我在牛津大學的演講災難

I took a train to Oxford last Wednesday to give a speech to the benefactors of my old college. I was in excellent spirits. The sun was shining and I was amusing myself reading a blog post by Chip Conley, the entrepreneur, about the wisdom that comes with age. At 56, he likes to see himself less as a carton of milk bearing a sell-by date than a bottle of fine wine that gets better every year.

不久前的一個週三，我坐火車前往牛津，爲我母校的贊助人做一次演講。那天我精神不錯。陽光燦爛，我讀着企業家奇普?康利(Chip Conley)的一篇博文自娛自樂，其內容是智慧隨年齡增長。56歲的他，不把自己視爲一盒帶有保質期的牛奶，而是一瓶放得越久就越香醇的上等葡萄酒。

As I walked through Oxford I felt inclined to agree. I too was like an improving bottle of wine. No longer did the honey stone whisper: “You aren’t good enough.” The intensity — both the misery and the odd spurt of joy — I felt as an undergraduate had finally receded. Lady Margaret Hall, whose fa?ade used to look like a prison to me, has had vast sums spent on it and in the late afternoon sun looked borderline handsome.

在我走過牛津街頭時，我傾向於贊同他的觀點。我也像是一瓶漸入佳境的葡萄酒。蜂蜜石不再低語：“你不夠好。”我在本科生期間體驗過的強烈感受——無論是痛苦還是偶爾迸發的喜悅——終於消退了。瑪格麗特夫人學堂（Lady Margaret Hall，牛津大學的一個學院——譯者注）教學大樓的外立面在我眼裏曾經像是監獄，近年這棟樓花了大量資金修繕，在夕陽下看起來竟然有點美麗。

I was even looking forward to giving the speech. Nothing could go wrong, the audience was captive and I had written something that I felt balanced comic reminiscence with sincerity, and was edgy enough to keep the audience from nodding off over the port.

我甚至開始期待做演講。不會有什麼問題，觀衆會全神貫注，而我寫的演講稿既包含有趣的回憶、又不失真誠，而且妙語連珠，足以阻止觀衆在波爾圖葡萄酒的影響下打盹。

Two minutes in, and I was aware the laughter was strained — and it became more so as I ploughed on. Within seconds of my sitting down, two men were jostling at my elbow in protest. One of them, teeth gritted in rage, demanded to know what was going through my head when I had decided to insult everyone. The other simply said: “Just go!” pointing at the door.

開講2分鐘後，我就意識到笑聲很牽強——隨着我繼續演講，氣氛變得愈發緊張。我坐下才幾秒鐘，就有兩位男士擠我的手肘表示抗議。其中一人氣得咬牙切齒，要求知道當我決定侮辱所有人時大腦裏在想什麼。另一個人只是指着大門說：“出去吧！”

In the space of 15 minutes I had got up the noses of assorted former students, benefactors and dons. I had somehow told the men they were dim, the women frumpy, and had taken the name of the absent Stephen Hester, (chief executive at RSA Insurance, and a student in the year below me) in vain. Mine was a tour de force of clangers.

在15分鐘時間裏，我惹惱了形形色色的校友、贊助人和大學老師。我不知不覺地告訴在場的男士們他們很蠢，告訴女士們她們很土，還在背地裏議論了不在場的史蒂芬?赫斯特（Stephen Hester，RSA保險集團的首席執行官，比我晚一屆）。我的演講簡直是充滿過失的代表作。

I have made a few people cross over the years, but what was remarkable about this was not the strength of the feeling but that, for once, I was trying to do the reverse. My college changed my life. It taught me how to work, how to think — and how to spot cant and feeble logic. LMH took me on despite atrocious A-levels and being entirely undeserving, but it is now doing something more worthwhile. It has set up a foundation year for students from poor backgrounds who despite difficult starts in life have performed far better at school than I ever did.

