喬布斯的斯坦福演講

This is the text of the Commencement addreby Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, I never graduated from college. This is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

斯坦福是世界上最好的大學之一，今天能參加各位的畢業典禮，我備感榮幸。(尖叫聲)我從來沒有從大學畢業，説句實話，此時算是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。(笑聲)今天，我想告訴你們我生命中的三個故事，並非什麼了不得的大事件，只是三個小故事而已。

The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個故事關於串起生命中的點點滴滴

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

退學是我這一生所做出的最正確的決定之一。我在裏德大學待了6個月就退學了，但之後仍作為旁聽生混了18個月後才最終離開。我為什麼要退學呢?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption pa-pe-rs. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

故事要從我出生之前開始説起。我的生母是一名年輕的未婚媽媽，當時她還是一所大學的在讀研究生，於是決定把我送給其他人收養。她堅持我應該被一對念過大學的夫婦收養，所以在我出生的時候，她已經為我被一個律師和他的太太收養做好了所有的準備。但在最後一刻，這對夫婦改了主意，決定收養一個女孩。候選名單上的另外一對夫婦，也就是我的養父母，在一天午夜接到了一通電話：“ 有一個不請自來的男嬰，你們想收養嗎?” 他們回答：“ 當然想。” 事後，我的生母才發現我的養母根本就沒有從大學畢業，而我的養父甚至連高中都沒有畢業，所以她拒絕簽署最後的收養文件，直到幾個月後，我的養父母保證會把我送到大學，她的態度才有所轉變。

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I na-iv-ely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-claparents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

17 年之後，我真上了大學。但因為年幼無知，我選擇了一所和斯坦福一樣昂貴的大學，(笑聲)我的父母都是工人階級，他們傾其所有資助我的學業。在6個月之後，我發現自己完全不知道這樣念下去究竟有什麼用。當時，我的人生漫無目標，也不知道大學對我能起到什麼幫助，為了唸書，還花光了父母畢生的積蓄，所以我決定退學。我相信車到山前必有路。當時作這個決定的時候非常害怕，但現在回頭去看，這是我這一生所做出的最正確的決定之一。(笑聲)從我退學那一刻起，我就再也不用去上那些我毫無興趣的必修課了，我開始旁聽那些看來比較有意思的'科目。

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent; deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles acrotown every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be pricelelater on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy clato learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

這件事情做起來一點都不浪漫。因為沒有自己的宿舍，我只能睡在朋友房間的地板上;可樂瓶的押金是5 分錢，我把瓶子還回去好用押金買吃的;在每個週日的晚上，我都會步行7英里穿越市區，到HareKrishna教堂吃一頓大餐，我喜歡那兒的食物。我跟隨好奇心和直覺所做的事情，事後證明大多數都是極其珍貴的經驗。我舉一個例子：那個時候，裏德大學提供了全美國最好的書法教育。整個校園的每一張海報，每一個抽屜上的標籤，都是漂亮的手寫體。由於已經退學，不用再去上那些常規的課程，於是我選擇了一個書法班，想學學怎麼寫出一手漂亮字。在這個班上，我學習了各種字體，如何改變不同字體組合之間的字間距，以及如何做出漂亮的版式。那是一種科學永遠無法捕捉的充滿美感、歷史感和藝術感的微妙，我發現這太有意思了。