【被譽為“人民的作家”的美國作家Anne Lamott在61歲生日即將到來之前，在TED做了一次演講，分享她從生活和寫作中收穫的12條真理（事實）。】
看視頻，閱讀中文字幕很辛苦。我覺得這位作家的人生經驗是極珍貴的，對許多人來說也有很強的治癒效果，我把演講整理成文字以供閱讀，靜心閱讀或許能給大家更多啟迪。由於文化背景的不通，個別的翻譯有不通，或難以理解的地方，我做了一點修改，方便理解。以下是Anne演講的主要內容——
anne lamott ted talk
我七歲大的孫子就睡在樓下的大廳裡。他經常早上醒來，說：“知道嗎，今天會是最棒的一天。” 有時候，他在半夜用顫抖的聲音喊我，“奶奶，你也會生病死去嗎？”我覺得對我和我認識的大部分人來說，這相當說明問題，我們是一個樂觀和恐懼的混合的燒烤架。
因此，在我61歲生日的前幾天，我坐下來，決定把我相信的所有東西都列出來。浮世俗文化中真實的成分的太少了，而能確信某些事是挺好的。比方說，我不再是47歲了，儘管我覺得自己還是47歲，我也願意把自己當成47歲的樣子。我朋友保羅在80歲將至時曾說，他覺得自己還是個年輕人，就是身體出了嚴重毛病。我們真實的自己，其實在時間和空間之外，當然，看著我的作品，實際上，我能意識到自己出生於1954年。我的內心是在時間和空間之外，它沒有年齡，我存在於我活過的每一個年齡，你也一樣。儘管如此，在這裡我禁不住順便也提醒一下各位，就是我如果沒有按照60年代的護膚理論護理皮膚可能會更好，當時那種理論包括儘可能多曬太陽，並塗上厚厚的嬰兒油，然後用錫箔紙板反射來吸收更多的陽光。不過，面對現實還是很釋然的，我不用再為中年掙扎了，我決定寫下我知道的每一個事實。如今，人們覺得沮喪以及茫然，他們總是問我什麼是真實的。因此，我希望我列出的這些我確信的事情，可以向那些不知所措和陷入困境的人提供基本的指引。
My sever-year-old grandson sleeps just down the hall from me, and he wakes up a lot of mornings and he says, “You know, this could be the best day ever.” And other times, in the middle of the night, he calls out in a tremulous voice, “Nana, will you ever get sick and die?” I think this pretty much says it for me and most of people I know, that we’re a mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread.
So I sat down a few days before my 61st birthday, and I decided to compile a list of everything I know for sure. There’s so little truth in the popular culture, and it’s good to be sure of a few things. For instance, I am no longer 47, although this is the age I feel, and the age I like to think of myself as being. My friend Paul used to say in his late ’70s that he felt like a young man with something really wrong with him. Our true person is outside of time and space, but looking at the paperwork, I can, in fact, see that I was born in 1954. My inside self is outside of time and space. It doesn’t have an age. I’m every age I’ve ever been, and so are you. Although I can’t help mentioning as an aside that it might have been helpful if I hadn’t followed the skin care rules of the ’60s, which involved getting as much sun as possible while slathered in baby oil and basking in the glow of a tinfoil reflector shield. It was so liberating, though, to face the truth that I was no longer in the last throes of middle age, that I decided to write down every single true thing I know. People feel really doomed and overwhelmed these days, and they keep asking me what’s true. So I hope that my list of things I’m almost positive about might offer some basic operating instructions to anyone who is feeling really overwhelmed and beleaguered.
第一條：也是最真實的事情是，所有的事實都有相反的一面。
生命是既珍貴，又不可思議地美麗的禮物。不過，在現實中卻不是這樣的。對我們這些天生敏感的人來說，這與我們的感受完全不相配。
人生如此艱辛，以至於有時候我們懷疑自己是不是被耍了。生命同時充滿了令人心碎的甜蜜和美麗，令人絕望的貧困，以及洪水、嬰兒、粉刺和莫扎特，全都纏繞在一起。我認為這不是一個理想的體系。
Number one: the first and truest thing is that all truth is a paradox. Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it's impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It's been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive.
It's so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we're being punked. It's filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don't think it's an ideal system.
第二條：如果你把插頭拔掉幾分鐘，幾乎所有事情都能恢復運轉——你們也是。
Number two: almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes--including you.
