马特达蒙麻省理工2016毕业演讲

精华节选翻译：

I don’t even have a college degree. I just didn’t graduate from Harvard. I got pretty close, but I started to get movie roles and didn’t finish all my courses. So you can imagine how excited I was when President Reif called to invite me to speak at the MIT commencement.
我都没个大学文凭，我就是没从哈佛毕业。差点就毕业了，但我开始接触电影开始演戏，并没有完成所有的课程。所以，你可以想象，莱夫校长邀请我到麻省理工毕业典礼上讲话我有多激动。

My brother Kyle and I, and my friend Ben Affleck never really amounted to much.One of the scenes in Good Will Hunting was based on something that actually happened to my brother. Kyle was visiting a physicist we knew at MIT, and he was walking down the Infinite Corridor. He saw those blackboards that line the halls. So my brother, who’s an artist, picked up some chalk and wrote an incredibly elaborate, totally fake, version of an equation. It was so cool and so completely insane that no one erased it for months. This is true.
我和我的兄弟卡尔、还有我的朋友本·阿弗莱克都没有太了不得。《心灵捕手》其中一幕就是根据我兄弟的真人真事拍的。卡尔当时在麻绳理工访问一名我们认识的物理学家，他一路沿着无尽长廊走，看到了大厅连成行的黑板。于是乎，我的兄弟卡尔这位艺术家，拾起粉笔，精心写下了完全凭空杜撰的方程。写得相当酷炫、几近疯狂，好几个月都没人擦去。这是真的，确有其事。
【语言点解析】

incredibly 难以置信

-cred 表示“相信”的词根

elaborate 精致精巧、精美绝伦

But like I said, we later made a movie here. Which did not go unnoticed on campus. In fact I’d like to read you some actual lines, some selected passages, from the review of Good Will Huntingin the MIT school paper.
如我所说，后来我们在那儿拍了电影，在校园里并没有引起注意。实际上，我想读几句台词给你们听，读些麻省理工校报上《心灵捕手》影评选段给你们听。

You’re working on some crazy stuff in these buildings. I’ll tell you one that’s been on my mind: Simulation Theory. There’s a philosopher named Nick Bostrom at Oxford, and he’s postulated that if there’s a truly advanced form of intelligence out there in the universe, then it’s probably advanced enough to run simulations of entire worlds — maybe trillions of them — maybe even our own.
你们在学校大楼里研究些厉害的事物。我告诉你们我在想些什么：模拟理论。牛津大学尼克·博斯特罗姆曾假定，如果宇宙真有一种先进的智能在，或许可以先进到模拟所有世界，也许有数百万个世界在，也许甚至模拟我们自己的世界。

The basic idea is that we could be living in a massive simulation run by a far smarter civilization, a giant computer game, and we don’t even know it. What if this—all of this—is a simulation?
基本想法就是我们可能生活在超级大型的模拟中，由比我们聪慧得多的文明或者巨型电脑游戏控制着，而我们却不自知。如果这一切真的是模拟呢？

But then again: what if it isn’t a simulation? Either way, what we do matters. What we do affects the outcome. MIT, you’ve got to go out and do really interesting things. Important things. Inventive things. Because this world ... real or imagined ... this world has some problems we need you to drop everything and solve.
当然，如果这一切又不是模拟呢？无论怎样，我们的所为会影响结果。麻省理工的学生，你们要走出去，做真正有意思的事情、重要的事情、有创造力的事情。因为这个世界，无论真实也好，想象也罢，都会有些问题需要你放下一切去解决。

【语言点解析】

inventive 具有创新力、发明创造精神

But before you step out into our big, troubled world, I want to pass along a piece of advice that Bill Clinton offered me a little over a decade ago. What he said was “turn toward the problems you see.”Turn toward the problems you see. Engage with them. Walk right up to them, look them in the eye. In my experience, there’s just no substitute for actually going and seeing things.
你们就要踏入这个纷繁的大世界，我想给你们一句赠言，这是比尔·克林顿十多年前给我的建议。他说“去面对你看到的问题。”去关注你看到的问题，参与其中，径直走过去，直视问题。以我个人的经验，没有什么可以取代真正去面对、去看事物了。
【语言点解析】

engage 融入、参与

用作动词(v.)

～+名词

engage a hall 租下大厅

engage a room 预订房间

～+副词

engage at once 立即开始

engage actively 积极从事

engage busily 忙于

engage exclusively 全力从事

engage hotly 热情地聘请

engage ordinarily 通常地聘请

engage successfully 成功地聘请

～+介词

engage as 聘请为…

engage sb as adviser 聘请某人当顾问

engage for 应允,保证,约定

engage for sb's good behaviour 保证某人行为端正

engage for sb's honesty 保证某人诚实

engage in 从事,忙于,参加

engage in animal husbandry 从事畜牧业工作

engage in a discussion 进行讨论

engage in making clothes 忙于做衣服

engage on 着手,从事

engage oneself to 答应和某人订婚,约束(自己),担保

engage with 忙于接待〔应付〕,和(敌人)交战

engage with the enemy 和敌军交战

engage with a visitor 陪客人

substitute 取代、替代

用作动词(v.)

