The Value of Nothing: Out of Nothing Comes Something. That was an essay I wrote when I was 11 years old and I got a B+. (Laughter) What I'm going to talk about: nothing out of something, and how we create. And I'm gonna try and do that within the 18-minute time span that we were told to stay within, and to follow the TED commandments: that is, actually, something that creates a near-death experience, but near-death is good for creativity. (Laughter) OK.
Vrednost ničega: iz ničega nastaje nešto. To je bio sastav koji sam napisala kada mi je bilo 11 godina i dobila sam 4+. (Smeh) O tome ću govoriti: ničemu iz nečega, i načinu na koji stvaramo. I pokušaću da to uradim za 18 minuta, koliko nam je rečeno da imamo, i da se držim TED-ovih zapovesti: to je, zapravo, nešto što dovodi do iskustva sličnog smrti, ali prag smrti je dobar za stvaralaštvo. (Smeh) U redu.
So, I also want to explain, because Dave Eggers said he was going to heckle me if I said anything that was a lie, or not true to universal creativity. And I've done it this way for half the audience, who is scientific. When I say we, I don't mean you, necessarily; I mean me, and my right brain, my left brain and the one that's in between that is the censor and tells me what I'm saying is wrong. And I'm going do that also by looking at what I think is part of my creative process, which includes a number of things that happened, actually -- the nothing started even earlier than the moment in which I'm creating something new. And that includes nature, and nurture, and what I refer to as nightmares.
Dakle, takođe hoću da objasnim, zato što mi je Dejv Egers rekao da će dobacivati iz publike ukoliko kažem bilo kakvu laž, ili neistinu o univerzalnom stvaralaštvu. I to sam učinila na sledeći način za polovinu publike, koja je se bavi naukom. Kada kažem "mi", ne mislim nužno na vas; Mislim na sebe, i svoju desnu hemisferu, i svoju levu hemisferu, i na ono što je između, a što je cenzor i što mi govori da je ono što govorim pogrešno. I učiniću to razmatranjem onoga što smatram delom svog procesa stvaranja, a što podrazumeva mnogo toga što se desilo, zapravo -- ništa je počelo čak i pre trenutka u kome ja stvaram nešto novo. I u to su uključeni priroda i odgoj, i ono što ja nazivam noćnim morama.
Now in the nature area, we look at whether or not we are innately equipped with something, perhaps in our brains, some abnormal chromosome that causes this muse-like effect. And some people would say that we're born with it in some other means. And others, like my mother, would say that I get my material from past lives. Some people would also say that creativity may be a function of some other neurological quirk -- van Gogh syndrome -- that you have a little bit of, you know, psychosis, or depression. I do have to say, somebody -- I read recently that van Gogh wasn't really necessarily psychotic, that he might have had temporal lobe seizures, and that might have caused his spurt of creativity, and I don't -- I suppose it does something in some part of your brain. And I will mention that I actually developed temporal lobe seizures a number of years ago, but it was during the time I was writing my last book, and some people say that book is quite different.
Što se tiče prirode, ispitujemo da li smo ili ne prirodno obdareni nečim, možda u našem mozgu postoji neki abnormalni hromozom koji ima efekat sličan muzi. I neki ljudi kažu da se rodimo sa tim na neki drugi način, dok drugi, kao moja majka, kažu da dobijamo materijal iz prošlih života. Neki ljudi takođe kažu da stvaralaštvo može biti funkcija nekog drugog neurološkog hira -- sindrom van Goga -- koga imate u malim količinama, kao što su psihoza ili depresija. Moram da kažem da neko -- skoro sam pročitala da van Gog nije nužno patio od psihoza, da je moguće da je imao napade temporalnog režnja i da je to izazivalo njegove izlive stvaralaštva, i ne znam -- pretpostavljam da to utiče na nešto u nekim delovima mozga. I pomenuću da sam sam zapravo počela da patim od napada temporalnog režnja pre mnogo godina, a u to vreme sam pisala svoju poslednju knjigu, za koju neki ljudi kažu da je prilično drugačija.
I think that part of it also begins with a sense of identity crisis: you know, who am I, why am I this particular person, why am I not black like everybody else? And sometimes you're equipped with skills, but they may not be the kind of skills that enable creativity. I used to draw. I thought I would be an artist. And I had a miniature poodle. And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't really creative. Because all I could really do was represent in a very one-on-one way. And I have a sense that I probably copied this from a book. And then, I also wasn't really shining in a certain area that I wanted to be, and you know, you look at those scores, and it wasn't bad, but it was not certainly predictive that I would one day make my living out of the artful arrangement of words.
