Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy, they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

聰明是一種天賦，而善良是一種選擇。天賦得來很容易——畢竟它們與生俱 來。而選擇卻頗為艱難。如果一不小心，你可能被天賦所誘惑，這可能會傷害到你 所作出的選擇。

As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially Days of our Lives. My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We'd hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.

當我還是一個孩子的時候，我的夏天總是在德州祖父母的農場中度過。我幫忙 修理風車，為牛接種疫苗，也做其他家務。每天下午，我們都會看肥皂劇，尤其是 《我們的歲月》。我的祖父母參加了一個房車俱樂部，那是一群駕駛清風拖掛型房車的人們，他們結伴游遍美國和加拿大。每隔幾個夏天，我也會加入他們。我們把房車 掛在袓父的小汽車后面，然后加入30名清風房車探險者們組成的浩蕩隊伍。我愛 我的祖父母，我崇敬他們，也真心期盼這些旅程。那是我大概10歲時的一次旅行，我 照例坐在后座的長椅上，祖父開著車，祖母坐在他旁邊，吸著煙。我討厭煙味。

At that age，I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage-figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said，every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

在那樣的年紀，我會找任何理由作些估測或者小算術。我會計算油耗還有雜 貨花銷等瑣事。我聽過一個有關吸煙的廣告。但不記得細節了，廣告大意是說，每 吸一口香煙會減少幾分鐘的壽命，大概是兩分鐘。無論如何，我決定為祖母作個估 算。我估測了祖母每天要吸幾支香煙，每支香煙要吸幾口等等，然后心滿意足地得 出了一個合理的數字。接著，我碰了碰坐在前面的祖母的頭,又拍了拍她的肩膀， 然后驕傲地宣稱，“每天吸兩分鐘的煙，你就少活9年!”

I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff，you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said，“Jeff， one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

我清晰地記得接下來發生了什么，而那是我意料之外的。我本期待著小聰明和算術技巧能贏得掌聲，但那并沒有發生。相反，我的祖母哭了起來。之前一直在默 默開車的祖父把車停在了路邊，走下車來，打開了我的車門，等著我跟他下車。我 惹麻煩了嗎？我的祖父是一個智慧而安靜的人。他從來沒有對我說過嚴厲的話，難道 這會是第一次？還是他會讓我回到車上跟祖母道歉?我以前從未遇到過這種狀況，因 而也無從知曉會發生什么。我們在房車旁停下來。祖父注視著我，沉默片刻，然后 輕輕地、平靜地說：“杰夫，有一天你會明白，善良比聰明更難。”

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy, they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

今天我想對你們說的是，天賦和選擇不同。聰明是一種天賦，而善良是一種選 擇。天賦得來很容易——畢竟它們與生俱來.而選擇則頗為不易。如果一不小心， 你可能被天賦所誘惑，這可能會傷害到你作出的選擇。

This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. Fm confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you，re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.

在座各位都擁有許多天賦。我確信你們的天賦之一就是擁有精明能干的頭腦。 之所以如此確信，是因為入學競爭十分激烈，如果你們不能表現出聰明智慧，便沒有資格進入這所學校。

Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans plodding as we are will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coining years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton—all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.

你們的聰明才智必定會有用武之地，因為你們將在一片充滿奇跡的土地上行 進。我們人類，盡管沉重前行，卻終將令自己大吃一驚。我們能夠想方設法制造出 清潔能源，也能夠將原子一個一個地組裝成微型機械，使之穿過細胞壁，然后修復 細胞。這個月，有一個不同尋常卻必然的事情發生了——人類終于合成了生命。在 未來幾年，我們不僅會合成生命，還會按說明書使用它們。我相信你們甚至會看到 我們理解人類的大腦，儒勒凡爾納、馬克吐溫、伽利略、牛頓——所有那些充 滿好奇之心的人都希望能夠活到現在。作為文明人，我們會擁有如此之多的天賦， 就像是坐在我面前的你們，每一個生命個體都擁有許多獨特的天賦。

How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
 

你們要如何運用這些天賦呢？你們會為自己的天賦感到驕傲，還是會為自己的選 擇感到驕傲？
 

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