第三條：幾乎不存在什麼外在的力量，可以長久的幫助你自己，除非你在等器官移植。
你無法購買、達到或期待心靈的安寧。這是最可怕的事實，我非常憎恨它。
但這是內心的事，我們無法讓世上最愛的人期待一份安寧或越來越好。他們必須找到自己的路，找到自己的答案。你不能在孩子成為英雄的征程中一路上替他們擋風遮雨。你必須對他們放手。不這麼做就是不尊重他們。更何況如果問題是別人的，你可能也不知道到底該怎麼辦。我們的幫助常常不太有用。我們的幫助經常是有害的。而所謂的“幫助”就是“控制”的褒義詞。別老是幫忙啦。別再老是對大家施以你的援手和友善啦。
Three: there is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you're waiting for an organ.
You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. This is the most horrible truth, and I so resent it.
But it's an inside job, and we can't arrange peace or lasting improvement for the people we love most in the world. They have to find their own ways, their own answers. You can't run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and ChapStick on their hero's journey. You have to release them. It's disrespectful not to. And if it's someone else's problem, you probably don't have the answer, anyway. Our help is usually not very helpful. Our help is often toxic. And help is the sunny side of control. Stop helping so much. Don't get your help and goodness all over everybody.
第四條：每個人都是心煩意亂的、支離破碎的、過度依賴的、膽小怕事的，甚至有的人同時擁有這些負面情緒。
這些人比你願意相信的更像你，所以不要拿自己的內在想法與別人的外在表現相比較。這隻會讓本已糟糕的你更加糟糕。同時，你無法保護、糾正或拯救他們，或是讓他們清醒過來。而令我變得振作清醒的，是三十年前我自己的行動和思考引發的困境。
當時我請求一些理智的朋友幫我，我也求助於更強大的力量。“上帝God”一詞可以看做是“絕望中的禮物gift of desperation”的縮寫，G-O-D，或者像一個清醒的朋友說的，到頭來，我墮落的速度比我降低底線的速度還要快。
所以在這種情況下，“上帝”可能意思是，“我已經沒什麼好主意了。”
當糾正、保衛和拯救都變成徒勞，徹底的自我保護就成了小小的量子，這種力量從你心中激發出來後，飄散在空氣中，就像一點點新鮮空氣。這是給世界的一份大禮。人們的反應是，“好吧，她是不是太目空一切了？”，只要像蒙娜麗莎一樣婉兒一笑，然後給彼此都倒杯好茶就好。能欣賞一個人的憨傻、自私、暴躁、自惱是就像擁有了一個家。這個家是讓世上風平浪靜開始的地方。
This brings us to number four: everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together.
They are much more like you than you would believe, so try not to compare your insides to other people's outsides. It will only make you worse than you already are. Also, you can't save, fix or rescue any of them or get anyone sober. What helped me get clean and sober 30 years ago was the catastrophe of my behavior and thinking.
So I asked some sober friends for help, and I turned to a higher power. One acronym for God is the "gift of desperation," G-O-D, or as a sober friend put it, by the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.
So God might mean, in this case, "me running out of any more good ideas."
While fixing and saving and trying to rescue is futile, radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out from you into the atmosphere like a little fresh air. It's a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, "Well, isn't she full of herself," just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and make both of you a nice cup of tea. Being full of affection for one's goofy, self-centered, cranky, annoying self is home. It's where world peace begins.
第五條：可可含量達到75%的巧克力實際上不能算作是食物。
75%的黑巧克力應該標註為“不可食用”，它的最佳用途是作為捕蛇器的誘餌或者墊桌角。就不應該認為那東西能吃。
Number five: chocolate with 75 percent cacao is not actually a food.
Its best use is as a bait in snake traps or to balance the legs of wobbly chairs. It was never meant to be considered an edible.
