TEDxNAIS Shanghai Youth

我们生活在一个浩瀚无垠的世界——至少我们是这么认为的。大地、天空、行星、星系、星云……直至无穷，甚至更远。 We live in an immense and boundless world — or so we believe. The earth, the sky, planets, galaxies, nebulae … to infinity, and beyond. 但我们无法抵达那里。脚下并非大地，而是瓷砖；头顶不是苍穹，而是天花板。血肉之躯无法飞越大气层；在我们跃起的那一刻，重力便会将我们直直地拽回地面。你很快就会意识到：无论走到哪里，都有界限、边际和束缚。人类永远无法摆脱“墙”。 But we cannot go there. Beneath our feet is not the earth, but tiles; above our heads, a ceiling. Flesh and blood cannot fly beyond the atmosphere; the very moment we leap, gravity drags us straight back to the ground. You soon realise: wherever you go, there are limits, boundaries, restrictions. Human beings can never shake off walls. 在存在论的意义上，这堵墙是我们被迫承认的现实。没错——现实本身就是一堵墙。并非每个人都能接受它，因为现实施加了限制——那些我们有时厌恶，却又必须接受的限制。 This wall is, in an existential sense, a reality we are forced to acknowledge. Yes — reality itself is a wall. Not everyone accepts it, because reality imposes limits — limits we sometimes dislike, yet must accept all the same. 这种束缚存在于教育中，存在于纪律中，也存在于那些规则制定者让你背负的罪责之中。它存在于你学习新知识、新技能的每一个瞬间；存在于你站在舞台上时面对的“第四面墙”；存在于他人无法理解你时的挫败感中；也存在于国际社会的冷漠与荒诞之中。你的沮丧、你的愤怒、你指尖的触感、你的困惑——这些都是墙的边缘。它的边界甚至延伸到了思维与言语、意识、认知与词汇之间的鸿沟里。我们的个性被误解，我们的交流崩塌为争吵。墙，一直都在。 This restriction resides in education, in discipline and in being made the scapegoat for those who impose it. It is there in every moment you learn new knowledge or a new skill; in the fourth wall you face when you stand upon a stage; in the frustration when someone fails to understand you; in the indifference and absurdity of the international community. Your frustration, your anger, the sensation at your fingertips, your bewilderment — these are the edges of the wall. Its boundaries even stretch across the gap between thought and speech, between consciousness, cognition, and words. Our personalities are misunderstood; our communication collapses into quarrels. The wall is always there. 中国有一句俗语：“不撞南墙不回头。”这意味着一个人必须先看清现实，才能决定重新开始。但“看清现实”究竟意味着什么？如果墙真的存在，那么“重新开始”是否真的具有可能性？ There is a Chinese proverb: “You won’t turn back until you hit the southern wall.” It suggests that one must see reality clearly before deciding to begin again. But what does it truly mean to see reality? And if the wall truly exists, is there any real possibility of beginning again? 青春恰恰赋予了我们这种可能性。随着年龄增长，那些步入现代社会和职场的人往往日益趋向稳定——也就是说，他们向“现实之墙”妥协了。然而，年轻人永远好奇，永远批判，永不愿屈服。他们充满可能性，并将这种可能性注入到生活中无处不在、无法逃避的围墙之中。在他们眼中，墙可以是钢琴漆面闪亮的琴键。他们不必学习每一条既定的规则和方法，依然能与冰冷的琴键对话，在指尖的温度中弹奏出独属于自己的角色。 Youth offers us precisely this possibility. As we grow older, those who enter modern society and the world of work tend increasingly towards stability — that is, they compromise with the wall of reality. Young people, however, are ever curious, ever critical, never willing to yield. They are brimming with possibility, and they infuse that very possibility into the walls that are inescapable and everywhere in their lives. In their eyes, a wall can be the polished lacquer keys of a piano. They needn’t learn every rule and method prescribed; they can still converse with the cold keys and play a character all their own, warmed by the temperature of their fingertips. 墙也可以成为乒乓球的陪练。它像其他墙一样冷酷、沉默、坚硬，却能忠实地反弹每一次击球的力量与角度。在对着墙练习的过程中，他们学会了掌控自己的脾气和力量。于是，这堵墙突然间变得亲切起来。 A wall can become a sparring partner at table tennis. It remains, like every other wall, cold, silent, hard — yet it faithfully returns the power and angle of every stroke. Training against a wall, they learn to master their temper and their strength. And the wall, all of a sudden, becomes almost endearing. 他们向我们提出了一个发人深省的问题：墙的那头真的更好吗？人们因为不满现状而渴望推倒围墙，去创造一个更好的世界。但那个更好的世界在哪里？她在冰雪上滑行，挥动高尔夫球杆，向我们无声地发问：你是不满于脚下的冰雪之墙，还是仅仅不满于那个尚未“精进”的自我？在太白山上，她因体育学院的哨声和纪律而精疲力竭，她告诉我们，有些事情取决于你的眼界。转个身，你会发现墙并不一定是无法逾越的铁壁。墙是由砖石砌成的，如果你愿意，完全可以在上面开一扇窗。 They pose a sobering question to us: Is it truly better on the other side of the wall? People want to break down walls out of dissatisfaction with the present, to create a better world. But where is that better world? Gliding on skis and swinging a golf club, she asks us a silent question: are you discontented with the wall of ice and snow beneath your feet, or simply dissatisfied with a self that has yet to “improve”? On Mount Taibai, exhausted by the whistles and discipline of the sports academy, she tells us that some things depend on your vision. Take a turn, and you will discover that a wall needn’t be an impenetrable iron chamber, impossible to breach. A wall is made of bricks, and if you wish, you can perfectly well open a window in it. 墙可以是坚不可摧、不可渗透、残缺却完整的——因为人是锐意进取、富有洞察力且永远留有缝隙的。 A wall can also be impenetrable, impervious, and imperfectly intact — because people are penetrating, perceptive, and perpetually porous. 正是青春赋予了我们认知的可能；正是这场谈话击碎了舞台的第四面墙。我们来到这里不是为了向你炫耀，而是为了质询与邀请。我们的主题是单一的，但话题可能是矛盾的。正是矛盾创造了辩证，辩证开启了裂隙，裂隙让我们得以窥见彼此。而正是通过这种窥见，我们才得以紧密相连——即便那堵墙，始终都在。 It is youth that grants us this possibility of knowing; it is the talk that shatters the fourth wall of the stage. We are not here to show off to you; we are here to question and to invite. Our theme is singular, yet our topics may contradict one another. It is contradiction that creates dialectics, dialectics that open up cracks, cracks that allow us to glimpse one another, and it is by glimpsing one another that we become intimately bound together — even if the wall, forever and always, remains.