Ten Ways to Live Happily 快乐生活十则
——Russell Wayne Baker 拉塞尔·韦恩·贝克
[00:01.89]In a sensible world
[00:04.11]I would now congratulate the Class of 1995
[00:06.77]and sit down without further comment.
[00:09.25]I am sure the Class of 1995 wishes I would do so.
[00:13.57]Unfortunately for the Class of 1995
[00:16.61]we do not live in a sensible world.
[00:19.94]We live in a world far more slavish in its obedience to ancient custom
[00:24.75]than we like to admit.
[00:26.68]And ancient commencement-day custom demands
[00:28.93]that somebody stand up here and harangue the poor graduates
[00:32.88]until they beg for mercy.
[00:35.81]The ancient rule has been:
[00:38.03]make them suffer.
[00:40.23]I still remember the agony of my own graduation
[00:43.71]at The John Hopkins University.
[00:46.25]They had imported some heat from the Sahara Desert
[00:48.59]especially for the occasion,
[00:50.91]and the commencement orator spoke for two and a half days.
[00:54.85]That was in 1947.
[00:57.84]Luckily, the forces of mercy have made big gains since then.
[01:03.36]The authorities of Connecticut College
[01:05.39]have suggested that for me to speak longer than 20 minutes
[01:08.68]would be regarded as cruel and inhuman punishment
[01:12.41]and that if I go as long as 30 minutes
[01:14.80]several strong men will mount this platform and forcibly remove me.
[01:19.10]But if I can finish in 15 minutes!
[01:22.60]They will let me stay for lunch.
[01:25.28]They know their man, ladies and gentleman.
[01:27.86]When I smell a free lunch, I go for it.
[01:31.98]So if I can do this right,
[01:33.78]you'll see the back of me before we get to minute 16.
[01:37.45]This will not be easy.
[01:39.77]Condensing a graduation speech into 15 minutes
[01:42.45]is like trying to squeeze a Wagnerian opera into a telephone booth.
[01:47.43]To do it I had to strip away all the frills.
[01:51.04]This means you don't even get any warm-up jokes.
[01:54.69]So those of you who came just for the jokes
[01:56.92]might as well leave now.
[02:00.18]All right, let's plunge right ahead into the dull part.
[02:03.97]That's the part where the commencement speaker
[02:06.40]tells the graduates to go forth into the world,
[02:09.55]then gives advice on what to do when they get out there.
[02:12.99]This is a ridiculous waste of time.
[02:15.78]The graduates never take the advice,
[02:18.51]as I have learned from long experience.
[02:20.96]The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this:
[02:25.26]Don't do it.
[02:26.87]I have been out there. It is a mess.
[02:29.95]I have been giving graduates this advice
[02:32.49]ever since 1967 when I spoke to a batch of them over at Bennington.
[02:37.84]That was 28 years ago.
[02:39.51]Some of your parent were probably graduating there that day
[02:43.09]and went on to ignore my advice.
[02:45.37]Thanks to the genius of my generation, I told them,
[02:48.67]it was a pretty good world out there
[02:50.42]they went forth into it, they would mess it up.
[02:53.97]So I urged them not to go.
[02:56.76]I might as well have been shouting down a rain barrel.
[03:00.37]They didn't listen.
[03:02.34]They went forth anyhow.
[03:04.06]And look what happened.
[03:05.75]Within a year Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were murdered.
[03:09.33]Then Nixon took us all to the Watergate.
[03:12.32]Draft riots. Defeat in Vietnam. John Lennon killed.
[03:16.74]Ronald Reagan and his trillion-dollar deficit.
[03:20.55]Over the years I spoke to many graduating classes,
[03:24.00]always pleading with them:
[03:25.46]Whatever you do, do not go forth.
[03:28.65]Nobody listened.
[03:30.28]They kept right on going forth anyhow.
[03:32.66]And look what we have today:
[03:34.68]Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton.