第六條：寫作。
你認識的每一個作家，初稿寫得都很糟糕，但他們會堅持坐在椅子裡。這就是生活的秘密。這也許就是你和作家之間的主要區別。他們想做就去做了。
他們在做之前靠自己預先準備好了。他們把這當做一種道義上的義務。他們講述自己某天某時曾經歷過的故事， 一點一點地講出來。在我哥哥上四年級的時候，有次有一篇關於鳥類的學期論文，第二天就要交，然而他還沒有開始寫。
於是我爸爸在他身旁坐下來，拿著一本Audubon的書、一些紙張、鉛筆和兩腳釘——知道兩腳釘的都不再年輕了吧——然後他對我哥哥說，“一隻鳥一隻鳥的寫，孩子。先讀一些關於鵜鶘的東西，然後用你自己的理解把鵜鶘的知識寫下來。接著找到山雀，然後用你自己的理解告訴我們山雀的知識。再然後是鵝。”
所以寫作最重要的兩點：一隻鳥一隻鳥的寫 和慘不忍睹的初稿。如果你不知道從哪開始，記得那些發生在你身上的事，它們每件都屬於你，你就直接說出來。如果人們希望你把他們寫得更溫和一些，那他們本應該表現得更好。
也許某天你清醒了會覺得糟糕透了， 因為你發現你從來沒寫下那些一直牽扯著你的內心的東西，比如你的故事，回憶，幻想，與歌唱——你的真實，你對事物的看法——用你自己的聲音，這些都是你必須要帶給我們的東西，也是你何以來到這個世界的意義。
Number six -- writing.
Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That's the secret of life. That's probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it.
They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them one day at a time, little by little. When my older brother was in fourth grade, he had a term paper on birds due the next day, and he hadn't started.
So my dad sat down with him with an Audubon book, paper, pencils and brads--for those of you who have gotten a little less young and remember brads -- and he said to my brother, "Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice. And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese."
So the two most important things about writing are: bird by bird and really god-awful first drafts. If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should've behaved better.
You're going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs -- your truth, your version of things -- in your own voice. That's really all you have to offer us, and that's also why you were born.
第七條：你必須要從出版發行和短暫的創作成就中恢復過來。
這些名利殺死了迷失其中的人。它們會以你無法想象的方式 傷害你、改變你。
我所認識的最低級和邪惡的人是一些出版過超級暢銷書的男作家。這又說回第一點：所有事都是有對立面的。能讓你的作品出版當然也是一個奇蹟，這可以讓你的故事被世人閱讀和聽聞。但要努力讓自己從出版發行的幻想中抽身，你以為出版發行可以治癒你，可以填滿你內心一個個如同瑞士乾酪的洞。它不能。它也不會。但是寫作本身可以。在合唱團或藍草樂隊唱歌也可以。在社區作壁畫或觀鳥飛也可以，或者養一條其他人都不想養的老狗，也可以治癒你。
Seven: publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from.
They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine.
The most degraded and evil people I've ever known are male writers who've had huge best sellers. And yet, returning to number one, that all truth is paradox, it's also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard. Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can't. It won't. But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band. So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will.
第八條：家庭。無論家人有多麼珍貴和精彩，家庭生活都是難、難、難。再一次，參見第一條。
如果在家庭聚會上，你突然很想殺人或自殺——記住，在所有情況下，的的確確，我們任何一個人的孕育和誕生都是一個奇蹟。
地球是一個教會我們寬恕的學校。寬恕從原諒自己開始，你最好從坐在餐桌前開始。這樣，你還能穿著舒服的褲子來做這件事。
當William Blake（十八十九世紀作家詩人）說，我們在這世上要學會忍受愛的光束，他知道，你的家人會是密不可分的一部分，即使你要為了你可愛的小人生尖叫跑開。但我保證，你能行。你能做到，灰姑娘，你能做到，然後你會為自己感到大為驚奇。
Number eight: families. Families are hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. Again, see number one.
At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal -- remember that in all cases, it's a miracle that any of us, specifically, were conceived and born.
Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself, and then you might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants.
When William Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But I promise you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderella, you can do it, and you will be amazed.
第九條：食物。試著做得更好一些。我想你明白我的意思。
Nine: food. Try to do a little better. I think you know what I mean.
第十條：恩澤。
恩澤是精神上的WD-40（萬能潤滑油）或者是游泳圈。恩澤的神秘之處在於，上帝愛亨利•基辛格和弗拉基米爾•普京，也愛我，就像他或她也愛你們剛出生的小孫子。想想看吧！
是恩澤改變了我們，治癒了我們，它也治癒了我們的世界。想要召喚恩澤，就說“救命”，然後繫好安全帶。恩澤會在你需要的時候出現，但它不會將你遺棄那裡。
遺憾的是， 恩澤不會像鬼馬小精靈一樣。但是電話會響的，郵件會來的，儘管困難重重，你會得到屬於你自己的幽默感。笑聲真的是含著二氧化碳的聖潔。它幫助我們一次又一次地呼吸 讓我們迴歸自我，這也帶給我們對生活和彼此的信心。記住，恩澤總是堅持到最後。
Number 10 -- grace. Grace is spiritual WD-40, or water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Go figure.
