[Oliver Jeffers]
【奥利弗·杰弗斯 】
[An ode to living on Earth]
【地球礼赞】
Hello. I'm sure by the time I get to end of this sentence, given how I talk, you'll all have figured out that I'm from a place called planet Earth. Earth is pretty great. It's home to us. And germs. Those [blip] take a back seat for the time being, because believe it or not, they're not the only thing going on.
你好。 相信当我说完这句话—— 根据我的说话方式—— 你们就已经知道 我来自一个地方: 地球。 地球很伟大。 她孕育了我们, 和细菌。 你这个混蛋 现在最好给我消停点儿, 眼下已经够乱的了。
This planet is also home to cars, brussels sprouts; those weird fish things that have their own headlights; art, fire, fire extinguishers, laws, pigeons, bottles of beer, lemons and light bulbs; Pinot noir and paracetamol; ghosts, mosquitoes, flamingos, flowers, the ukulele, elevators and cats, cat videos, the internet; iron beams, buildings and batteries, all ingenuity and bright ideas, all known life ... and a whole bunch of other stuff. Pretty much everything we know and ever heard of. It's my favorite place, actually. This small orb, floating in a cold and lonely part of the cosmos. Oh, the accent is from Belfast, by the way, which is ... here. Roughly.
这颗星球还孕育了 汽车、抱子甘蓝; 那种自带头灯的奇怪鱼类; 艺术、火、 灭火器、 法律、鸽子、啤酒瓶、 柠檬和灯泡; 黑比诺葡萄酒和扑热息痛; 鬼、蚊子、火烈鸟、鲜花; 尤克里里、电梯和猫, 猫视频、互联网; 铁梁、建筑和电池, 所有创造力和奇思妙想, 所有已知的生命······ 和一大堆其他东西。 几乎所有我们已知 或听说过的东西。 事实上,这是我最爱的地方。 这个小圆球。 在宇宙中一个孤单冷清的 角落里转动着。 随便一提, 我的口音来自贝尔法斯特。 差不多······ 在这儿吧。
You may think you know this planet Earth, as you're from here. But chances are, you probably haven't thought about the basics in a while. I thought I knew it. Thought I was an expert, even. Until, that is, I had to explain the entire place, and how it's supposed to work, to someone who had never been here before. Not what you might think, although my dad always did say the sure sign of intelligent life out there is that they haven't bothered trying to contact us. It was actually my newborn son I was trying to explain things to. We'd never been parents before, my wife and I, and so treated him like most guests when he arrived home for the first time, by giving him the tour. This is where you live, son. This room is where we make food at. This is the room we keep our collection of chairs, and so on. It's refreshing, explaining how our planet works to a zero-year-old. But after the laughs, and once the magnitude that new humans know absolutely nothing settles on you and how little you know either, explaining the whole planet becomes quite intimidating. But I tried anyway.
你可能觉得你很了解地球, 因为你从这儿来的。 但是很可能, 你有阵子没思考过 这些基本问题了。 我以为我了解它。 甚至觉得自己是地球专家。 直到我不得不向 第一次来地球的人 介绍这个地方, 解释它如何运行。 不是你想的那样。 虽然,我父亲的确说过, 智慧生命存在 最确凿的证据就是, 他们从来不屑于联系我们。 我解释的对象是 我刚出生的儿子。 我和我的太太 都是第一次当父母。 所以,我们像对待大多数 第一次来拜访的客人一样 带他参观了我们的家。 这是你住的地方,儿子。 这是我们做饭的房间。 这是我们放凳子的房间,等等。 对一个新生儿解释 地球怎样运行, 感觉很新奇。 但玩闹过后, 当你渐渐意识到 这个新人类对地球一无所知, 而你自己也不太了解, 解释整个星球这件事 就开始变得让人望而生畏。 但我还是试着进行了解释。
As I walked around those first few weeks, narrating the world as I saw it, I began to take notes of the ridiculous things I was saying. The notes slowly morphed into a letter intended for my son once he learned to read. And that letter became a book about the basic principles of what it is to be a human living on Earth in the 21st century. Some things are really obvious. Like, the planet is made of two parts: land and sea. Some less obvious until you think about them. Like, time. Things can sometimes move slowly here on Earth. But more often, they move quickly. So use your time well, it will be gone before you know it. Or people. People come in all different shapes, sizes and colors. We may all look different, act different and sound different, but don't be fooled. We are all people.