[03:37.33]So I will not waste my breath today
[03:40.33]pleading with you not to go forth.
[03:42.71]Instead I limit myself to a simple plea:
[03:45.19]When you get out there in the world
[03:48.27]try not to make it any worse than it already is.
[03:51.77]I thought it might help to give you a list of
[03:54.19]the most important things you can do
[03:56.85]to avoid making the world any worse.
[03:59.88]Since I'm shooting for 15 minutes,
[04:02.57]however, there is no time to give you all 100.
[04:06.47]You will have to make do with 10.
[04:09.00]Short as the public attention span is these days,
[04:11.94]nobody could remember 100 anyhow.
[04:14.95]Even 10 may be asking too much.
[04:18.84]Here is my list:
[04:20.30]10 things to help you avoid making the world worse than it already is:
[04:25.62]One: Bend down once in a while and smell a flower.
[04:31.29]Two: Don't go around in clothes that talk.
[04:37.17]There is already too much talk in the world.
[04:39.80]We've got so many talking people
[04:41.80]there's hardly anybody left to listen.
[04:44.77]With radio and television and telephones
[04:47.52]we've got talking furniture.
[04:49.70]With bumper stickers we've got talking cars.
[04:52.86]Talking clothes just add to the uproar.
[04:55.61]If you simply cannot resist being an incompetent klutz,
[05:00.51]don't boast about it by wearing a T-shirt that says
[05:03.44]'underachiever and proud of it.'
[05:06.72]Being dumb is not the worst thing in the world,
[05:09.87]but letting your clothes shout it out loud
[05:11.78]depresses the neighbors and embarrasses your parents.
[05:16.49]Point three follows from point two,
[05:19.67]and it's this:
[05:21.08]Listen once in a while.
[05:24.02]It's amazing what you can hear.
[05:25.62]On a hot summer day in the country
[05:28.45]you can hear the corn growing,
[05:30.21]the crack of a tin roof buckling under the power of the sun.
[05:34.47]In a real old-fashioned parlor silence so deep
[05:37.75]you can hear the dust settling on the velveteen settee,
[05:41.49]you might hear the footsteps of
[05:43.46]something sinister gaining on you,
[05:45.84]or a heart-stoppingly beautiful phrase from Mozart
[05:48.77]you haven't heard since childhood,
[05:50.86]or the voice of somebody - now gone - whom you loved.
[05:55.37]Or sometime when you're talking up a storm so brilliant,
[05:59.06]so charming that you can hardly believe how wonderful you are,
[06:02.42]pause just a moment
[06:04.03]and listen to yourself.
[06:05.81]It's good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you,
[06:09.54]and next time maybe, just maybe,
[06:12.24]you will not talk so much,
[06:14.26]so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly,
[06:17.65]so utterly shamefully foolishly.
[06:21.34]Point four: Sleep in the nude.
[06:25.09]In an old age when people don't even get dressed
[06:28.07]to go to the theater anymore,
[06:29.65]it's silly getting dressed up to go to bed.
[06:32.13]What's more,
[06:33.81]now that you can no longer smoke,
[06:35.74]drink gin or eat bacon and eggs
[06:38.07]without somebody trying
[06:39.41]to make you feel ashamed of yourself,
[06:40.87]sleeping in the nude is one deliciously sinful pleasure
[06:45.17]you can commit without being caught by
[06:47.19]the Puritan police squads that patrol the nation.
[06:51.86]Point five: Turn off the TV once or twice a month and pick up a book.
[06:58.65]It will ease your blood pressure.
[07:01.13]It might even wake up your mind,
[07:03.35]but if it puts you to sleep you're still a winner.
[07:06.80]Better to sleep than have to watch
[07:08.92]that endless parade of body bags
[07:10.74]the local news channel marches through your parlor.
[07:14.78]Six: don't take your gun to town.
[07:18.29]Don't even leave it home
[07:20.10]unless you lock all your bullets
[07:21.92]in a safe deposit box in a faraway bank.
