During my last year at university, I panicked. I realised that I was about to be sent into the world almost entirely ignorant. (Commenters, please fill in own joke here.) I had half-absorbed a few tiny bits of western history, and I’d read and then mostly forgotten some German novels and poems. I knew nothing about science. I hadn’t the faintest idea how the world worked. I wasn’t even entirely sure what interest rates were.
大學最后一年，我感到彷徨不安。我意識到自己就要近乎一無所知地被送入這個世界。(各位網友，歡迎在此補充你們自己的笑話。)我略懂西方歷史的一點皮毛，讀過一些德國的小說和詩歌，不過也忘得差不多了。我對科學一無所知。我對世界如何運轉毫無頭緒。我甚至不是很確定利率是什么東西。
Shortly before graduating, I confessed my anxieties to a high-powered thirtysomething at a dinner in London. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I knew nothing when I graduated either, so I’ve just kept learning. Now my employer is paying for me to study Arabic.” That same evening, I resolved to pursue a project of life-long learning. Twenty-five years on, I’m still ignorant, but still at it.
臨畢業前，我在倫敦與一位三十幾歲的成功人士共進晚餐時向他袒露了我的焦慮。“別擔心。”他說：“我畢業的時候也什么都不懂，于是我就繼續學習。現在我老板還花錢送我去學阿拉伯語。”那天晚上我做了個決定：我要展開一個終生學習計劃。二十五年過去了，我依然無知，但仍在學習。
Because I graduated in Britain, I missed out on the traditional American commencement ceremony at which a middle-aged bore intones, “You can be whatever you want to be.” Instead, a middle-aged bore droned on at us in Latin for an hour. But if any American university is still looking for a middle-aged-bore speaker this commencement season, here’s what I’d tell the graduates:
由于我畢業于英國，所以我無緣于傳統的美國畢業典禮：一個絮絮叨叨的中年人緩慢而莊重的說，“你能成為你想成為的任何人。”我畢業時是一個絮絮叨叨的中年人用拉丁語對我們嘮叨了一個鐘頭。但如果有哪所美國大學還在為這個畢業典禮季尋找一個絮絮叨叨的中年演講者，以下是我想對畢業生們說的話：
“After graduating, I decided to find out what interest rates were, so I began reading a newspaper I’d never opened before: the Financial Times. I kept going, hoping I’d eventually learn the thing I most wanted to know: why some people and countries were rich and others poor. In 1994, trying to accelerate the learning process, I joined the FT. I thought that after a few years I’d know enough to go on and do something more useful than journalism, but it never happened.
“畢業后，我決定搞清楚利率是怎么回事，于是我開始讀一份我從來沒翻開過的報紙：英國《金融時報》。我堅持讀它，希望最終能弄清自己最想知道的一件事：為什么有些人和國家富，而有些人和國家窮?1994年，為了加快這一學習進程，我加入了英國《金融時報》。我那時想，要不了幾年我就懂得多到可以走人，然后做點比記者更有用的事兒，然而這一幕從未發生過。
“Like me back then, you are graduating almost entirely ignorant. This isn’t your fault. Your most fecund educational years were aged nought to three, when your brain was fairly porous, but the opportunity was probably wasted. You then spent each school day surrounded by up to 30 other people, each with their own problems and ability levels. Since high school, you’ve been additionally handicapped by hormones, smartphones and early-morning starts.
“就像當初的我一樣，你們幾乎一無所知就要畢業了。這不是你們的錯。你們的最佳受教年齡是0到3歲，這個時候你們的大腦就像海綿一樣，但這一機會多半都被浪費了。然后你們上學的每一天都要被多達30個人包圍著，他們每個人都有自己的問題，每個人的能力水平也不同。上了高中后，你還會遇到荷爾蒙、智能手機和早起的妨礙。”
“In short, you’re going to have to keep learning all your life. Here are a few tips:
“總之，你們終生都要堅持學習。以下是幾個小建議：
Just shut up and listen. Whenever you think, ‘I know about that’, you don’t. When you hear yourself saying something you’ve said before, don’t bother. When someone worthwhile tells you something about North Korea, don’t sit there waiting till you can interrupt with your one factoid about North Korea. Pre-rehearsed anecdotes will keep you dumb.
閉嘴好好聽。每當你覺得’這個我知道’的時候，你其實不知道。如果你發覺自己要說的話以前已經說過了，那就別再說了。當一個重要的人告訴你一些關于朝鮮的事情時，不要坐在那兒等著用你知道的一個朝鮮小段子插話。提前排練這些段子會讓你保持緘默。
Also avoid all house-price talk, route talk, diet talk, name-dropping and current-affairs clichés. Over a lifetime, this can save you years.
還要避開一切有關房價、路線、減肥的談話，不要炫耀自己認識的名人，也不要對時事發表一些陳詞濫調的看法。終你一生，這條可以幫你省出好幾年時間。
Listen hardest to people younger than you. They are ignorant and generally have lowly jobs, but their fragments of knowledge will be more cutting-edge than yours. If you’re ever tempted to kid yourself that your knowledge will hold good over time, listen to aged relatives recite the race theories they picked up in the 1940s.
努力去聽歲數比你小的人說話。他們無知，職位通常也不高，但他們的知識碎片要比你的先進。如果你曾企圖欺騙自己，以為你的知識儲備經得住時間考驗，就去聽聽那些上了年紀的親戚大聊他們在20世紀40年代學到的種族理論。
When you meet someone who likes pontificating, you might pick up his tiny bit of expertise, if he has any. You’ll probably never have a productive conversation with him, and he won’t have learnt much from other people, so best to avoid.
當你遇到一個自命不凡的人，你或許能學到他的一點點專業知識——如果他有的話。你可能永遠無法與他進行富有成效的對話，他也不會從其他人身上學到多少東西，所以最好避免與這樣的人對話。
When you discover you were wrong about something, don’t fight it. Treasure the moment: you’ve learnt something.
當你發現自己在某件事上錯了，你就認了。珍惜這一刻，因為你學到了東西。
Don’t let conflicts derail your working life. Frequent changes of career will stop you from increasing your competence in one particular field. If you have to work with somebody irritating, deal with it. If you find lots of people irritating, then you’re the problem.
不要讓沖突破壞你的職業生涯。頻繁轉行會阻礙你在某個領域提高自己的能力。如果你不得不與受不了的人共事，想辦法解決。如果你發現好多人你都受不了，那就是你有問題。
Even if you become an expert, you’ll still be pretty ignorant. What experts know about any topic is always infinitely less than what they don’t know.
即使你成為一名專家，你依然相當無知。對于任何話題，專家們不知道的總是比他們知道的多得多。
Obviously, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The trick is to work out what you should be.
顯然，你不能成為你想成為的任何人。關鍵是要弄清楚你應該成為什么人。
