this wonderful day
[02:53.42]when we are gathered together
[02:55.09]to celebrate your academic success,
[02:57.75]I have decided to talk to you
[02:59.41]about the benefits of failure.
[03:02.76]And as you stand on the threshold
[03:04.50]of what is sometimes called
[03:05.79]"real life",
[03:07.45]I want to extol the crucial
[03:08.98]importance of imagination.
[03:12.26]These may seem quixotic
[03:13.51]or paradoxical choices,
[03:14.56]but bear with me.
[03:17.89]Looking back at the 21-year-old
[03:20.00]that I was at graduation,
[03:21.82]is a slightly uncomfortable experience
[03:24.10]for the 42-yearold that she has become.
[03:27.30]Half my lifetime ago,
[03:29.61] I was striking an uneasy balance
[03:31.49]between the ambition I had for myself,
[03:34.01]and what those closest
[03:35.46]to me expected of me.
[03:38.28]I was convinced that
[03:39.44]the only thing I wanted to do,
[03:41.07]ever, was to write novels.
[03:44.04]However, my parents,
[03:45.83]both of whom came
[03:46.81]from impoverished backgrounds
[03:48.16]and neither of whom had been to college,
[03:50.39]took the view that my overactive imagination
[03:52.76]was an amusing personal quirk
[03:55.41]that could never pay a mortgage,
[03:56.80]or secure a pension.
[03:59.62]I know the irony strikes like
[04:00.81]with the force of a cartoon anvil now,
[04:04.02]but…
[04:05.64]So they had hoped
[04:06.61]that I would take a vocational degree;
[04:08.85]I wanted to study English Literature.
[04:11.15]A compromise was reached
[04:13.09]that in retrospect satisfied nobody,
[04:16.05]and I went up to study Modern Languages.
[04:19.04]Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner
[04:21.27]at the end of the road
[04:22.60]than I ditched German
[04:24.47]and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
[04:27.43]I cannot remember telling my parents
[04:29.95]that I was studying Classics;
[04:31.93]they might well have found out
[04:33.18]for the first time on graduation day.
[04:36.84]Of all the subjects on this planet,
[04:39.30]I think they would have been hard put
[04:40.68]to name one less useful
[04:43.14]than Greek mythology
[04:44.27]when it came to securing the keys
[04:45.85]to an executive bathroom.
[04:49.73]I would like to make it clear,
[04:51.63]in parenthesis,
[04:52.88]that I do not blame my parents
[04:54.71]for their point of view.
[04:56.22]There is an expiry date
[04:57.90]on blaming your parents
[04:59.23]for steering you in the wrong direction;
[05:11.75]the moment you are old enough
[05:12.99]to take the wheel,
[05:14.20]responsibility lies with you.
[05:16.86]What is more,
[05:18.17]I cannot CRIticize my parents
[05:20.18]for hoping that I would never experience poverty.
[05:23.61]They had been poor themselves,
[05:25.36]and I have since been poor,
[05:27.77]and I quite agree with them
[05:29.57]that it is not an ennobling experience.
[05:33.28]Poverty entails fear,
[05:34.97]and stress,
[05:36.21]and sometimes depression;
[05:38.62]it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.
[05:42.69]Climbing out of poverty
[05:43.88]by your own efforts,
[05:45.27]that is something on which to pride yourself,
[05:47.40]but poverty itself
[05:49.31]is romanticized only by fools.
[05:53.32]What I feared most for myself
[05:54.83]at your age
[05:56.18]was not poverty,
[05:57.35]but failure.
[05:59.89]At your age,
[06:01.13]in spite of a distinct lack of motivation
[06:03.20]at university,
[06:04.32]where I had spent far too long
[06:06.16]in the coffee bar writing stories,
[06:08.18]and far too little time at lectures,
[06:10.90]I had a knack for passing examinations,
[06:13.70]and that, for years,
[06:15.71]had been the measure of success
[06:17.15]in my life and that of my peers.