[07:23.39]The surest way to get shot
[07:26.27]is not to drop by the nearest convenience store
[07:28.90]for a bottle of milk at midnight,
[07:30.71]but to keep a loaded pistol in you own house.
[07:34.75]What about your constitutional right to bear arms,
[07:37.34]you say.
[07:39.36]I would simply point out
[07:40.68]that you don't have to exercise a constitutional right
[07:43.21]just because you have it.
[07:45.33]You have the constitutional right
[07:47.61]to run for president of the United States,
[07:49.65]but most people have too much sense to insist on exercising it.
[07:55.30]Seven: learn to fear the automobile.
[07:58.65]It is not the trillion-dollar deficit
[08:01.19]that will finally destroy America.
[08:03.73]It is the automobile.
[08:05.75]Congressional studies of future highway needs are terrifying.
[08:09.55]A typical projection shows that when your generation is middle-aged,
[08:13.75]interstate 95 between Miami and Fort Lauderdale
[08:16.98]will have to be 22 lanes wide
[08:18.82]to avert total paralysis of south Florida.
[08:23.32]Imagine an entire country covered with asphalt.
[08:26.77]My grandfather's generation shot horses.
[08:30.00]Yours had better learn to shoot automobiles.
[08:33.90]Eight: Have some children.
[08:36.87]Children add texture to your life.
[08:39.30]They will save you from turning into old fogies
[08:42.23]before you're middle-aged.
[08:43.85]They will teach you humility.
[08:45.58]When old age overtakes you,
[08:48.18]as it inevitably will,
[08:49.40]I'm sorry to say,
[08:54.20]having a few children will provide you with people
[08:55.56]who will feel guilty when they're accused of
[08:56.23]being ungrateful for all you've done for them.
[08:59.37]It's almost impossible nowadays to find anybody
[09:02.61]who will feel guilty about anything,
[09:04.89]including mass murder.
[09:07.22]When you reach the golden years,
[09:08.74]your best bet is children, the ingrates.
[09:14.77]Nine: Get married.
[09:17.21]I know you don't want to hear this,
[09:19.38]but getting married will give you a lot more satisfaction
[09:22.13]in the long run than your BMW.
[09:24.71]It provides a standard set of parent
[09:26.67]for your children and gives you that second income
[09:29.36]you will need when it's time
[09:30.88]to send those children to Connecticut College.
[09:33.47]What's more, without marriage
[09:36.70]you will have practically no material at all
[09:39.74]to work with when you decide to write a book
[09:42.11]or hire a psychiatrist.
[09:43.80]When you get married,
[09:45.06]whatever you do,
[09:46.32]do not ask a lawyer to draw up a marriage contract
[09:49.40]spelling out how your lives will be divvied up
[09:51.94]when you get divorced.
[09:54.01]It's hard enough making a marriage work
[09:56.49]without having a blueprint for its destruction
[09:58.96]drawn up before you go to the altar.
[10:01.85]Speaking of lawyers brings me to point nine and a half,
[10:05.28]which is: Avoid lawyers
[10:07.61]unless you have nothing to do with the rest of your life
[10:10.00]but kill time.
[10:11.87]And finally, point 10: smile.
[10:16.43]You're one of the luckiest people in the world.
[10:18.90]You're living in America.
[10:20.68]Enjoy it.
[10:22.64]I feel obliged to give you this banal advice
[10:25.63]because, although I've lived through the Great Depression,
[10:28.92]World War II, terrible wars in Korea and Vietnam,
[10:32.72]and half a century of cold war,
[10:35.24]I have never seen a time
[10:36.76]when there were so many Americans so angry
[10:39.55]or so mean-spirited or so sour about the country as there are today.
[10:44.90]Anger has become the national habit.
[10:48.36]You see it on the sullen faces of fashion models
[10:51.44]scowling out of magazines.
