There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
有兩條年輕的魚游在一起，他們剛巧碰上了一條較年長的魚從另一個方向游過來，點頭對他們說：「早啊，小夥子們。水況如何？」這兩條年輕的魚繼續游了一會兒，然後最後其中一條仔細端詳著另一條，並問到：「水到底是什麼鬼東西？」

The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude. But the fact is that in theday-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life-or-death importance.
這魚兒故事的重點僅僅是那最顯而易見、最重要的事實往往是那些最難去領會、去談論的東西。陳述為一句英文，當然，這只是個迂腐的陳腔濫調。但事實是在日復一日成人生活的戰鬥壕溝中，陳腔濫調可能有著事關生死的重要性。

The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in, day out” really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about.
這顯而易見的事實就是你們即將畢業的大四生們對「日復一日」真正的意義還一點兒頭緒也沒有。剛巧沒人在畢業演說中去談論美國成年人生活的絕大部分。如此一部分牽扯到無聊、例行公事以及小挫折。在場的家長和年長親友們太了解我在說什麼了。

By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and thenhit the sack early, because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again.
舉例來說，好比這是個普通成年人的一天，你早上起床，去上你那充滿挑戰、白領階級、大學畢業生的工作，然後你辛苦工作八或十個小時，在一天的尾聲你很累，還有點緊張，所有你想要的就是回家吃頓豐盛的晚餐，然後也許放鬆一個小時，接著早早就寢，因為，當然，你隔天得起床然後全部再做一遍。

Then you remember there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping.
接著你想起家裡沒有食物。因為那充滿挑戰的工作，你這個星期還沒有時間去購物，所以現在下班後你得上車開到超市去。現在是下班時間，交通狀況傾向於：非常糟糕。所以到超市要花遠超過所應該花的時間，而當你終於抵達那裡，超市非常擁擠，因為當然現在是一天之中所有其他有工作的人們也試著擠出時間做些商品採購的時候。

But you can’t just get in and quickly out. You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to manoeuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually…you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough checkout lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out onthe frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job; whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.
但你無法就只是進去然後快速離開。你得漫步整個又大、又過度照明的賣場那令人混淆的走道去尋找你想要的東西，然後你必須巧妙地操縱你的爛推車穿過所有這些其他疲倦、匆忙、推著推車的人們(等等、等等，少說一點因為這是個冗長的典禮)然後終於…你有了所有晚餐補給，只是現在結果是沒有開放足夠的結帳櫃檯，即便現在是下班尖峰時刻。所以結帳隊伍超級長，那很蠢也很惹人生氣。但你不能將你的挫折宣洩在操作收銀機那位狂暴的女士，她超時工作；她每天的冗長乏味和無意義超過這兒任何一個出於名校的我們所能想像。

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line’s front, and you pay for your food and get told to “Have a nice day,” in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. And then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.
但無論如何，你總算到了結帳隊伍的前面，然後你為食物買單，並得到一聲「祝你有個愉快的一天」，用的聲音是十足的死亡之音。接著你得將你那一袋袋令人不舒服、脆弱的塑膠袋裝的雜貨給拿到你那有個瘋狂往左偏的笨輪子的手推車裡，一路推出去穿過擁擠、顛簸、髒亂的停車場，然後你得一路穿過緩慢、擁擠、休旅車密集的尖峰時刻交通開回家，諸如此類的。

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn’t yet been part of you graduates’ actual life routine, day after week after month after year. But it will be…and many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me: about MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.
當然，在座的每一位都做過這件事。但它尚未成為你們畢業生真正生活中例行公事的一部分，日復一日，年復一年。但它會的…此外還有更多枯燥乏味、討厭的、似乎毫無意義的慣例。但那不是重點。重點是像這一樣繁瑣、令人洩氣的爛東西，正是選擇這件事派上用場的地方。因為塞車和擁擠的走道以及大排長龍的結帳隊伍給我時間思考，而如果我不做個關於如何思考以及要注意什麼東西的審慎決定，每次我得購物時就會又生氣又痛苦。因為我天生的預設本能是確信像這樣的狀況真是全然以我為重：以「我」的飢餓、「我」的疲倦和「我」想回家的渴望最重要，看來好像全世界、好比所有其他人就是擋我的路。擋我路的所有這些人是老幾啊？看看他們大部分的人多麼討厭啊，在結帳隊伍裡他們看起來是多麼的愚蠢、像隻大笨牛、死魚眼、不像個人一樣，或者是看看人們在隊伍中間大聲講手機是多麼惱人、多麼沒禮貌啊。看看這是多麼深切地、針對個人地不公平。