[06:21.29]Now I am not dull enough to suppose
[06:23.51]that because you are young,
[06:24.76]gifted and well educated,
[06:27.14]you have never known hardship or heartbreak.
[06:32.14]Talent and intelligence
[06:34.06]never yet inoculated anyone
[06:35.89]against the caprice of the Fates,
[06:38.08]and I do not for a moment suppose
[06:40.38]that everyone here has enjoyed an existence
[06:42.90]of unruffled privilege and contentment.
[06:46.76]However, the fact that you are graduating
[06:50.79]from Harvard suggests
[06:52.01]that you are not very well-acquainted
[06:54.62]with failure.
[06:57.88]You might be driven by a fear of failure
[07:00.45]quite as much as a desire for success.
[07:04.00]Indeed, your conception of failure
[07:06.19]might not be too far
[07:08.35]from the average person's idea of success,
[07:11.07]so high have you already flown.
[07:15.65]Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves
[07:18.97]what constitutes failure,
[07:21.02]but the world is quite eager
[07:22.57]to give you a set of CRIteria if you let it.
[07:26.23]So I think it fair to say
[07:28.16]that by any conventional measure,
[07:30.82]a mere seven years after my graduation day,
[07:34.01]I had failed on an epic scale.
[07:37.68]An exceptionally short-lived marriage
[07:39.70]had imploded,
[07:41.24]and I was jobless,
[07:42.67]a lone parent,
[07:44.34]and as poor As It Is possible
[07:46.18]to be in modern Britain,
[07:47.53]without being homeless.
[07:50.00]The fears my parents had had for me,
[07:52.77]and that I had had for myself,
[07:54.91]had both come to pass,
[07:57.09]and by every usual standard,
[07:59.03]I was the biggest failure I knew.
[08:02.89]Now, I am not going to stand here
[08:04.19]and tell you that failure is fun.
[08:06.88]That period of my life
[08:08.00]was a dark one,
[08:10.00]and I had no idea that there was going to be
[08:11.87]what the presshas since represented
[08:14.26]as a kind of fairy tale resolution.
[08:17.83]I had no idea then
[08:19.56]how far the tunnel extended,
[08:21.41]and for a long time,
[08:22.66]any light at the end of
[08:23.89]it was a hope rather than a reality.
[08:27.50]So why do I talk about the benefits of failure?
[08:32.26]Simply because failure
[08:34.04]meant a stripping away
[08:35.52]of the inessential.
[08:37.68]I stopped pretending to myself
[08:39.74]that I was anything
[08:40.91]other than what I was,
[08:42.74]and began to direct all my energy
[08:44.52]into finishing the only work
[08:46.59]that mattered to me.
[08:48.19]Had I really succeeded
[08:49.71]at anything else,
[08:50.76]I might never have found the determination
[08:52.66]to succeed in the one arena
[08:54.78]I believed I truly belonged.
[08:57.75]I was set free,
[08:59.64]because my greatest fear
[09:00.82]had already been realised,
[09:02.30]and I was still alive,
[09:04.14]and I still had a daughter
[09:05.27]whom I adored,
[09:06.51]and I had an old typewriter
[09:07.81]and a big idea.
[09:10.47]And so rock bottom
[09:11.94]became the solid foundation
[09:13.83]on which I rebuilt my life.
[09:16.66]You might never fail on the scale I did,
[09:20.35]but some failure in life is inevitable.
[09:23.67]It is impossible
[09:25.33]to live without failing at something,
[09:28.01]unless you live so cautiously
[09:30.31]that you might as well not have lived at all
[09:32.80]in which case,
[09:34.13]you fail by default.
[09:36.33]Failure gave me an inner security
[09:38.75]that I had never attained
[09:40.31]by passing examinations.
[09:42.20]Failure taught me things
[09:43.53]about myself that I could have learned
[09:45.11]no other way.
[09:46.75]I discovered that I had a strong will,
[09:48.69]and more discipline
[09:50.24]than I had suspected;
[09:51.94]I also found out
[09:53.22]that I had friends
[09:55.19]whose value was truly
[09:56.27]above the price of rubies.