Mislim da to delimično počinje i sa osećanjem krize identiteta: znate, ko sam, zašto sam ja baš ono što jesam, zašto nisam crna kao svi ostali? I ponekad ste obdareni veštinama, ali to možda nisu veštine koje omogućavaju stvaralaštvo. Nekada sam crtala. Mislila sam da ću biti umetnik. I imala sam minijaturnu pudlu. I to nije bilo loše, ali nije bilo ni preterano kreativno. Jer sve što sam umela svodilo se na precrtavanje. I imam osećaj da sam ovo verovatno precrtala iz knjige. Takođe, nisam baš blistala u izvesnoj oblasti u kojoj sam želela, i znate, pogledate rezultate i to nije loše, ali svakako nije ni davalo znakove da ću jednog dana zarađivati od umetničkog raspoređivanja reči.
Also, one of the principles of creativity is to have a little childhood trauma. And I had the usual kind that I think a lot of people had, and that is that, you know, I had expectations placed on me. That figure right there, by the way, figure right there was a toy given to me when I was but nine years old, and it was to help me become a doctor from a very early age. I have some ones that were long lasting: from the age of five to 15, this was supposed to be my side occupation, and it led to a sense of failure.
Takođe, jedan od principa stvaralaštva jeste posedovanje male traume iz detinjstva. I ja sam imala onu uobičajenu, koju verujem da mnogi ljudi imaju, a to je da su pred mene stavljena izvesna očekivanja. Uzgred, ta slika tamo, to je igračka koju sam dobila kada mi je bilo 9 godina i trebalo je da mi pomogne još od malena da postanem lekar. Imam i neke koje su dugo trajale: od pete do petnaeste godine, ovo je trebalo da bude moje sporedno zanimanje i ono je zaslužno za osećanje neuspeha.
But actually, there was something quite real in my life that happened when I was about 14. And it was discovered that my brother, in 1967, and then my father, six months later, had brain tumors. And my mother believed that something had gone wrong, and she was gonna find out what it was, and she was gonna fix it. My father was a Baptist minister, and he believed in miracles, and that God's will would take care of that. But, of course, they ended up dying, six months apart. And after that, my mother believed that it was fate, or curses -- she went looking through all the reasons in the universe why this would have happened. Everything except randomness. She did not believe in randomness. There was a reason for everything. And one of the reasons, she thought, was that her mother, who had died when she was very young, was angry at her. And so, I had this notion of death all around me, because my mother also believed that I would be next, and she would be next. And when you are faced with the prospect of death very soon, you begin to think very much about everything. You become very creative, in a survival sense.
Ali zapravo, postojalo je nešto prilično stvarno u mom životu što se desilo kad mi je bilo 14 godina. 1967. otkriveno je da moj brat ima tumor na mozgu, a šest meseci kasnije, da ga ima i moj otac. Moja majka je verovala da je nešto krenulo naopako, i da će ona saznati šta je to bilo. I da će to popraviti. Moj otac je bio baptistički sveštenik i verovao je u čuda, i da će se to srediti Božijom voljom. Ali naravno, na kraju su, u razmaku od 6 meseci, obojica umrla. Nakon toga, moja majka je verovala da je to bila sudbina, ili prokletstvo -- razmotrila je sve razloge na svetu zbog kojih se to moglo desiti. Sve osim nasumičnosti. Nije verovala u nasumičnost. Za sve je postojao razlog. I jedan od razloga, mislila je ona, je taj što je njena majka, koja je umrla kada je ona bila veoma mlada, bila ljuta na nju. I tako je ta ideja o smrti bila svuda oko mene jer je moja majka takođe verovala da ću ja biti sledeća, a zatim i ona. A kada ste suočeni sa očekivanjem smrti veoma rano, počinjete puno da razmišljate o svemu. Postanete veoma kreativni, u smislu opstanka.
And this, then, led to my big questions. And they're the same ones that I have today. And they are: why do things happen, and how do things happen? And the one my mother asked: how do I make things happen? It's a wonderful way to look at these questions, when you write a story. Because, after all, in that framework, between page one and 300, you have to answer this question of why things happen, how things happen, in what order they happen. What are the influences? How do I, as the narrator, as the writer, also influence that? And it's also one that, I think, many of our scientists have been asking. It's a kind of cosmology, and I have to develop a cosmology of my own universe, as the creator of that universe.