The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world. To summon grace, say, "Help," and then buckle up. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but it doesn't leave you where it found you.
And grace won't look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, regrettably. But the phone will ring or the mail will come and then against all odds, you'll get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness. It helps us breathe again and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and each other. And remember -- grace always bats last.
第十一條：上帝就意味著美德。
他真的不那麼可怕。它意味著神聖或是慈愛的，朝氣蓬勃的智慧，就像我們從偉大的Deteriorata中知道的，宇宙中的鬆餅（此處指一首被惡搞的詩詞，其中說上帝是宇宙中的鬆餅）。上帝的美名是:“不是我。”
艾默生Emerson（十九世紀美國思想家，作家）曾說：地球上最幸福的人，是那個從自然中學會了敬畏的人。所以多到外面去走走，抬頭看看。
我的牧師說你可以將蜜蜂困在無蓋玻璃瓶的底部，因為它們不會抬頭看，所以它們只會四處碰壁。走出去，抬頭看看，這是生活的秘密。
Eleven: God just means goodness.
It's really not all that scary. It means the divine or a loving, animating intelligence, or, as we learned from the great "Deteriorata," "the cosmic muffin." A good name for God is: "Not me."
Emerson said that the happiest person on Earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot and look up.
My pastor said you can trap bees on the bottom of mason jars without lids because they don't look up, so they just walk around bitterly bumping into the glass walls. Go outside. Look up. Secret of life.
最後，死亡。第十二條：哇，天哪。有時候至親的人死去真的難以承受，你永遠無法從悲痛中平復，無論老話怎麼說，你也做不到。
我們基督徒喜歡把死亡想象成只是更換了住址，但無論如何，如果你不把心門封鎖，這個人就還將活在你的心中。就像萊昂納德•科恩Leonard Cohen說的，“萬物皆有裂痕，那將是光照進來的地方。”
那也將會我們感到親人重獲新生的地方。而且，有些人會讓你在最不該笑的時候，開懷大笑，那將是個超讚的好跡象。
但他們的缺席也將是你一生的思鄉之噩夢。悲痛和朋友、時間和眼淚，會在一定程度上治癒你。眼淚將沐浴、洗禮、滋潤你，以及你一路走來的土地。
你知道上帝對摩西說的第一件事嗎？他說：“脫下你的鞋子。”因為你所站之地是聖地，雖然我們感覺（這塊土地）並不神聖。很難相，但這是我所知道的最真實的事情。
當你再年長一點，像我這個小人物這般，你會意識到死亡和出生一樣神聖。也別擔心，繼續你的生活。只要你需要，與周圍的至親們一起面對死亡，那麼每個人的死亡將會是簡單而溫柔的。
你不會孤單的。不論等待我們的是什麼他們都會幫你一同度過。正如Ram Dass所說，“當該說的說了，該做的做了，我們真的只是互相把對方送回家。”
我想說的就是這些， 但如果我想到別的東西， 我會告訴你們的， 謝謝你們。
And finally: death. Number 12. Wow and yikes. It's so hard to bear when the few people you cannot live without die. You'll never get over these losses, and no matter what the culture says, you're not supposed to.
We Christians like to think of death as a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live again fully in your heart if you don't seal it off. Like Leonard Cohen said, "There are cracks in everything, and that's how the light gets in."
And that's how we feel our people again fully alive. Also, the people will make you laugh out loud at the most inconvenient times, and that's the great good news.
But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. Grief and friends, time and tears will heal you to some extent. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate and moisturize you and the ground on which you walk.
Do you know the first thing that God says to Moses? He says, "Take off your shoes." Because this is holy ground, all evidence to the contrary. It's hard to believe, but it's the truest thing I know.
When you're a little bit older, like my tiny personal self, you realize that death is as sacred as birth. And don't worry -- get on with your life. Almost every single death is easy and gentle with the very best people surrounding you for as long as you need.
You won't be alone. They'll help you cross over to whatever awaits us. As Ram Dass said, "When all is said and done, we're really just all walking each other home."
I think that's it, but if I think of anything else, I'll let you know. Thank you. Thank you.