[09:58.44]The knowledge
[09:59.63]that you have emerged wiser
[10:01.16]and stronger from setbacks
[10:02.76]means that you are, ever after,
[10:04.75]secure in your ability to survive.
[10:07.65]You will never truly know yourself,
[10:10.22]or the strength of your relationships,
[10:12.61]until both have been tested by adversity.
[10:16.00]Such knowledge is a true gift,
[10:19.21]for all that it is painfully won,
[10:21.70]and it has been worth more to me
[10:24.43]than any qualification I ever earned.
[10:26.43]Given a Time Turner,
[10:28.47]I would tell my 21-year-old self
[10:30.37]that personal happiness lies in knowing
[10:32.20]that life is
[10:33.34]not a checklist of acquisition
[10:35.69]or achievement.
[10:37.10]Your qualifications,
[10:38.12]your CV,
[10:39.70]are not your life,
[10:41.17]though you will meet many people
[10:42.69]of my age and older who confuse the two.
[10:44.56]Life is difficult,
[10:47.23]and complicated,
[10:48.62]and beyond anyone's total control
[10:51.64]and the humility to know that
[10:53.10]will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
[10:57.30]You might think that I chose my second theme,
[11:00.80]the importance of imagination,
[11:02.04]because of the part it played in rebuilding my life,
[11:05.17]but that is not wholly so.
[11:07.67]Though I will defend
[11:10.97]the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp,
[11:13.10]I have learned to value imagination
[11:14.85]in a much broader sense.
[11:17.58]Imagination is not only
[11:21.51]the uniquely human capacity
[11:23.88]to envision that which is not,
[11:26.43]and therefore the fount of all invention
[11:28.08]and innovation.
[11:28.92]In its arguably most transformative
[11:30.90]and revelatory capacity,
[11:33.00]it is the power that enables us to
[11:35.48]empathize with humans
[11:37.09]whose experiences we have never shared.
[11:39.42]One of the greatest formative experiences
[11:43.33]of my life preceded Harry Potter,
[11:44.99]though it informed much of
[11:46.46]what I subsequently wrote in those books.
[11:48.83]This revelation
[11:50.19]came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs.
[11:53.10]Though I was sloping off to write stories
[11:55.68]during my lunch hours,
[11:57.39]I paid the rent in my early 20s
[11:59.92]by working at the research department
[12:03.12]at Amnesty International's headquarters
[12:05.34]in London.
[12:07.61]There in my little office
[12:08.97]I read hastily sCRIbbled letters
[12:11.49]smuggled out of totalitarian regimes
[12:14.22]by men and women
[12:15.57]who were risking imprisonment
[12:17.26]to inform the outside world of
[12:18.72]what was happening to them.
[12:20.67]I saw photographs of those
[12:22.36]who had disappeared without trace,
[12:24.33]sent to Amnesty by their desperate families
[12:26.50]and friends.
[12:28.18]I read the testimony of torture victims
[12:30.96]and saw pictures of their injuries.
[12:33.16]I opened handwritten,
[12:34.97]eye-witness accounts of summary trials
[12:38.19]and executions,
[12:39.74]of kidnappings and rapes.
[12:43.49]Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners,
[12:46.28]people who had been displaced from their homes,
[12:49.04]or fled into exile,
[12:50.91]because they had the temerity
[12:52.43]to speak against their government.
[12:55.07]Visitors to our office included those
[12:56.68]who had come to give information,
[12:58.30]or to try and find out
[13:00.45]what had happened to those
[13:03.23]who they had left behind.
[13:04.46]I shall never forget
[13:06.04]the African torture victim,
[13:08.32]a young man no older than I was at the time,
[13:11.05] who had become mentally ill
[13:13.20]after all he had endured
[13:14.59]in his homeland.
[13:16.62]He trembled uncontrollably
[13:18.58]as he spoke into a video camera
[13:20.22]about the brutality inflicted upon him.
[13:24.58]He was a foot taller than I was,
[13:26.40]and seemed as fragile as a child.