I to je, zatim, dovelo do mojih velikih pitanja. I to su ista pitanja koja i danas imam. To su: zašto se stvari dešavaju i kako se dešavaju? I ono koje je postavila moja majka: kako da učinim da se nešto desi? Divno je razmišljati o ovim pitanjima kada pišete priču. Jer, na kraju krajeva, sa tim pogledom, između strane 1 i 300, morate da odgovorite na pitanje o tome zašto se nešto dešava, kako se dešava, kojim redosledom se dešava. Šta na to utiče? Kako ja, kao pripovedač i pisac, utičem na njih? Mislim da se to pitaju i mnogi naučnici. To je poput kosmologije, a moram razviti kosmologiju sopstvenog svemira, kao neko ko je taj svemir stvorio.
And you see, there's a lot of back and forth in trying to make that happen, trying to figure it out -- years and years, oftentimes. So, when I look at creativity, I also think that it is this sense or this inability to repress, my looking at associations in practically anything in life. And I got a lot of them during what's been going on throughout this conference, almost everything that's been going on.
Kao što vidite, tu je puno premišljanja, pokušaja da se to postigne, pokušaja da se to dokuči -- često su potrebne godine i godine. Kada pogledam stvaralaštvo, takođe mislim da ono predstavlja moju nemogućnost da potisnem asocijacije vezane za gotovo bilo šta u životu. A imala sam ih mnogo tokom svega što se dešavalo na ovoj konferenciji, svega što se uopšte dešavalo.
And so I'm going to use, as the metaphor, this association: quantum mechanics, which I really don't understand, but I'm still gonna use it as the process for explaining how it is the metaphor. So, in quantum mechanics, of course, you have dark energy and dark matter. And it's the same thing in looking at these questions of how things happen. There's a lot of unknown, and you often don't know what it is except by its absence. But when you make those associations, you want them to come together in a kind of synergy in the story, and what you're finding is what matters. The meaning. And that's what I look for in my work, a personal meaning.
Upotrebiću sledeću asocijaciju kao metaforu: kvantna mehanika, koju ja stvarno ne razumem, ali ću je ipak upotrebiti da bih objasnila metaforu. Dakle, u kvantnoj mehanici imate crnu energiju i crnu materiju. A isto važi i za pitanja o tome kako se stvari dešavaju. Ima puno toga nepoznatog, što često spoznajemo samo kroz njegovo odsustvo. Ali kada stvorite te asocijacije, želite da se one spoje u neku vrstu sinergije u priči, i otkrivate ono što je bitno. Značenje. I to je ono što ja tražim u svom radu - lično značenje.
There is also the uncertainty principle, which is part of quantum mechanics, as I understand it. (Laughter) And this happens constantly in the writing. And there's the terrible and dreaded observer effect, in which you're looking for something, and you know, things are happening simultaneously, and you're looking at it in a different way, and you're trying to really look for the about-ness, or what is this story about. And if you try too hard, then you will only write the about. You won't discover anything. And what you were supposed to find, what you hoped to find in some serendipitous way, is no longer there. Now, I don't want to ignore the other side of what happens in our universe, like many of our scientists have. And so, I am going to just throw in string theory here, and just say that creative people are multidimensional, and there are 11 levels, I think, of anxiety. (Laughter) And they all operate at the same time.
Tu je, takođe, i princip neizvesnosti, koji je deo kvantne mehanike, koliko sam razumela. (Smeh) I to se konstantno dešava u pisanju. Tu je i užasni i efekat posmatrača, koga se svi boje, gde tražite nešto i znate, stvari se dešavaju istovremeno, a vi ih posmatrate na drugačiji način i pokušavate da zaista pronađete smisao. Ili o čemu se radi u toj priči. Ali, ako se previše trudite napisaćete samo o čemu se tu radi. Nećete otkriti ništa. A ono što je trebalo da nađete, što ste se nadali da ćete naći, pukom srećom, više nije tamo. Ne bih želela da izostavim drugu stranu onoga što se dešava u našem kosmosu, kao što to čine mnogi naučnici. I zato ću ovde ubaciti teoriju strune i reći da su kreativni ljudi multidimenzionalni i da postoji, čini mi se, jedanaest nivoa anksioznosti. (Smeh) I svi oni deluju istovremeno.
