TED英語演講稿：擁抱他人，擁抱自己

Thandie Newton Embracing otherness, embracing myself

擁抱他人，擁抱自己

Embracing otherness. When I first heard this theme, I thought, well, embracing otherness is embracing myself. And the journey to that place of understanding and acceptance has been an interesting one for me, and it's given me an insight into the whole notion of self, which I think is worth sharing with you today.

擁抱他類。當我第一次聽說這個主題時，我心想，擁抱他類不就是擁抱自己嗎。我個人懂得理解和接受他類的經歷很有趣，讓我對於“自己”這個詞也有了新的認識，我想今天在這裏和你們分享下我的心得體會。

We each have a self, but I don't think that we're born with one. You know how newborn babies believe they're part of everything; they're not separate? Well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly. It's like that initial stage is over -- oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive. It's no longer valid or real. What is real is separateness, and at some point in early babyhood, the idea of self starts to form. Our little portion of oneness is given a name, is told all kinds of things about itself, and these details, opinions and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, our identity. And that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world. But the self is a projection based on other people's projections. Is it who we really are? Or who we really want to be, or should be?

我們每個人都有個自我，但並不是生來就如此的。你知道新生的寶寶們覺得他們是任何東西的一部分，而不是分裂的個體。這種本源上的“天人合一”感在我們出生後很快就不見了，就好像我們人生的第一個篇章--和諧統一：嬰兒，未成形，原始--結束了。它們似幻似影，而現實的世界是孤獨彼此分離的。而在孩童期的某段時間，我們開始形成自我這個觀點。宇宙中的小小個體有了自己的名字，有了自己的過去等等各種信息。這些關於自己的細節，看法和觀點慢慢變成事實，成爲我們身份的一部分。而那個自我，也變成我們人生路上前行的導航儀。然後，這個所謂的自我，是他人自我的映射，還是我們真實的自己呢?我們究竟想成爲什麼樣，應該成爲什麼樣的呢?

So this whole interaction with self and identity was a very difficult one for me growing up. The self that I attempted to take out into the world was rejected over and over again. And my panic at not having a self that fit, and the confusion that came from my self being rejected, created anxiety, shame and hopelessness, which kind of defined me for a long time. But in retrospect, the destruction of my self was so repetitive that I started to see a pattern. The self changed, got affected, broken, destroyed, but another one would evolve -- sometimes stronger, sometimes hateful, sometimes not wanting to be there at all. The self was not constant. And how many times would my self have to die before I realized that it was never alive in the first place?

這個和自我打交道，尋找自己身份的過程在我的成長記憶中一點都不容易。我想成爲的那些“自我”不斷被否定再否定，而我害怕自己無法融入周遭的環境，因被否定而引起的困惑讓我變得更加憂慮，感到羞恥和無望，在很長一段時間就是我存在狀態。然而回頭看，對自我的解構是那麼頻繁，以至於我發現了這樣一種規律。自我是變化的，受他人影響，分裂或被打敗，而另一個自我會產生，這個自我可能更堅強，可能更可憎，有時你也不想變成那樣。所謂自我不是固定不變的。而我需要經歷多少次自我的破碎重生纔會明白其實自我從來沒有存在過?

I grew up on the coast of England in the '70s. My dad is white from Cornwall, and my mom is black from Zimbabwe. Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people. But nature had its wicked way, and brown babies were born. But from about the age of five, I was aware that I didn't fit. I was the black atheist kid in the all-white Catholic school run by nuns. I was an anomaly, and my self was rooting around for definition and trying to plug in. Because the self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong. That confirms its existence and its importance. And it is important. It has an extremely important function. Without it, we literally can't interface with others. We can't hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success. But my skin color wasn't right. My hair wasn't right. My history wasn't right. My self became defined by otherness, which meant that, in that social world, I didn't really exist. And I was "other" before being anything else -- even before being a girl. I was a noticeable nobody.

我在70年代英格蘭海邊長大，我的父親是康沃爾的白人，母親是津巴布韋的黑人。而想象我和父母是一家人對於其他人來說總是不太自然。自然有它自己的魔術，棕色皮膚的寶寶誕生了。但 從我五歲開始，我就有種感覺我不是這個羣體的。我是一個全白人天主教會學校裏面黑皮膚無神論小孩。我與他人是不同的，而那個熱衷於歸屬的自我卻到處尋找方式尋找歸屬感。這種認同感讓自我感受到存在感和重要性，因此十分重要。這點是如此重要，如果沒有自我，我們根本無法與他人溝通。沒有它，我們無所適從，無法獲取成功或變得受人歡迎。但我的膚色不對，我的頭髮不對，我的過去不對，我的一切都是另類定義的，在這個社會裏，我其實並不真實存在。我首先是個異類，其次纔是個女孩。我是可見卻毫無意義的人。

Another world was opening up around this time: performance and dancing. That nagging dread of self-hood didn't exist when I was dancing. I'd literally lose myself. And I was a really good dancer. I would put all my emotional expression into my dancing. I could be in the movement in a way that I wasn't able to be in my real life, in myself.