這些年來我曾經惹怒過一些人，但這次經歷的不同尋常之處不在於感受的強烈程度，而是我本來想（僅此一回）做相反的事情。我的母校改變了我的人生。它教會我如何工作、如何思考——以及如何發現虛僞和不堪一擊的邏輯。瑪格麗特夫人學堂錄取了我，儘管我的A級考試成績很糟糕，根本不配錄取，但該校現在開始做一些更有價值的事情。它爲家境貧困的學生設立了爲期一年的預科課程，這些學生雖然在人生起跑線上經受了艱難坎坷，但在中小學的成績比我當年要好得多。

It is not nice to have people shouting in your face, but what shook me more was wondering how on earth, with all my experience, I could have misjudged my speech so badly.

有人當着你的面斥責你不是好事，但更令我震撼的是，以我的豐富經驗，我竟然會如此嚴重地誤判自己的演講效果，簡直匪夷所思。

By the end of the night I had worked out that Chip Conley was talking rot. I have nothing in common with an old bottle of fine wine, though if I at that moment had had one to hand, I would have downed the whole thing.

那晚結束時我想明白了：奇普?康利是在胡說八道。我和一瓶陳年佳釀毫無共同點，儘管如果我當時手頭有一瓶那樣的好東西的話，我會一滴不剩地喝掉它。

Instead of getting wiser with age, the reverse appears to be happening. The most noticeable change (apart from the ones that I see in the mirror) is that I am not frightened any more.

隨着年齡增長，我的智慧非但沒有增長，反而似乎下降了。最明顯的變化（除了我在鏡子裏看到的自己的模樣）是我不再恐懼。

I used to be scared of failing at work, or of being found out, or of what people thought of me. Being post-fear makes life more comfortable, but also more dangerous, because fear fends off disaster. It discourages you from packing a speech with sarky, teasing asides which, though possibly amusing to you, might be less so to those who are the butt of them.

我曾經害怕在工作中失敗，或者害怕被別人發現我沒本事，或者害怕別人對我的看法。不再恐懼讓日子更好過，但也更危險，因爲恐懼可以避免災難。恐懼會讓你打消在演講中夾帶挖苦、戲弄性的離題話的念頭，儘管這些調侃對你可能很好玩，但對那些被當成笑柄的人來說可能就沒有那麼幽默了。

The incident has taught me something even more uncomfortable — how hard it is to learn from mistakes. I have form on this: I go on hitting the kerb when parking. I go on misspelling “separate”, despite the assiduousness of Google in correcting me.

這件事讓我知道了一個更讓人不舒服的教訓——從錯誤中吸取教訓有多難。我是這一點的活教材：我在泊車時一再撞上馬路牙子。我仍然會錯誤地拼寫“separate”，儘管辛勤的谷歌(Google)一次又一次糾正我的拼寫錯誤。

Doing something badly is painful. And as being in pain is not nice, I am getting good at pain-reduction strategies. Already in my head I am spinning the story so I come out of it less badly, and I daresay in a day or two I will be blaming the audience for not seeing the funny side.

把事情搞砸是令人痛苦的。正因爲痛苦的感覺不太好，我開始擅長於減輕痛苦的策略。現在我腦海裏已經在炒作這個故事，使自己的形象不那麼糟糕，而且我敢說一兩天後，我會責怪聽衆們缺乏幽默感。

Which leads me to one thing I have got better at with age — recovering from a setback. A calamity on the scale of last week would once have left me cringing for a couple of years at least.

這讓我想到，隨着年齡增長，我日益擅長的一件事是——從挫折中恢復過來。那種程度的演講災難以前至少會讓我畏縮兩年。

I have spent the past 24 hours in a state of advanced mortification. But now that I have got this off my chest it may soon be time to pretend none of it ever happened.

那次演講後的24小時期間我處於深度難堪狀態。不過既然我已經宣泄自己的感受，我可能很快就會假裝這一切從未發生過。