There is also a big question of ambiguity. And I would link that to something called the cosmological constant. And you don't know what is operating, but something is operating there. And ambiguity, to me, is very uncomfortable in my life, and I have it. Moral ambiguity. It is constantly there. And, just as an example, this is one that recently came to me. It was something I read in an editorial by a woman who was talking about the war in Iraq. And she said, "Save a man from drowning, you are responsible to him for life." A very famous Chinese saying, she said. And that means because we went into Iraq, we should stay there until things were solved. You know, maybe even 100 years. So, there was another one that I came across, and it's "saving fish from drowning." And it's what Buddhist fishermen say, because they're not supposed to kill anything. And they also have to make a living, and people need to be fed. So their way of rationalizing that is they are saving the fish from drowning, and unfortunately, in the process the fish die.
Tu je i veliko pitanje dvosmislenosti. To bih povezala sa nečim što se zove kosmološka konstanta. I ne zna se šta deluje, ali tamo nešto deluje. Dvosmislenost je, za mene, vrlo neugodna stvar u životu, jer je i sama imam. Moralnu dvosmislenost. Ona je stalno tu. I kao primer, navešću jednu skorašnju. Bilo je to nešto što sam pročitala u uvodnom članku jedne žene koja je govorila o ratu u Iraku. Ona je rekla: "Spasi čoveka od davljenja i doživotno si odgovoran za njega". To je veoma poznata kineska izreka, rekla je. A to znači da bi, pošto smo išli u Irak, trebalo da tamo ostanemo dok se stvari ne reše. Znate, možda čak i 100 godina. Naišla sam na još jednu koja kaže "spašavanje ribe od davljenja." I to je nešto što budistički ribari kažu, jer ne bi trebalo ništa da ubijaju. Ali oni moraju i da zarade za život, a ljudi se moraju prehraniti. Stoga je njihov način racionalizacije taj da spašavaju ribu od davljenja, a, nažalost, riba u tom procesu ugine.
Now, what's encapsulated in both these drowning metaphors -- actually, one of them is my mother's interpretation, and it is a famous Chinese saying, because she said it to me: "save a man from drowning, you are responsible to him for life." And it was a warning -- don't get involved in other people's business, or you're going to get stuck. OK. I think if somebody really was drowning, she'd save them. But, both of these sayings -- saving a fish from drowning, or saving a man from drowning -- to me they had to do with intentions.
Ono što se nalazi u obema metaforama davljenja -- zapravo, jedna od njih je interpretacija moje majke i to je poznata kineska izreka koju mi je ona rekla: "Spasi čoveka od davljenja i doživotno si odgovoran za njega". I to je bilo upozorenje -- ne mešaj se u tuđa posla, ili ćeš zaglaviti. Dobro. Mislim, kada bi se neko stvarno davio, ona bi ga spasila. Ali obe ove izreke, spašavanje ribe od davljenja, ili spašavanje čoveka od davljenja, su za mene u vezi sa namerama.
And all of us in life, when we see a situation, we have a response. And then we have intentions. There's an ambiguity of what that should be that we should do, and then we do something. And the results of that may not match what our intentions had been. Maybe things go wrong. And so, after that, what are our responsibilities? What are we supposed to do? Do we stay in for life, or do we do something else and justify and say, well, my intentions were good, and therefore I cannot be held responsible for all of it? That is the ambiguity in my life that really disturbed me, and led me to write a book called "Saving Fish From Drowning."
Svi mi, kada u životu vidimo situaciju, imamo odgovor. A imamo i namere. I postoji nedoumica oko toga šta bi trebalo da radimo i onda nešto uradimo. I ishod toga ne mora da se poklopi sa onim što su nam bile namere. Možda stvari krenu naopako. I onda, nakon toga, šta je naša odgovornost? Šta bi trebalo da uradimo? Da li ostajemo u nečemu doživotno, ili radimo nešto drugo i pravdamo se govoreći kako su nam namere bile dobre i kako se, stoga, ne možemo smatrati odgovornim za sve? To je nedoumica u mom životu koja me je zaista potresla i naterala da napišem knjigu "Spašavanje ribe od davljenja".
I saw examples of that. Once I identified this question, it was all over the place. I got these hints everywhere. And then, in a way, I knew that they had always been there. And then writing, that's what happens. I get these hints, these clues, and I realize that they've been obvious, and yet they have not been. And what I need, in effect, is a focus. And when I have the question, it is a focus. And all these things that seem to be flotsam and jetsam in life actually go through that question, and what happens is those particular things become relevant. And it seems like it's happening all the time. You think there's a sort of coincidence going on, a serendipity, in which you're getting all this help from the universe. And it may also be explained that now you have a focus. And you are noticing it more often.