[13:28.79]I was given the job of escorting him
[13:31.64]back to the underground station afterwards,
[13:33.48]and this man whose life had been shattered
[13:36.59]by cruelty
[13:37.88]took my hand with exquisite courtesy,
[13:41.06]and wished me future happiness.
[13:44.43]And as long as I live
[13:46.05]I shall remember walking along
[13:47.44]an empty corridor
[13:48.38]and suddenly hearing,
[13:50.23]from behind a closed door,
[13:52.36]a scream of pain and horror
[13:54.62]such as I have never heard since.
[13:57.10]The door opened,
[13:58.70]and the researcher poked out her head
[14:01.94]and told me to run and make a hot drink
[14:04.04]for the young man sitting with her.
[14:07.39]She had just given him the news
[14:09.86]that in retaliation for his own outspokenness
[14:12.68]against his country's regime,
[14:15.19]his mother had been seized and executed.
[14:20.74]Every day of my working week
[14:22.52]in my early 20s
[14:24.04]I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was,
[14:27.70]to live in a country with a democratically
[14:29.45]elected government,
[14:31.02]where legal representation
[14:32.48]and a public trial
[14:33.73]were the rights of everyone.
[14:36.91]Every day,
[14:38.15]I saw more evidence
[14:39.37]about the evils humankind will inflict
[14:42.16]on their fellow humans,
[14:43.65]to gain or maintain power.
[14:47.06]I began to have nightmares,
[14:48.62]literal nightmares,
[14:50.33]about some of the things I saw,
[14:52.26]heard and read.
[14:56.02]And yet I also learned
[14:58.65]more about human goodness
[15:00.70]at Amnesty International
[15:02.15]than I had ever known before.
[15:05.03]Amnesty mobilizes thousands of people
[15:07.76]who have never been tortured
[15:09.15]or imprisoned for their beliefs
[15:10.87] to act on behalf of those who have.
[15:14.32]The power of human empathy,
[15:17.37]leading to collective action,
[15:18.50]saves lives,
[15:19.69]and frees prisoners.
[15:21.85]Ordinary people,
[15:23.41]whose personal well-being
[15:24.75]and security are assured,
[15:26.74]join together in huge numbers
[15:28.80]to save people they do not know,
[15:30.94]and will never meet.
[15:33.04]My small participation
[15:34.51]in that process
[15:35.74]was one of the most humbling
[15:37.08]and inspiring experiences of my life.
[15:41.79]Unlike any other creature on this planet,
[15:44.53]human beings can learn and understand,
[15:47.16]without having experienced.
[15:49.57]They can think themselves
[15:51.04]into other people's places.
[15:56.50]Of course,
[15:58.26]this is a power,
[15:59.18]like my brand of fictional magic,
[16:00.34]that is morally neutral.
[16:02.30]One might use such an ability
[16:03.82]to manipulate, or control,
[16:06.47]just as much as to understand or sympathize.
[16:10.97]And many prefer
[16:12.01]not to exercise their imaginations at all.
[16:13.66]They choose to remain comfortably
[16:16.72]within the bounds of their own experience,
[16:19.14]never troubling to wonder
[16:20.53]how it would feel
[16:21.33]to have been born other than they are.
[16:24.07]They can refuse to hear screams
[16:25.77]or to peer inside cages;
[16:28.02]they can close their minds
[16:29.64]and hearts to any suffering
[16:31.31]that does not touch them personally;
[16:33.65]they can refuse to know.
[16:37.21]I might be tempted to envy people
[16:39.44]who can live that way,
[16:41.00]except that I do not think
[16:42.27]they have any fewer nightmares
[16:43.77]than I do.
[16:45.44]Choosing to live in narrow spaces
[16:47.05]lead to a form of mental agoraphobia,
[16:49.68]and that brings its own terrors.
[16:53.33]I think the willfully unimaginative
[16:55.12]see more monsters.
[16:57.58]They are often more afraid.
[16:59.79]What is more,
[17:02.46]those who choose not to empathize
[17:04.39]enable real monsters.