最开始的那几周, 我一边推着他四处溜达, 一边跟他解释我看见的世界, 我开始记录我说的 那些奇奇怪怪的话。 这些笔记慢慢地汇集成一封信, 我想在儿子学会识字后 把这封信给他, 后来那封信又变成一本书, 描写在 21 世纪, 在地球上生存着的人类 所遵循的基本规律。 有的规律非常明显, 比如,地球是由两个部分组成的: 陆地和海洋。 有的规律却没那么明显, 需要你主动思考, 比如,时间。 它有时过得很慢, 但大部分时候,它都过得很快。 所以你要好好利用时间, 否则不经意间它就溜走了。 又或者是,人。 身形、胖瘦和肤色各异的人。 或许我们长得不一样, 行为和声音也不一样, 但不要被表象所迷惑, 我们都是人。
It doesn't skip me that of all the places in the universe, people only live on Earth, can only live on Earth. And even then, only on some of the dry bits. There's only a very small part of the surface of our planet that is actually habitable to human life, and squeezed in here is where all of us live. It's easy to forget when you're up close to the dirt, the rocks, the foliage, the concrete of our lands, just how limited the room for maneuvering is. From a set of eyes close to the ground, the horizon feels like it goes forever. After all, it's not an every-day ritual to consider where we are on the ball of our planet and where that ball is in space.
我很清楚, 在茫茫宇宙中, 人只存在于地球上, 也只能在地球上生存, 而且还只能在陆地上生存。 在地球的表面, 只有小小的一部分 适合人类栖居, 我们就挤在那儿, 那儿就是我们的家。 我们很容易忘记, 特别是当你离地面—— 土地、岩石和植物——很近时, 人类能操控的空间 是多么的有限。 从贴近地面的角度远眺, 地平线似乎无边无际。 毕竟,我们也不会每天都思考 我们位于地球上的什么位置, 而地球又位于宇宙中的什么位置。
I didn't want to tell my son the same story of countries that we were told where I was growing up in Northern Ireland. That we were from just a small parish, which ignores life outside its immediate concerns. I wanted to try to feel what it was like to see our planet as one system, as a single object, hanging in space. To do this, I would need to switch from flat drawings for books to 3D sculpture for the street, and I'd need almost 200 feet, a New York City block, to build a large-scale model of the moon, the Earth and us.
我不想把我小时候 在北爱尔兰听到的 关于国家的那一套 讲给我儿子听, 也就是,我们从小乡村来, 不需要关心和自己 没有直接关系的问题。 我想试试看 把地球当做一个整体, 在宇宙里游荡的单一个体, 是什么感受。 为了做这件事, 我得把书中的平面绘画转换成 可以在街上展示的立体雕塑。 我还得找到一个 60 米见方的空间, 比如纽约的一条街道, 来建造一个包含 月球、地球和人类的大型模型。
This project managed to take place on New York City's High Line park last winter, on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's mission around the Moon. After its installation, I was able to put on a space helmet with my son and launch, like Apollo 11 did half a century ago, towards the Moon. We circled around and looked back at us. What I felt was how lonely it was there in the dark. And I was just pretending. The Moon is the only object even remotely close to us. And at the scale of this project, where our planet was 10 feet in diameter, Mars, the next planet, will be the size of a yoga ball and a couple of miles away.
去年冬天,在阿波罗 11 号 登月 50 周年纪念日那天, 位于纽约市高线公园的 这个项目终于落地。 安装完成后, 我和儿子戴上了宇航员头盔, 像半个世纪前的 阿波罗 11 号那样, 向月球“发射”。 我们围着模型打转, 然后对视。 在黑暗中, 我觉得很孤独, 即使这一切都是虚拟的。 月球是唯一一个 离我们不那么远的天体。 而我制作的地球 直径只有 3 米, 以它为参考系, 下一个行星,也就是火星, 只有瑜伽球那么大, 离这个地球好几英里远。
Although borders are not visible from space, on my sculpture, every single border was drawn in. But rather than writing the country names on the carved-up land, I wrote over and over again, "people live here, people live here." "People live here." And off on the Moon, it was written, "No one lives here." Often, the obvious things aren't all that obvious until you think about them.