這時候，另一個世界向我敞開了大門：舞蹈表演。那種關於自我的嘮叨恐懼在舞蹈時消失了，我放開四肢，也成爲了一位不錯的舞者。我將所有的情緒都融入到舞蹈的動作中去，我可以在舞蹈中與自己相溶，儘管在現實生活中卻無法做到。

And at 16, I stumbled across another opportunity, and I earned my first acting role in a film. I can hardly find the words to describe the peace I felt when I was acting. My dysfunctional self could actually plug in to another self, not my own, and it felt so good. It was the first time that I existed inside a fully-functioning self -- one that I controlled, that I steered, that I gave life to. But the shooting day would end, and I'd return to my gnarly, awkward self.

16歲的時候，我遇到了另一個機會，第一部參演的電影。我無法用語言來表達在演戲的時候我所感受到的平和，我無處着落的自我可以與那個角色融爲一體，而不是我自己。那感覺真棒。這是第一次我感覺到我擁有一個自我，我可以駕馭，令其富有盛名的自我。然而當拍攝結束，我又會回到自己粗糙不明，笨拙的自我。

By 19, I was a fully-fledged movie actor, but still searching for definition. I applied to read anthropology at university. Dr. Phyllis Lee gave me my interview, and she asked me, "How would you define race?" Well, I thought I had the answer to that one, and I said, "Skin color." "So biology, genetics?" she said. "Because, Thandie, that's not accurate. Because there's actually more genetic difference between a black Kenyan and a black Ugandan than there is between a black Kenyan and, say, a white Norwegian. Because we all stem from Africa. So in Africa, there's been more time to create genetic diversity." In other words, race has no basis in biological or scientific fact. On the one hand, result. Right? On the other hand, my definition of self just lost a huge chunk of its credibility. But what was credible, what is biological and scientific fact, is that we all stem from Africa -- in fact, from a woman called Mitochondrial Eve who lived 160,000 years ago. And race is an illegitimate concept which our selves have created based on fear and ignorance.

19歲的時候，我已經是富有經驗的專業電影演員，而我還是在尋找自我的定義。我申請了大學的人類學專業。Phyllis Lee博士面試了我，她問我：“你怎麼定義種族?”我覺得我很瞭解這個話題，我說：“膚色。”“那麼生物上來說呢，例如遺傳基因?”她說，“Thandie 膚色並不全面，其實一個肯尼亞黑人和烏干達黑人之間基因差異比一個肯尼亞黑人和挪威白人之間差異要更多。因爲我們都是從非洲來的，所以在非洲，基因變異演化的時間是最久的。”換句話說，種族在生物學或任何科學上都沒有事實根據。另一方面，我對於自我的定義瞬時失去了一大片基礎。 但那就是生物學事實，我們都是非洲後裔，一位在160 02019年前的偉大女性Mitochondrial Eve的後人。而種族這個無效的概念是我們基於恐懼和無知自己捏造出來的。

Strangely, these revelations didn't cure my low self-esteem, that feeling of otherness. My desire to disappear was still very powerful. I had a degree from Cambridge; I had a thriving career, but my self was a car crash, and I wound up with bulimia and on a therapist's couch. And of course I did. I still believed my self was all I was. I still valued self-worth above all other worth, and what was there to suggest otherwise? We've created entire value systems and a physical reality to support the worth of self. Look at the industry for self-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over. We'd be right in assuming that the self is an actual living thing. But it's not. It's a projection which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from the reality of death.

奇怪的是，這個發現並沒有治好我的自卑，那種被排擠的感覺。我還是那麼強烈地想要離開消失。我從劍橋拿到了學位，我有份充滿發展的工作，然而我的自我還是一團糟，我得了催吐病不得不接受治療師的幫助。我還是相信自我是我的全部。我還是堅信“自我”的價值甚過一切。而且我們身處的世界就是如此，我們的整個價值系統和現實環境都是在服務“自我”的價值。看看不同行業裏面對於自我的塑造，看看它們創造的那些工作，產出的那些利潤。我們甚至必須相信自我是真實存在的。但它們不是，自我不過是我們聰明的腦袋假想出來騙自己不去思考死亡這個話題的幌子。

But there is something that can give the self ultimate and infinite connection -- and that thing is oneness, our essence. The self's struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator -- to you and to me. And that can happen with awareness -- awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood. For a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves. It happens when I dance, when I'm acting. I'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended. In those moments, I'm connected to everything -- the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy from the audience. All my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as an infant might feel -- that feeling of oneness.