[17:06.54]For without ever committing
[17:07.78] an act of outright evil ourselves,
[17:09.22]we collude with it,
[17:11.61]through our own apathy.
[17:14.67]One of the many things I learned
[17:16.27]at the end of that Classics corridor down
[17:18.13]which I ventured at the age of 18,
[17:20.29]in search of something
[17:21.32]I could not then define,
[17:22.88]was this,
[17:23.84]written by the Greek author Plutarch:
[17:25.62]What we achieve inwardly
[17:28.19]will change outer reality.
[17:32.33]That is an astonishing statement
[17:34.02]and yet proven a thousand times
[17:35.67]every day of our lives.
[17:37.61]It expresses, in part,
[17:39.22]our inescapable connection
[17:40.82]with the outside world,
[17:42.67]the fact that we touch other people's lives
[17:44.65]simply by existing.
[17:47.32]But how much more are you,
[17:49.52]Harvard graduates of 2008,
[17:52.22]likely to touch other people's lives?
[17:55.56]Your intelligence,
[17:57.01]your capacity for hard work,
[17:59.17]the education you have earned
[18:00.79]and received,
[18:02.02]give you unique status,
[18:04.87]and unique responsibilities.
[18:07.56]Even your nationality
[18:08.89]sets you apart.
[18:10.61]The great majority
[18:11.74]of you belong to the world's
[18:13.40]only remaining superpower.
[18:16.26]The way you vote,
[18:17.44]the way you live,
[18:18.45]the way you protest,
[18:20.00]the pressure you bring to bear
[18:21.65]on your government,
[18:23.11]has an impact way
[18:23.95]beyond your borders.
[18:25.77]That is your privilege,
[18:27.00]and your burden.
[18:29.90]If you choose to use your status
[18:31.66]and influence
[18:32.62]to raise your voice
[18:33.38]on behalf of those who have no voice;
[18:35.73]if you choose to identify
[18:37.17]not only with the powerful,
[18:39.07]but with the powerless;
[18:41.10]if you retain the ability
[18:42.54]to imagine yourself
[18:43.81]into the lives of those
[18:44.95]who do not have your advantages,
[18:46.90]then it will not only be your proud families
[18:49.53]who celebrate your existence,
[18:51.47]but thousands and millions of people
[18:53.47]whose reality you have helped to change.
[18:57.06]We do not need magic to transform my world,
[19:00.28]we carry all the power
[19:01.47]we need inside ourselves already:
[19:03.66]we have the power to imagine better.
[19:08.15]I am nearly finished.
[19:09.83]I have one last hope for you,
[19:12.09]which is something
[19:12.75]that I already had at 21.
[19:15.78]The friends with whom I sat on graduation day
[19:18.30]have been my friends for life.
[19:20.54]They are my children's godparents,
[19:22.09]the people to whom I've been able to turn
[19:24.51]in times of real trouble,
[19:28.36]people who have been kind enough
[19:28.78]not to sue me
[19:29.93]when I've took their names for Death Eaters.
[19:40.29]At our graduation
[19:41.84]we were bound by enormous affection,
[19:43.66]by our shared experience
[19:45.54]of a time that could never come again,
[19:48.12]and, of course,
[19:49.35]by the knowledge
[19:50.10]that we held certain photographic evidence
[19:52.99]that would be exceptionally valuable
[19:56.03]if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
[19:59.69]So today,
[20:02.05]I wish you nothing better
[20:03.99]than similar friendships.
[20:06.35]And tomorrow,
[20:08.22]I hope that even if you remember
[20:10.14]not a single word of mine,
[20:12.44]you remember those of Seneca,
[20:14.42]another of those old Romans I met
[20:16.09]when I fled down the Classics corridor,
[20:18.65]in retreat from career ladders,
[20:21.71]in search of ancient wisdom:
[20:25.13]As is a tale,
[20:26.79]so is life:
[20:28.50]not how long it is,
[20:29.95]but how good it is,
[20:31.98]is what matters.
[20:33.73]I wish you all very good lives.
[20:36.05]Thank you very much.