Videla sam primere za ovo čim sam identifikovala pitanje. Bili su svuda. U svemu sam videla nagoveštaje. I onda sam, na neki način znala da su oduvek bili tu. A pisanje, to se jednostavno desi. Vidim te nagoveštaje, tragove, i shvatim da i jesu, i nisu bili očigledni. I ono što mi je zapravo potrebno je fokus. A kada imam pitanje, onda je to fokus. I sve ono za šta se čini da pluta i lebdi u životu zapravo prođe kroz to pitanje, i ono što se dešava postane relevantno. I čini se da se to dešava sve vreme. Pomislite da je u pitanju slučajnost, sreća, pa zbog toga dobijate svu tu pomoć od kosmosa. Ali to se može objasniti i time što imate fokus. I sve češće to primećujete.
But you apply this. You begin to look at things having to do with your tensions. Your brother, who's fallen in trouble, do you take care of him? Why or why not? It may be something that is perhaps more serious -- as I said, human rights in Burma. I was thinking that I shouldn't go because somebody said, if I did, it would show that I approved of the military regime there. And then, after a while, I had to ask myself, "Why do we take on knowledge, why do we take on assumptions that other people have given us?" And it was the same thing that I felt when I was growing up, and was hearing these rules of moral conduct from my father, who was a Baptist minister. So I decided that I would go to Burma for my own intentions, and still didn't know that if I went there, what the result of that would be, if I wrote a book -- and I just would have to face that later, when the time came.
Ali, ako to sada primenimo. Počinjete da posmatrate stvari vezane za vašu napetost. Vaš brat, koji je zapao u nevolje, da li se starate o njemu? Zašto ili zašto ne? Može to biti i nešto ozbiljnije -- kao što sam rekla, ljudska prava u Burmi. Mislila sam da ne treba da odem jer je neko rekao kako bih time pokazala da podržavam tamošnji vojni režim. A onda sam se nakon izvesnog vremena zapitala, "Zašto preuzimamo znanje i pretpostavke koje dolaze od drugih ljudi?" Tako sam se osećala i dok sam odrastala i slušala razna pravila moralnog ponašanja od svog oca, koji je bio baptistički svečtenik. Tako sam odlučila da odem u Burmu zbog sopstvenih namera, i dalje ne znajući ukoliko odem tamo, šta će se desiti ukoliko napišem knjigu -- i da ću sa time morati da se suočim naknadno, kada dođe vreme.
We are all concerned with things that we see in the world that we are aware of. We come to this point and say, what do I as an individual do? Not all of us can go to Africa, or work at hospitals, so what do we do, if we have this moral response, this feeling? Also, I think one of the biggest things we are all looking at, and we talked about today, is genocide. This leads to this question. When I look at all these things that are morally ambiguous and uncomfortable, and I consider what my intentions should be, I realize it goes back to this identity question that I had when I was a child -- and why am I here, and what is the meaning of my life, and what is my place in the universe?
Svi smo mi zabrinuti zbog stvari koje vidimo u svetu i kojih smo svesni. Dođemo do tačke kada pitamo šta mi, kao pojedinci, radimo. Ne možemo svi otići u Afriku, ili raditi u bolnicama, ali šta da radimo ako imamo tu moralnu odgovornost, to osećanje? Takođe, jedna od najvažnijih stvari sa kojom smo suočeni i o kojoj smo danas pričali jeste genocid. To otvara sledeće pitanje, kada pogledam sve ono što je moralno dvosmisleno i neprijatno i razmislim kakve bi moje namere trebalo da budu, shvatam da to ima koren u pitanju identiteta koje sam imala kao dete -- i zašto sam ovde, i koja je svrha života, i gde je moje mesto u svemiru.
It seems so obvious, and yet it is not. We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin. Sometimes I get help from the universe, it seems. My mother would say it was the ghost of my grandmother from the very first book, because it seemed I knew things I was not supposed to know. Instead of writing that the grandmother died accidentally, from an overdose of opium, while having too much of a good time, I actually put down in the story that the woman killed herself, and that actually was the way it happened. And my mother decided that that information must have come from my grandmother.
