BubbaChuck

Stay hungry stay foolish

 

 

In case you missed it - here is Steve Job's speech at the Stanford Graduation - he was the key speaker.

 

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

 

The first story is about connecting the dots.

 

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

 

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

 

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. 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. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

 

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5(I"(B deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

 

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

 

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

 

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

 

My second story is about love and loss.

 

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

 

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley.

But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

 

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

 

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

 

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

 

My third story is about death.

 

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

 

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

 

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

 

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

 

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

 

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

 

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

 

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

 

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

 

Thank you all very much.

自由 希望

在好莱坞的电影里一般对影片的商业性很看重，而能像《肖申克的救赎》这部影片，将电影的商业性和艺术性这样完美地结合起来的影片，不是很多。更难能可贵的是《肖》这部电影的艺术性要远远超过它自身的商业性，以至于十几年后的今天，这部电影仍然倍受人们喜爱，甚至被认为是“男人必看电影”之一。

《肖申克的救赎》这部电影是从两个方面来拯救我们的：一方面是自由，另一方面就是希望。我将从这两个方面来谈一下这部电影。

（一） 自由是埋在心里的一枚种子

影片中有这样三个场景：一个是这样的，在一个春光明媚的清晨，囚犯干完活后，在屋顶闲散地坐着，很悠然地喝着安迪可以说是用生命换来的冰镇啤酒，享受着温暖悠闲的阳光，那就仿佛是在自家的屋顶上一样，享受着来之不易的自由……

另一个场景里，在安迪打开音乐后，监狱里响起了莫扎特的音乐，高亢优美的声音在监狱上空回荡起来，所有人，包括囚犯和狱警，在那一刻都朝向音乐传来的方向，安静的聆听，忘掉了高墙的束缚……

还有一个场景，安迪经过自己的不懈地努力终于建成了当时英格兰当时最好的监狱图书馆，囚犯可以像自由的人一样，在图书馆里获取监狱外自由的空气…….

安迪所做的这一切：冒着生命的危险只为同伴争取一段自由自在地喝酒的机会；宁可得罪典狱长和那个极其恐怖的狱警，只是为了囚犯感受到音乐里的那种自由的感觉；十几年如一日地写信，最终建成了一个像样的图书馆。在安迪看来，这所做的一切都只是为了两个字，那便是“自由”。人活着不能失去自由，即便是在监狱里，也应该尽力为自己争取自由，以为在他看来，人活着便是为了争取自己的自由。

影片从两个对自由的限制因素：一个是监狱；另一个便是体制化（institutionalized）；监狱是从肉体，身体方面来限制自由；而体制化则是从灵魂，精神上对自由的限制。影片强调的便是从精神上限制自由的体制化。

影片中有这样一段出自瑞得的话：“fist you hate them ,then ,you get used to it ,enough time passes…you get so ,you depended on them , that is institutionalized.（起初，你讨厌它，然后逐渐地习惯它，足够的时间后，你开始依照它，这就是体制化）。”“institutionalize”翻译过来的意思便是：使…制度化,使…一成不变。从这解释里可以抽象出成两个字那便是“同化”，对一个个体来讲，体制化的过程就是同化的过程，是一个个体在群体里或社会里，被大多数思想所同化的过程，而当这个群体或社会的思想不是一个多元化的空间时，这种同化的过程就变得越加厉害了。影片中一直试图给我们展现一个被强烈体制化（同化）的世界（监狱），典狱长，狱警以及监狱里的各种制度等等，都成了这种体制化（同化）的工具。

当然，我们每个人都没有生活在监狱里，所以也根本就无法感觉那种身体上的对自由的限制的痛苦，可这并不表明你的灵魂，精神上就是自由的。每个人不自觉地都在受到体制化（同化）的影响，没有人能够逃脱这种被体制化（同化）的命运。只要你现在问一问你自己：我还是不是自己以前想象的自己？我还是我自己吗？或许你就能感觉得到了。

自由是埋在心里的一枚种子，需要我们不时用自己思想的泉水去浇灌。影片中的安迪为了让拯救那些囚犯，不只一次地为他们争取到了自由的阳光。而我们呢？谁来拯救我们自己呢？我想，除了我们自己，还会有谁呢？！