虽然从宇宙中 我们看不到边界线, 但在我的地球上, 我把每根边界线都画了出来。 然而,我没有在大陆上 写下国家名, 而是一遍又一遍地写着, “有人在这里生活,有人在这里生活。” “有人在这里生活。” 在月球表面上,我写着: “没有人在这里生活。” 许多事物并非 如我们想象的那么显而易见, 除非你开始认真思考。
Seeing anything from a vast enough distance changes everything, as many astronauts have experienced. And human eyes have only ever seen our Earth from as far as the Moon, really. It's quite a ways further before we get to the edges of our own Solar System. And even out to other stars, to the constellations. There is actually only one point in the entire cosmos that is present in all constellations of stars, and that presence is here, planet Earth. Those pictures we have made up for the clusters of stars only make sense from this point of view down here. Their stories only make sense here on Earth. And only something to us. To people. We are creatures of stories. We are the stories we tell, we're the stories we're told.
从遥远的距离观察任何一件事物 都让一切发生了改变。 许多航天员都有这样的体验。 人类的双眼曾经从月球上 遥望过我们的地球, 这就是最远的观察距离了。 还要经过好长好长的一段旅行, 我们才能到达太阳系的边界, 甚至去往其他星系或星座。 整个宇宙的星群中 只有一个存在的点, 那个点就是 这里,地球。 我们绘制的那些星群图, 只是我们从这个角度瞭望时所看到的。 我们对它们的认识 也只有在地球上时才有意义。 而且只对我们—— 人类——有意义。 我们喜欢故事。 我们讲述着自己的故事, 也聆听着自己的故事。
Consider briefly the story of human civilization on Earth. It tells of the ingenuity, elegance, generous and nurturing nature of a species that is also self-focused, vulnerable and defiantly protective. We, the people, shield the flame of our existence from the raw, vast elements outside our control, the great beyond. Yet it is always to the flame we look. "For all we know," when said as a statement, it means the sum total of all knowledge. But when said another way, "for all we know," it means that we do not know at all. This is the beautiful, fragile drama of civilization. We are the actors and spectators of a cosmic play that means the world to us here, but means nothing anywhere else. Possibly not even that much down here, either.
想想地球人类文明。 它诉说着一个有创造力的、优雅的、 慷慨且充满关怀的物种, 同时也可以是自私的、脆弱的、 并充满戒备和警惕的。 人类为了保护生命的星星之火, 不断抵御着我们 无法掌控的、庞杂的、 未知的一切。 但我们仍会将目光投向这星星之火。 当我们说: “我们已经知道——” 这表示我们已知的所有知识。 但如果换个方式说: “目前我们只知道——” 则表示我们几乎什么也不知道。 这就是美丽而脆弱的文明。 在这部宇宙大戏中, 我们既是演员,也是观众, 它就是我们的全部, 但它在其他地方什么都不是。 也许,就连对我们 也不见得那么重要。
If we truly thought about our relationship with our boat, with our Earth, it might be more of a story of ignorance and greed. As is the case with Fausto, a man who believed he owned everything and set out to survey what was his. He easily claims ownership of a flower, a sheep, a tree and a field. The lake and the mountain prove harder to conquer, but they, too, surrender. It is in trying to own the open sea where his greed proves his undoing, when, in a fit of arrogance, he climbs overboard to show that sea who is boss. But he does not understand, slips beneath the waves, sinks to the bottom. The sea was sad for him but carried on being the sea. As do all the other objects of his ownership, for the fate of Fausto does not matter to them.
如果我们仔细想想 人类与地球的关系, 这更像是一个 关于无知和贪婪的故事。 福斯托的故事 就是一个例子。 这个男人相信 什么东西都是他的, 于是想出门去看看 他所拥有的一切。 他不费吹灰之力地得到了 一朵花、一只羊、 一棵树和一片田地。 湖泊和山丘比较难以征服, 但是最终,它们还是屈服了。 他的滑铁卢发生在 当他尝试征服一片公海时, 他被一时的自负冲昏了头脑, 一跃而下, 想给海洋点颜色看看。 但他大大低估了海洋的威力, 瞬间被海浪卷走,沉入海底。 大海可能会为他感到悲伤, 但海浪仍然一如既往地翻涌向前。 其他那些被他占为己有的 东西也是一样, 毕竟福斯托的命运 和它们毫无关系。
For all the importance in the cosmos we believe we hold, we'd have nothing if not for this Earth. While it would keep happily spinning, obliviously without us.