Čini se tako očiglednim, a zapravo nije. Svi mi mrzimo moralne nedoumice na neki način, a ipak, one su apsolutno neophodne. U pisanju, to je ono od čega ja počinjem. Nekada se čini da mi pomaže kosmos. Moja majka bi rekla da je to bio duh moje bake još od prve knjige, jer se činilo da znam stvari koje u to vreme nije trebalo da znam. Umesto da napišem kako je baka umrla slučajno, predozirana opijumom dok se ludo zabavljala, ja sam u priči napisala da se žena ubila i to je ono što se stvarno desilo. I moja majka je smatrala da je ta informacija nužno potekla od moje bake.
There are also things, quite uncanny, which bring me information that will help me in the writing of the book. In this case, I was writing a story that included some kind of detail, period of history, a certain location. And I needed to find something historically that would match that. And I took down this book, and I -- first page that I flipped it to was exactly the setting, and the time period, and the kind of character I needed -- was the Taiping rebellion, happening in the area near Guilin, outside of that, and a character who thought he was the son of God.
Postoje i stvari, prilično nobične, koje mi daju informacije i pomažu u pisanju knjiga. U ovom slučaju, pisala sam priču koja je u sebi imala jedan detalj, istorijski period, određenu lokaciju. I bilo mi je potrebno da saznam nešto što bi se istorijski poklapalo sa tim. I uzela sam jednu knjigu, i -- prva strana koju sam okrenula bila je baš o toj lokaciji i periodu. Trebao mi je lik iz ustanka u Taipingu, koji se dogodio u oblasti blizu Guilina, lik koji je mislio da je Božiji sin.
You wonder, are these things random chance? Well, what is random? What is chance? What is luck? What are things that you get from the universe that you can't really explain? And that goes into the story, too. These are the things I constantly think about from day to day. Especially when good things happen, and, in particular, when bad things happen. But I do think there's a kind of serendipity, and I do want to know what those elements are, so I can thank them, and also try to find them in my life. Because, again, I think that when I am aware of them, more of them happen.
Pitate se da li su ovakve stvari slučajnost? Pa, šta je nasumičnost? Šta je slučajnost? Šta je sreća? Šta su sve te stvari koje dobijamo iz kosmosa, a koje ne možemo da objasnimo? To je, takođe, deo priče. Postoje stvari o kojima stalno razmišljam. Naročito kada se lepe stvari dese, a posebno kada se ružne stvari dese. Ali mislim da svakako postoji slučajnost i želim znati koji su to elementi, kako bih mogla da im zahvalim, ali i da ih pronađem tokom života. Jer, smatram da kada sam ih svesna, onda se češče dešavaju.
Another chance encounter is when I went to a place -- I just was with some friends, and we drove randomly to a different place, and we ended up in this non-tourist location, a beautiful village, pristine. And we walked three valleys beyond, and the third valley, there was something quite mysterious and ominous, a discomfort I felt. And then I knew that had to be [the] setting of my book. And in writing one of the scenes, it happened in that third valley. For some reason I wrote about cairns -- stacks of rocks -- that a man was building. And I didn't know exactly why I had it, but it was so vivid. I got stuck, and a friend, when she asked if I would go for a walk with her dogs, that I said, sure. And about 45 minutes later, walking along the beach, I came across this. And it was a man, a Chinese man, and he was stacking these things, not with glue, not with anything. And I asked him, "How is it possible to do this?" And he said, "Well, I guess with everything in life, there's a place of balance." And this was exactly the meaning of my story at that point. I had so many examples -- I have so many instances like this, when I'm writing a story, and I cannot explain it. Is it because I had the filter that I have such a strong coincidence in writing about these things? Or is it a kind of serendipity that we cannot explain, like the cosmological constant?