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities.
如果我選擇在商店裡跟在高速公路上這樣子去思考，沒問題。我們很多人這樣做。只是這樣子思考傾向於簡單、自發的，它無須是個選擇。它是我天生的預設本能。我感受這成人生活無趣、令人沮喪、擁擠的部分是條必然的路，當我運作在那自發性、無意識的信念之上，認為我是世界的中心，認為我刻不容緩的需求和感受是那應該決定世界優先順序的東西。

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive.
重點是，當然，有全然不同的方法去思索這類的境遇。在這車潮裡，所有這些車輛被擋在我前面閒置的車輛，並非不可能這些休旅車之中的某些人過去曾發生可怕的車禍，而現在覺得開車是如此恐怖，因此他們的治療師幾乎已經命令他們去弄輛巨大、笨重的休旅車，以讓他們能夠感覺開車是夠安全的。

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.
或者我可以選擇強迫自己仔細想想這可能性，在超市結帳隊伍裡的其他每一個人就跟我一樣無聊又沮喪挫折，而這些人中有些可能有比我更艱難得多、更乏味而且更痛苦的生活。

Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it’s hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’t want to.
此外，請別認為我在給你道德上的規勸，或是我在說你應該這樣想，或是任何人預料你會就自然而然地這樣做，因為它很難。需要意志和努力，而如果你像我一樣，有些時候你將無法做到，或你就是完全不想去做。

But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicles department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.
但大多數的日子，如果你夠明智給你自己一個選擇，你可以決定以不同眼光看待這肥胖、死魚眼、過度上妝、剛在結帳隊伍裡對她孩子吼叫的女士。也許她通常不是像這個樣子。也許她已經一連三個晚上沒睡，握著即將因骨癌死去的先生之手。或也許這位女士正是監理站的低薪職員，她就在昨天，略施小惠，幫助了你的配偶解決一件可怕、令人生氣又繁瑣的問題。

Of course, none of these is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and who and what is really important, if you want to operate on your default setting`, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you’ve really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
當然，這些沒有一個像真的，但也並非全無可能。它就取決於你想要如何去思考。如果你不自覺地確信你知道事實真相是什麼，還有誰、什麼東西是真正重要的，如果你要在你的預設本能上去運作，那麼你，就像我一樣，也許將不會考慮不惹人厭也不痛苦的可能性。但如果你已經學會如何思考、如何專注，那麼你將會知道你有其他選擇。實際上你會有能力去將一個擁擠、炎熱、緩慢、消費者算老幾的處境，感受為不但是有意義，而且還是神聖的，以創造繁星的同樣那股力量如火般燃燒：愛、友誼、內心深處神秘的萬物歸宗。

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.
不是說那神秘的東西必定為真。唯一千真萬確的東西是你可以決定要如何試著去看待它。

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.
這點，我認為，是真正教育的自由，學習如何適應環境的自由。你可以有意識的決定什麼東西有意義而什麼沒有。

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
那是真正的自由。那是受過教育，了解如何去思考。另一個選擇則是失去知覺、你的預設本能、無休止的競爭，曾經擁有、又失去、某些永無止境的東西的持續折磨感受。

I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don’t just dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.
我知道這東西也許聽起來不有趣、愉悅，或是像個畢業演說一樣應該聽起來大大地激勵人心。它是，就我所能看見的，是千真萬確的事實，除掉了一大堆浮誇的過份講究。你是，當然，可以隨心所欲地去思考它。但請別把它當作搖著指頭的蘿拉博士(美國知名部落客，喜好探討心靈層面的各種問題)的某次傳道給打發掉。這東西沒有一個是真的有關道德、宗教、教條或死後生命之異想天開的大問題。

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
那千真萬確的事實是關乎「死前」的生活。

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness: awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
它是關於一個真正教育的真正價值，那幾乎和知識無關，全然和純粹的認知有關；對於如此真實且必要的東西的認知，如此無時無刻地深藏在我們周遭樸實的環境之中，我們必須一次又一次的提醒自己：

“This is water.”
「這就是水。」

“This is water.”
「這就是水。」