尽管我们相信自己在宇宙中 占有重要地位, 但若不是因为地球的存在, 我们就会一无所有。 可地球离了我们, 还是会自顾自地悠然转动。
On this planet, there are people. We have gone about our days, sometimes we look up and out, mostly we look down and in. Looking up and by drawing lines between the lights in the sky, we've attempted to make sense out of chaos. Looking down, we've drawn lines across the land to know where we belong and where we don't. We do mostly forget that these lines that connect the stars and those lines that divide the land live only in our heads. They, too, are stories. We carry out our everyday routines and rituals according to the stories we most believe in, and these days, the story is changing as we write it.
这颗星球上住着许多人。 日子一天天过去, 我们偶尔会抬头望望天, 大多数时间都埋头忙自己的事。 抬起头时,我们将天上的星星连成线, 企图从混沌中找出规律。 低下头时,我们用线条 描绘出大陆的形状, 划分出彼此的领地和界限。 我们经常会忘记 这些连接星星的线条 和那些划分大陆的线条, 仅仅存在于我们的脑海里。 它们本身也是故事。 我们按照自己所信奉的故事 来安排日常活动, 但在这些天里, 故事情节日新月异。
There is a lot of fear in this current story, and until recently, the stories that seemed to have the most power are those of bitterness, of how it had all gone wrong for us individually and collectively. It has been inspiring to watch how the best comes from the worst. How people are waking up in this time of global reckoning to the realization that our connections with each other are some of the most important things we have.
恐惧充斥着当下的一切, 而现在, 苦难和仇恨 占据了上风, 个人或集体的不幸成了主旋律。 让人备受鼓舞的是, 我们能够从艰难中收获美好。 人们从这场世界性的劫难中幡然醒悟, 原来人与人之间的连接 就是最珍贵的东西。
But stepping back. For all we've had to lament, we spend very little time relishing the single biggest thing that has ever gone right for us. That we are here in the first place, that we are alive at all. That we are still alive. A million and a half years after finding a box of matches, we haven't totally burned the house down. Yet. The chances of being here are infinitesimal. Yet here we are. Perils and all.
不过退一步想想, 经历了这么多伤痛以后, 我们很少回想 人类有史以来取得的 最大的成功。 那就是:我们出现在这颗星球上, 而且存活了下来, 还将继续生活下去。 生命的火苗被点燃后, 150 万年过去了, 地球还没有因人类化为灰烬。 暂时还没有。 在这里出现生命的几率何其微小。 但我们出现了, 虽然危机重重。
There have never been more people living on Earth. Using more stuff. And it's become obvious that many of the old systems we invented for ourselves are obsolete. And we have to build new ones. If it wasn't germs, our collective fire might suffocate us before long. As we watch the wheels of industry grind to a halt, the machinery of progress become silent, we have the wildest of opportunities to hit the reset button. To take a different path.
地球上从未有过这么多人, 从未消耗过这么多的资源, 我们创造的许多古老的制度 已经被历史所淘汰, 而我们已无法 再对其视而不见。 我们必须要有所创新。 即使细菌没有置人类与死地, 不久之后,大火也会吞没一切。 当工业的车辙不再向前, 进步的发动机戛然而止, 我们就拥有了无数的机会 来按下重启键, 来选择另一条道路。
Here we are on Earth. And life on Earth is a wonderful thing. It looks big, this Earth, but there are lots of us on here. Seven and a half billion at last count, with more showing up every day. Even so, there is still enough for everyone, if we all share a little. So please, be kind.
我们在地球上生存。 地球上的生命又是如此璀璨。 这颗星球看起来很大, 但上面住着好多人—— 上次的统计结果是 75 亿, 而且每天还在继续增加。 即便如此, 如果我们能够彼此分享, 对每个人来说,也足够了。 所以, 请做个善良的人。
When you think of it another way, if Earth is the only place where people live, it's actually the least lonely place in the universe. There are plenty of people to be loved by and plenty of people to love. We need each other. We know that now, more than ever.
我们可以换个角度思考—— 如果地球是唯一一个 有人类居住的地方, 那它就是整个宇宙中 最不孤独的地方。 无数的人在这里 爱与被爱。 我们从未如此真切地感受到 对彼此的依赖。
Good night.
晚安。