財富精英勵志演講 第13期:我生命中的三個故事(6)

[00:01.17]And 17 years later I did go to college. 在十七歲那年 ，我真的上了大學。 [00:04.58]But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, 但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一個幾乎和你們斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校, [00:09.53]and all of my working-class parent‘s savings were being spent on my college tuition. 我父母還處于藍領階層，他們幾乎把所有積蓄都花在了我的學費上面。 [00:14.55]After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. 在六個月后, 我已經(jīng)看不到其中的價值所在。 [00:18.09]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. 我不知道我真正想要做什么，我也不知道大學能怎樣幫助我找到答案。 [00:24.14]And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. 但是在這里，我?guī)缀趸ü饬宋腋改高@一輩子的全部積蓄。 [00:30.00]So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. 所以我決定要退學，我覺得這是個正確的決定。 [00:35.01]It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. 不能否認，我當時確實非常的害怕，但是現(xiàn)在回頭看看，那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個決定。 [00:41.28]The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, 在我做出退學決定的那一刻，我終于可以不必去讀那些令我 提不起絲毫興趣的課程了。 [00:47.07]and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. 然后我可以開始去修那些看起來有點意思的課程。 [00:52.09]It wasn't all romantic. 但是這并不是那么浪漫。 [00:53.59]I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, 我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房間的地板上面睡覺, [00:57.58]I returned coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with, 我去撿可以換5美分的可樂罐，僅僅為了填飽肚子, [01:02.05]and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. 在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程，穿過這個城市到黑爾·科里施納神廟(注：位于紐約Brooklyn下城), [01:09.30]I loved it. 只是為了能吃上好飯——這個星期唯一一頓好一點的飯，我喜歡那里的飯菜。 [01:11.05]And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. 我跟著我的直覺和好奇心走, 遇到的很多東西,此后被證明是無價之寶。 [01:17.36]Let me give you one example: 讓我給你們舉一個例子吧： [01:20.36]Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. 里德學院在那時提供也許是全美最好的美術字課程。 [01:25.42]Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was be autifully hand calligraphed. 在這個大學里面的每個海報,每個抽屜的標簽上面全都是漂亮的美術字。 [01:32.43]Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, 因為我退學了, 不必去上正規(guī)的課程 [01:36.58]I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. 所以我決定去參加這個課程，去學學怎樣寫出漂亮的美術字。 [01:40.25]I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, 我學到了帶短截線和不帶短截線的字體, [01:43.38]about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, 我學會了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空白間距, [01:47.11]about what makes great typography great. 還有怎么樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。 [01:50.46]It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, 那種美好、歷史感和藝術精妙，是科學永遠不能捕捉到的, [01:57.03]and I found it fascinating. 我發(fā)現(xiàn)那實在是太迷人了。 [01:59.27]None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. 當時看起來這些東西在我的生命中，好像都沒有什么實際應用的可能。 [02:04.52]But ten years later,when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. 但是十年之后,當我們在設計第一臺Macintosh電腦的時候,就不是那樣了。 [02:10.50]And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. 我把當時我學的那些東西全都設計進了Mac。那是第一臺使用了漂亮的印刷字體的電腦。 [02:16.47]If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, 如果我當時沒有退學, 就不會有機會去參加這個我感興趣的美術字課程, [02:20.15]the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. Mac就不會有這么多豐富的字體，以及賞心悅目的字體間距。 [02:24.42]And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. 因為Windows只是照抄了Mac，所以現(xiàn)在個人電腦才能有現(xiàn)在這么美妙的字型。 [02:37.17]If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, 要是我當初沒有退學，我絕不會碰巧選了這門書法課， [02:41.23]and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. 個人電腦也可能不會有現(xiàn)在這些漂亮的版式了。 [02:45.38]Of course it was impossible to connect he dots looking forward when I was in college. 當然我在大學的時候，還不可能把從前的點點滴滴串連起來, [02:50.21]But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. 但是當我十年后回顧這一切的時候,真的豁然開朗了。

00:00

00:00

MP3下載 文本下載