Još jedan slučajni susret desio se kada sam otišla na jedno mesto -- bila sam sa prijateljima i odvezli smo se, nasumično, na neko mesto i završili na nekoj lokaciji koja nije turistička, u prelepom, starom selu. Prešli smo tri doline iza njega, i na trećoj je bilo nečeg misterioznog i zloslutnog, osetila sam neugodnost. I znala sam da to mora biti mesto radnje u mojoj knjizi. Jedna od scena o kojoj sam pisala odigrala se u toj trećoj dolini. Iz nekog razloga pisala sam o kamenim formacijama koje je pravio čovek. Nisam znala tačno zbog čega, ali slika je bila tako živopisna. Zapela sam i prijateljica me je pitala da li bih prošetala njene pse, na šta sam pristala. Oko 45 minuta kasnije, šetajući plažom, naišla sam na ovo. To je bio čovek, Kinez, koji je slagao ove stvari, bez lepka, bez ičega. Pitala sam ga kako je moguće napraviti to. A on je rekao da kao i za sve u životu, postoji tačka ravnoteže. I upravo to je bila suština moje priče u tom trenutku. Imala sam toliko primera -- imam toliko takvih primera kada pišem priču i ne mogu to da objasnim. Da li imam filter za ovakve snažne slučajnosti dok pišem o tim stvarima? Ili je u pitanju slučajna sreća koju ne mogu da objasnim, kao kosmološka konstanta?
A big thing that I also think about is accidents. And as I said, my mother did not believe in randomness. What is the nature of accidents? And how are we going to assign what the responsibility and the causes are, outside of a court of law? I was able to see that in a firsthand way, when I went to beautiful Dong village, in Guizhou, the poorest province of China. And I saw this beautiful place. I knew I wanted to come back. And I had a chance to do that, when National Geographic asked me if I wanted to write anything about China. And I said yes, about this village of singing people, singing minority. And they agreed, and between the time I saw this place and the next time I went, there was a terrible accident. A man, an old man, fell asleep, and his quilt dropped in a pan of fire that kept him warm. 60 homes were destroyed, and 40 were damaged. Responsibility was assigned to the family. The man's sons were banished to live three kilometers away, in a cowshed. And, of course, as Westerners, we say, "Well, it was an accident. That's not fair. It's the son, not the father."
Još jedna stvar o kojoj razmišljam su nesreće. Kao što sam rekla, moja majka nije verovala u nasumičnost. Koja je priroda nesreća? I kako odrediti odgovornost i uzroke, van suda? Imala sam priliku da to vidim lično, kada sam bila u prelepom selu Dong, u Guidžou, najsiromašnijoj oblasti u Kini. I videla sam jedno divno mesto. Znala sam da želim da se vratim. I imala sam priliku da to uradim kada su me iz Nacionalne geografije pitali da li hoću da napišem nešto o Kini. Rekla sam da hoću, o Singing manjini. Oni su se složili, ali od prethodnog puta kada sam tamo bila desila se strašna nesreća. Jedan starac je zaspao i njegov pokrivač je upao u vatru koja ga je grejala. Šezdeset domova je uništeno, a 40 oštećeno. Odgovornost je bila na toj porodici. Starčevi sinovi su prognani i žive u štali udaljenoj 3 km. Naravno, kao zapadnjaci, mi kažemo: "Pa, to je bila nesreća. To nije fer. Kriv je otac, a ne sin."
When I go on a story, I have to let go of those kinds of beliefs. It takes a while, but I have to let go of them and just go there, and be there. And so I was there on three occasions, different seasons. And I began to sense something different about the history, and what had happened before, and the nature of life in a very poor village, and what you find as your joys, and your rituals, your traditions, your links with other families. And I saw how this had a kind of justice, in its responsibility. I was able to find out also about the ceremony that they were using, a ceremony they hadn't used in about 29 years. And it was to send some men -- a Feng Shui master sent men down to the underworld on ghost horses. Now you, as Westerners, and I, as Westerners, would say well, that's superstition. But after being there for a while, and seeing the amazing things that happened, you begin to wonder whose beliefs are those that are in operation in the world, determining how things happen.
I kada pišem priču, moram da se otarasim takvih verovanja. Potrebno je vreme, ali moram da ih odbacim i jednostavno budem tamo. I bila sam tamo triput, uvek u različito godišnje doba. I počela sam da osećam nešto drugačije u vezi sa istorijom i onim što se dešavalo pre, kao i životom u veoma siromašnom selu i onime što neko smatra svojom radošću, ritualima, tradicijom, vezama sa drugim porodicama. I uvidela sam da postoji pravda u toj odgovornosti. Saznala sam i o obredu koji imaju, obredu koji nisu koristili 29 godina. Služio je da pošalje neke ljude -- majstor Feng Šuia je poslao neke ljude u podzemlje na avetinjskim konjima. Vi i ja, kao zapadnjaci bismo rekli da je to sujeverje. Ali nakon nekog vremena provedenog tamo i neverovatnih stvari koje su se desile, zapitate se čija verovanja važe u svetu i koja određuju kako se stvari dešavaju.