（二） 希望是梦里会开的花

现时中没有一个人可以获取完全的自己理想的自由，但只要心存希望，我们便有了生活下去的勇气。

影片有这样三个相互比较的人物：

一个是老布：在监狱里生活了大半辈子的图书馆管理员老布，好不容易获取了自由，可是出狱后，整日里却生活在惶恐中，最终在极度压抑和忧郁中，草草地了解了自己的一生。

一个是瑞得：出狱后的瑞得，也面临着和老布几乎一样的心境，只是他心里或多或少的还存在那么一点希望——曾经答应安迪的一个承诺，最终活了下来。

另一个就是安迪，他经过自己的不懈的努力，钻过500码的污水管道，终于获取了自由。在倾盆大雨里，酣畅淋漓地呼吸着自由的空气，幸福的张开了双臂……

这三个场景其实是在问我们：为什么同样都是获取了自由，但为什么三个人却会有那么大的差别呢？

这便是由于“希望”的缘故。在安迪的心中一直就没有放弃对自由的希望，而且他也一直在为自己的希望努力着——每天晚上都要用那个小锤去挖瑞得认为几百年也挖不穿的墙壁。而对瑞得和老布来说，他们早就放弃了希望，以为在他们看来希望只能让自己更痛苦，甚至认为希望便是痛苦的根源。

影片中安迪对希望作了很好的诠释：“forget that there are … place … in the world that aren't made out of stone, there is something … inside … that they can't get to, they can't touch, that's yours … that is hope （不要忘了，这个世界穿透一切高墙的东西，它就在我们的内心深处，他们无法达到，也接触不到，那就是希望）。的确，正想安迪所说的，监狱的高墙可以束缚住我们的身体上的自由，甚至于体制化的东西可以束缚住我们的精神上的自由，但唯有希望不可以放弃。失去希望的生活是灰暗的，没有生气的，甚至是没有意义的。

希望是梦里会开的花，带着梦，带着希望，才能拥抱明天。

（三） 用荒诞诠释自由和希望的关系

影片出现了好些看似非常荒诞的场景：监狱里的图书管理员老布，最终获取了自由却自杀了；黑人瑞得好几次满怀希望地想被保释出去，却总是失败了，在最后一次，当他完全失去希望的时候，却保释成功；老布用颤抖的双手放飞了自己收养的小鸟，小鸟回归了自然，获取了自由，而老布自己却极不愿意回到社会里去……

影片试图用这些看似荒诞的场景来问我们：什么才能算是真正意义上的自由，什么是希望，希望和自由之间到底有怎么样的关系……

自由是什么？人的自由不同于动物，小鸟回到了自然，它便获取了自由；而人呢？人的自由肯定不同于动物，人是有思想的动物，人类的自由便是一种思想的产物。

影片在告诉我们，自由是以希望为前提的，你没有希望，没有对希望追求的勇气你便没有真正意义上的自由；严格来说，一个是很难达到自己理想中的自由。但这并不是说就要放弃对自由的争取，而且这种争取的过程就是一个人的一生。我们将这种对理想中的自由的渴望寄托在自己的希望之上，于是，自由和希望就联系在了一起。在我看来，影片似乎就是要告诉我们这个主旨。

（四） 自由和希望的完美结合的结尾

影片的结尾是这样的：湛蓝的天空下是蔚蓝的广阔的大海，沙滩边是一条小船，两个老朋友终于在阳光明媚的海滨相逢，彼此都很愉悦地相互微笑着……

这样的结尾寓意却是非常深刻的。湛蓝的天空和蔚蓝广阔的大海象征着理想中的自由；而那艘小船和两个老朋友的微笑则寓意对未来美好的希望。这样的结尾之所以能打动人心，就是因为它将自由和希望完美的融合在了，并且一起呈现给了我们。

自由 希望——评《肖申克的救赎》 作者：刘小辉
 

Dear Red,

 

If you're reading this, you've gotten out and if you've come this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further.

 

You remember the name of the town, don't you? (Zihuatanejo) I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I'll keep an eye out for you and the chessbaord ready.

 

Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well

your friend

Andy 

一个游戏 ，比较长，被点名的同志对不住了哈。我也是被逼无奈的。。。