但其實我們的終極自我其實是我們的本源，合一。掙扎自我是否真實，究竟是什麼永遠沒有終結，除非它和賦予它意義的創造者合一，就是你和我。而這點當我們意識到現實是你中有我，我中有你，和諧統一，而自我是種假象時就會體會到了。我們可以想想，什麼時候我們是身心統一的，例如說我跳舞，表演的時候，我和我的本源連結，而我的自我被拋在一邊。那時，我和身邊的一切--空氣，大地，聲音，觀衆的反饋都連結在一起。我的知覺是敏銳和鮮活的，就像初生的嬰兒那樣，合一。

And when I'm acting a role, I inhabit another self, and I give it life for awhile, because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and judgment. And I've played everything from a vengeful ghost in the time of slavery to Secretary of State in 2019. And no matter how other these selves might be, they're all related in me. And I honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and my progress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure. I always wondered why I could feel others' pain so deeply, why I could recognize the somebody in the nobody. It's because I didn't have a self to get in the way. I thought I lacked substance, and the fact that I could feel others' meant that I had nothing of myself to feel. The thing that was a source of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.

當我在演戲的時候，我讓另一個自我住在我體內，我代表它行動。當我的自我被拋開，緊隨的分歧和主觀判斷也消失了。我曾經扮演過奴隸時代的復仇鬼魂，也扮演過2019年的國務卿。不管他們這些自我是怎樣的，他們都在那時與我相連。而我也深信作爲演員，我的成功，或是作爲個體，我的成長都是源於我缺乏“自我”，那種缺乏曾經讓我非常憂慮和不安。我總是不明白爲什麼我會那麼深地感受到他人的痛苦，爲什麼我可以從不知名的人身上看出他人的印痕。是因爲我沒有所謂的自我來左右我感受的信息吧。我以爲我缺少些什麼，我以爲我對他人的理解是因爲我缺乏自我。那個曾經是我深感羞恥的東西其實是種啓示。

And when I realized and really understood that my self is a projection and that it has a function, a funny thing happened. I stopped giving it so much authority. I give it its due. I take it to therapy. I've become very familiar with its dysfunctional behavior. But I'm not ashamed of my self. In fact, I respect my self and its function. And over time and with practice, I've tried to live more and more from my essence. And if you can do that, incredible things happen.

當我真的理解我的自我不過是種映射，是種工具，一件奇怪的事情發生了。我不再讓它過多控制我的生活。我學習管理它，像把它帶去看醫生一樣，我很熟悉那些因自我而失調的舉動。我不因自我而羞恥，事實上，我很尊敬我的自我和它的功能。而隨着時間過去，我的技術也更加熟練，我可以更多的和我的本源共存。如果你願意嘗試，不可以思議的事情也會發生在你身上。

I was in Congo in February, dancing and celebrating with women who've survived the destruction of their selves in literally unthinkable ways -- destroyed because other brutalized, psychopathic selves all over that beautiful land are fueling our selves' addiction to iPods, Pads, and bling, which further disconnect ourselves from ever feeling their pain, their suffering, their death. Because, hey, if we're all living in ourselves and mistaking it for life, then we're devaluing and desensitizing life. And in that disconnected state, yeah, we can build factory farms with no windows, destroy marine life and use rape as a weapon of war. So here's a note to self: The cracks have started to show in our constructed world, and oceans will continue to surge through the cracks, and oil and blood, rivers of it.

今年二月，我在剛果和一羣女性一起跳舞和慶祝，她們都是經歷過各種無法想象事情“自我”遍體鱗傷的人們，那些備受摧殘，心理變態的自我充斥在這片美麗的土地，而我們仍癡迷地追逐着ipod，pad等各種閃亮的東西，將我們與他們的痛苦，死亡隔得更遠。如果我們各自生活在自我中，並無以爲這就是生活，那麼我們是在貶低和遠離生命的意義。在這種脫節的狀態中，我們是可以建設沒有窗戶的工廠，破壞海洋生態，將奸作爲戰爭的工具。爲我們的自我做個解釋：這是看似完善的世界裏的裂痕，海洋，河流，石油和鮮血正不斷地從縫中涌出。

Crucially, we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness with the Earth and every other living thing. We've just been insanely trying to figure out how to live with each other -- billions of each other. Only we're not living with each other; our crazy selves are living with each other and perpetuating an epidemic of disconnection.

關鍵的是，我們還沒有明白如何和自然以及其他所有生物和諧地共處。我們只是瘋狂地想和其他人溝通，幾十億其他人。只有當我們不在和世界合一的時候，我們瘋狂的自我卻互相憐惜，並永遠繼續這場相互隔絕的疫症。

Let's live with each other and take it a breath at a time. If we can get under that heavy self, light a torch of awareness, and find our essence, our connection to the infinite and every other living thing. We knew it from the day we were born. Let's not be freaked out by our bountiful nothingness. It's more a reality than the ones our selves have created. Imagine what kind of existence we can have if we honor inevitable death of self, appreciate the privilege of life and marvel at what comes next. Simple awareness is where it begins.

讓我們共生共榮，並不要太過激進着急。試着放下沉重的自我，點亮知覺的火把，尋找我們的本源，我們與萬事萬物之間的聯繫。我們初生時就懂得這個道理的。不要被我們內心豐富的空白嚇到，這比我們虛構的自我要真實。想象如果你能接受自我並不存在，你想要如何生活，感恩生命的可貴和未來的驚奇。簡單的覺醒就是開始。

Thank you for listening.

(Applause) 謝謝。

(鼓掌)