～+副词

substitute adequately 不适当地代替

substitute definitely 确定地代替

substitute deftly 熟练地替代

substitute shyly 缺乏自信地接替

substitute successfully 成功地代替～+介词

substitute as 代替为…

substitute by〔with〕用…代替…

substitute for 用…代替…,(使)代替…

When I was a teenager, Mom thought it was important for us to see the world outside of Boston. I think it was that same impulse that took my brother and me to Zambia in 2006, as part of the ONE Campaign — the organization to fight poverty and preventable disease in the developing world. On that trip, in a small community, I met a girl and walked with her to a nearby bore well where she could get clean water.
我十几岁的时候，我妈妈觉得带我们走出波士顿看看很重要，我觉得，我和我兄弟2006年成为ONE运动的一份子，走进赞比亚也是出于同样的动力。ONE运动这一组织力求在发展中国家战胜贫穷、预防疾病。那次旅途中，在一个小型社区里，我遇见了一个女孩，和她一起去附近的一个钻井汲取干净的水源。

And water goes hand-in-hand with sanitation. And getting out in the world and meeting people like this little girl is what put me on the path to starting Water.org. You see some tough things out there. But you also see life- changing joy. And it all changes you.
水和卫生息息相关。走出去到世界上，正是遇见小女孩这样的人让我走上了开启Water.org之路。你会看到世上的困难，但你也看到改变世界的快乐。这一切都改变着你。

There was a refugee crisis back in ’09 that I read about in an amazing article in the New York Times. People were streaming across the border of Zimbabwe to a little town in northern South Africa called Messina. I was working in South Africa, so I went up to Messina to see for myself what was going on. Human beings will take your breath away. They will teach you a lot... but you have to engage. There’s a lot of trouble out there, MIT. But there’s a lot of beauty, too. I hope you see both.
2009年曾有难民危机，我曾在《纽约时报》读到一篇精彩的文章。人们涌向津巴布韦边境，前往南非北部一个叫摩西那的小镇。我当时在南非工作，所以我亲自就去摩西那看看究竟。人会使你屏息震惊、会教你很多，但你一定要融入。麻省理工的学子们，那里困难重重，但也充满美好，我希望你们两者都能看到。
【语言点解析】

stream原为“溪流”之意，此处名词作为动词，如汩汩泉水涌入

The point is to try to eliminate your blind spots — the things that keep us from grasping the bigger picture. But looking at the world as it is, and engaging with it, is the first step toward finding our blind spots. There’s a few more things I hope you’ll keep in mind.
关键是，要努力去除你的盲点、那些阻止我们看到全貌的事物。但看到事物的原貌，融入其中，还只是我们找到盲点的第一步。还有其它事情我希望你们牢记。
【语言点解析】

blind spot 盲点，blind 即 hidden from view

spot check抽查

high spot显著之点

spot price现货价格

on the spot当场

hot spot热点

beauty spot美人斑

liver spot雀斑

black spot黑斑病

soft spot感情上的弱点

trouble spot动荡地区

dark spot黑斑,暗点

leaf spot叶斑病

spot intensity斑点亮度

spot test抽查

the man on the spot熟悉情况的人

find one's finger on someone's weak spot指出某人缺点

penalty spot罚球点

First, you’re going to fail sometimes, and that’s a good thing. Not having an answer isn’t embarrassing. It’s an opportunity. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
第一，你有时候会失败，这是好事情。没有答案并不难堪，这是机会，所以不要害怕提问。

The second thing is that you’ve got to keep listening. Even outside your work, there are ways to keep challenging yourself. Listen to online lectures. I love what President Obama said at Howard University’s commencement last month: he said,“Democracy requires compromise, even when you are 100 percent right.”
第二是你要保持聆听。即便是工作之外，也有方法可以挑战自我。去听网上的讲座。我喜欢奥巴马上个月在霍华德大学毕业典礼说的话，“民主需要妥协，即便你百分百正确。”

The third and last thought I want to leave you with is that not every problem has a high-tech solution. We need to be just as innovative in public policy.
第三、也是最后我想寄予你们的，不是所有的问题都有高科的解决方案。我们的国家政策需要有所创新。
【语言点解析】

innovative 具有创新力，与inventive意思相近

词根nov，即new

So, graduates, let me ask you this in closing: What do you want to be a part of? What’s the problem you’ll try to solve? Whatever your answer, it’s not going to be easy.
所以，毕业生们，让我问你们一个问题以此作结。你想成为什么的一份子？你想解决什么问题？无论你的回答为何，都不会是轻而易举。

Here you are alive at a time when science and technology may not hold all the answers, but are indispensable to any solution.
你们所处的时代，科学和技术或许不能解决一切，但所有的解决方案都离不开科技。

So I hope you’ll turn toward the problem of your choosing ... Because you must. I hope you’ll drop everything ... Because you must And I hope you’ll solve it. Because you must. Your game begins: now. Congratulations and thanks very much!
所以，我希望你们正视你们的选择问题，因为你们必须如此。我希望你们可以放下一切，因为你们必须如此。我希望你们可以解决这个问题，因为你们必须如此。你们的竞赛，现在开始。祝贺你们！非常感谢。