[10:52.70]it pours out of the radio.
[10:55.42]Washington television hams snarl and shout at each other on television.
[11:00.30]Ordinary people abuse politicians
[11:03.08]and their wives with shockingly coarse insults.
[11:06.67]Rudeness has become an acceptable way
[11:08.95]of announcing you are sick and tired of it all
[11:11.99]and are not going to take it anymore.
[11:14.58]Vile speech is justified on the same ground and is inescapable.
[11:19.79]America is angry at Washington,
[11:23.34]angry at the press, angry at immigrants,
[11:26.32]angry at television, angry at traffic,
[11:29.75]angry at people who are well off
[11:32.14]and angry at people who are poor,
[11:34.20]angry at blacks and angry at whites.
[11:37.36]The old are angry at the young,
[11:39.83]the young angry at the old.
[11:42.51]Suburbs are angry at the cities,
[11:44.68]cities are angry at the suburbs.
[11:47.16]Rustic America is angry at both
[11:49.64]whenever urban and suburban invaders
[11:51.81]threaten the rustic sense of having escaped
[11:53.83] from God's angry land.
[11:56.78]A complete catalog of the varieties of bile
[11:59.15]poisoning the American soul would fill a library.
[12:02.99]The question is: why?
[12:05.17]Why has anger become the common response
[12:07.69]to the inevitable ups and down of nation?
[12:11.34]The question is not just because the American habit
[12:13.77]even in the worst of times
[12:15.08]has traditionally been mindless optimism,
[12:17.46]but also because there is so little for Americans
[12:20.35]to be angry about nowadays.
[12:22.89]We are the planet's undisputed super power.
[12:25.41]For the first time in 60 years
[12:27.49]we enjoy something very much like real peace.
[12:30.26]We are by all odds the wealthiest nation on earth,
[12:33.80]though admittedly our vast treasure is not evenly shared.
[12:37.85]Forgive me the geezer's sin of talking about "the bad old days",
[12:41.90]but the country is still full of people
[12:43.98]who remember when 35 dollars a week
[12:46.20]was considered a living wage for a whole family.
[12:49.76]People whine about being overtaxed,
[12:52.39]yet in the 1950s the top income-tax rate was 91 percent,
[12:56.83]universal military service was the law of the land,
[13:00.44]and racial segregation was legally enforced
[13:03.87]in large parts of the country.
[13:06.05]So what explains the fury and dyspepsia?
[13:10.21]I suspect it's the famous American ignorance of history.
[13:13.69]People who know nothing of even the most recent past
[13:16.88]are easily gulled by slick operators
[13:19.36]who prosper by exploiting the ignorant.
[13:21.89]Among these rascals are our politicians.
[13:24.83]Politicians flourish by sowing discontent.
[13:27.61]They triumph by churning is content into anger.
[13:30.91]Press, television and radio also have a big financial stake
[13:35.05]in keeping the county boiling mad
[13:38.40]Good news, as you know, does not sell papers
[13:42.60]or keep millions glued to radios and TV screens.
[13:45.94]So when you get out there in the world,
[13:47.76]ladies and gentlemen,
[13:49.07]you're going to find yourself surrounded by shouting,
[13:51.35]red-in-the-face, stomping-mad politicians, radio yakmeisters
[13:56.19]and, yes sad to say, newspaper columnists,
[13:59.69]telling you 'you never had it so bad'
[14:02.71]and otherwise trying to spoil your day.
[14:06.16]When they come at you with that,
[14:07.58]ladies and gentlemen,
[14:08.80]give them a wink and a smile
[14:11.03]and a good view of your departing back.
[14:14.06]And as you stroll away, bend down to smell a flower.
[14:18.61]Now it seems I have run past the 15-minute limit
[14:22.25]and will have to buy my own lunch.
[14:25.08]That's life Class of 1995.
[14:27.51]No free lunch.
[14:30.19]My sermon is done.