So I remained with them, and the more I wrote that story, the more I got into those beliefs, and I think that's important for me -- to take on the beliefs, because that is where the story is real, and that is where I'm gonna find the answers to how I feel about certain questions that I have in life. Years go by, of course, and the writing, it doesn't happen instantly, as I'm trying to convey it to you here at TED. The book comes and it goes. When it arrives, it is no longer my book. It is in the hands of readers, and they interpret it differently. But I go back to this question of, how do I create something out of nothing? And how do I create my own life?
I tako sam ostala sa njima, i što sam više pisala tu priču, to sam se više priklanjala tim verovanjima, i mislim da je bitno za mene -- da preuzimam verovanja, jer tako priča postaje stvarna i tu ću naći odgovore na pitanja koja imam u životu. Godine prolaze, naravno, i pisanje je dugotrajan proces, što pokušavam da objasnim i vama na TED konferenciji. Knjiga dođe i prođe. Kada je gotova, to više nije moja knjiga. Ona je u rukama čitalaca i svako je drugačije tumači. Ali, ja se vratim na pitanje kako stvaram nešto ni iz čega. I kako stvorim sopstveni život?
And I think it is by questioning, and saying to myself that there are no absolute truths. I believe in specifics, the specifics of story, and the past, the specifics of that past, and what is happening in the story at that point. I also believe that in thinking about things -- my thinking about luck, and fate, and coincidences and accidents, God's will, and the synchrony of mysterious forces -- I will come to some notion of what that is, how we create. I have to think of my role. Where I am in the universe, and did somebody intend for me to be that way, or is it just something I came up with? And I also can find that by imagining fully, and becoming what is imagined -- and yet is in that real world, the fictional world. And that is how I find particles of truth, not the absolute truth, or the whole truth. And they have to be in all possibilities, including those I never considered before.
Mislim da to činim preispitivanjem i ubeđivanjem sebe u to da nema apsolutnih istina. Verujem u pojedinosti, pojedinosti priče; u prošlost, pojedinosti prošlosti, i ono što se u tom trenutku dešava u priči. Takođe verujem da ću razmišljajući o stvarima, o sreći, sudbini, slučajnosti i nesrećama, Božijoj volji i sinhroniji misterioznih sila, doći do neke ideje o tome kako stvaramo. Moram da razmišljam o svojoj ulozi. Gde sam u kosmosu i da li sam ovakva po nečijem planu ili sam sama do toga došla? I do toga mogu doći kroz maštu i postajući ono što je izmišljeno, u stvarnom, odnosno imaginarnom svetu. I tako nalazim deliće istine, ne apsolutnu istinu, ne celu istinu. I oni moraju biti u svim mogućnostima, uključujući i one koje ranije nisam razmatrala.
So, there are never complete answers. Or rather, if there is an answer, it is to remind myself that there is uncertainty in everything, and that is good, because then I will discover something new. And if there is a partial answer, a more complete answer from me, it is to simply imagine. And to imagine is to put myself in that story, until there was only -- there is a transparency between me and the story that I am creating.
Dakle, nema potpunih odgovora. Ili, ukoliko postoji odgovor, on služi da nas podseti da postoji nesigurnost u svemu, i to je dobro. Jer tada ću otkriti nešto novo. I ukoliko ima delimičnog odgovora, potpuniji odgovora je, po mom mičljenju, da jednostavno maštate. Maštanjem stavljam sebe u priču, dok se potpuno ne stopim sa pričom koju stvaram.
And that's how I've discovered that if I feel what is in the story -- in one story -- then I come the closest, I think, to knowing what compassion is, to feeling that compassion. Because for everything, in that question of how things happen, it has to do with the feeling. I have to become the story in order to understand a lot of that. We've come to the end of the talk, and I will reveal what is in the bag, and it is the muse, and it is the things that transform in our lives, that are wonderful and stay with us. There she is. Thank you very much! (Applause)
I tako sam otkrila da ukoliko osećam ono što je u priči -- u jednoj priči -- onda se približavam, saznanju o tome šta je saosećanje, osećanju saosećanja. Sve vezano za pitanje kako se stvari dešavaju ima veze sa tim osećanjem. Moram postati priča da bih to razumela. Došli smo do kraja govora, i ja ću otkriti šta je u torbi, a to je muza, i upravo one stvari koje menjaju naš život, one koje su divne i koje ostaju sa nama. Evo je. Hvala vam puno! (Aplauz)