不要吞吃命運的餅干——Michael Lewis

Thirty years ago I sat where you sat. I must have listened to some older person share his life experience. But I don't remember a word of it. I can't even tell you who spoke. What I do remember, vividly, is graduation. I'm told you're meant to be excited, perhaps even relieved, and maybe all of you are. I wasn't. I was totally outraged. Here I’d gone and given them four of the best years of my life and this is how they rewarded me, by throwing me out.

30年前，我坐在你所坐的地方。我一定也聽過某位年長的人分享他的人生經(jīng)歷。但我已經(jīng)一點都不記得了。我連是誰發(fā)言都沒印象了。而在我記憶中仍栩栩如生的，是畢業(yè)。他們告訴我你應(yīng)該很激動，或者感到輕松，也許你們現(xiàn)在就是這樣。我卻不同。我義憤填膺：我來到這里給了他們我人生中最好的四年，而他們就是這樣報答我的——把我踢走。

At that moment I was sure of only one thing: I was of no possible economic value to the outside world. I'd majored in art history, for a start. Even then this was regarded as an act of insanity. I was almost certainly less prepared for the marketplace than most of you. Yet somehow I have wound up somehow rich and famous. Sort of. I'm going to explain, briefly, how that happened. I want you to understand just how mysterious careers can be, before you go out and have one yourself. I graduated from Princeton without ever having published a word of anything, anywhere. I didn't write for the Prince, or for anyone else. But at Princeton, studying art history, I felt the first twinge of literary ambition. It happened while working on my senior thesis. My adviser was a really gifted professor, an archaeologist named William Childs. The thesis tried to explain how the Italian sculptor Donatello used Greek and Roman sculpture, that's actually totally beside the point, but I've always wanted to tell someone. God knows what Professor Childs actually thought of it, but he helped me to become engrossed. More than engrossed: obsessed. When I handed it in I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: I want to write senior theses. Or, to put it differently: to write books.

在那時我只確信一件事：我對外面的世界沒有任何經(jīng)濟價值。我修的是藝術(shù)史，那是我的起點。即使在當(dāng)時這也被視為瘋子的行為。我為市場做的準(zhǔn)備一定差過幾乎在座的每一個人。而現(xiàn)在我竟搖身一變成了富人和名人。對吧，算是吧。我將簡短的描述我是如何飛黃騰達(dá)的。我希望你們在走出校門追尋自己的事業(yè)前能夠明白，事業(yè)發(fā)展本身是多么神秘。我從普林斯頓畢業(yè)的時候從來沒有在任何地方任何時間發(fā)表任何東西。我沒有為the Prince刊物或任何人寫過任何文章。然而在普林斯頓大學(xué)，作為藝術(shù)史系的學(xué)生，我第一次有了在文學(xué)界施展抱負(fù)的沖動。這是在我寫畢業(yè)論文的時候發(fā)生的。我的導(dǎo)師是個超有天分的教授，William Childs，一位考古學(xué)家。我畢業(yè)論文的題目是研究意大利雕塑家Donatello如何借鑒了希臘和羅馬雕塑——其實這跟今天的題目半毛錢關(guān)系都沒有，只是我一直喜歡讓別人知道。神知道Childs教授是怎么看待這個題目的，但他卻幫助我全心投入。不只是全心投入，根本就是癡迷。當(dāng)我交上論文的那刻我知道了我這一生想要從事的事業(yè)：寫高級論文，或者說，寫書。

Then I went to my thesis defense. It was just a few yards from here, in McCormick Hall. I listened and waited for Professor Childs to say how well written my thesis was. He didn't. And so after about 45 minutes I finally said, "So. What did you think of the writing?" "Put it this way," he said. "Never try to make a living at it." And I didn't — not really. I did what everyone does who has no idea what to do with themselves: I went to graduate school. I wrote at nights, without much effect, mainly because I hadn't the first clue what I should write about. One night I was invited to a dinner, where I sat next to the wife of a big shot at a giant Wall Street investment bank, called Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the place we have all come to know and love. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in which to observe the growing madness: they turned me into the house expert on derivatives. A year and a half later Salomon Brothers was handing me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to give advice about derivatives to professional investors.

然后我去了論文答辯。地方離這不遠(yuǎn)，就在McCormick廳。我等待著希望聽到Childs教授告訴我我的論文寫得多么好。但他沒有。于是等了45分鐘后，我終于問，“那你怎么評價我的寫作呢?”“這么說吧，”他說。 “千萬不要靠這個謀生。”所以我放棄了——其實不是。我做了所有人不知道該做什么時做的那件事：去讀研究生。我在晚上寫作，沒有造成什么影響，主要是因為我不知道該寫哪些東西。一天晚上，我被邀請參加一個晚宴，我身旁的女士是一個華爾街投資銀行的大佬的太太，那家銀行叫做所羅門兄弟公司。她基本上迫使她的丈夫給了我一份工作。我那時對所羅門兄弟公司根本一無所知。但所羅門兄弟公司恰好處在華爾街轉(zhuǎn)型的前線——轉(zhuǎn)成那個如今我們都知道并愛的樣子。當(dāng)我到了那家公司，我被幾乎隨機的分配到了一份最好的工作，使我有機會觀察這滋長中的瘋狂：他們把我變成一個衍生產(chǎn)品的內(nèi)部專家。一年半以后，所羅門兄弟開給我數(shù)十萬美元的支票讓我給專業(yè)投資者提供有關(guān)衍生產(chǎn)品的咨詢。

Now I had something to write about: Salomon Brothers. Wall Street had become so unhinged that it was paying recent Princeton graduates who knew nothing about money small fortunes to pretend to be experts about money. I'd stumbled into my next senior thesis. I called up my father. I told him I was going to quit this job that now promised me millions of dollars to write a book for an advance of 40 grand. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "You might just want to think about that," he said."Why?" "Stay at Salomon Brothers 10 years, make your fortune, and then write your books," he said. I didn't need to think about it. I knew what intellectual passion felt like — because I'd felt it here, at Princeton — and I wanted to feel it again. I was 26 years old. Had I waited until I was 36, I would never have done it. I would have forgotten the feeling.

現(xiàn)在，我有東西可寫了：所羅門兄弟公司。華爾街已經(jīng)變得如此的精神錯亂，它會給普林斯頓一個對金錢一竅不通的新畢業(yè)生一大筆錢來假扮理財專家。我誤打誤撞找到了自己的下一部高級論文。我打給我爸爸。我告訴他我要辭掉這個百萬美元的工作來寫一本只有4萬美元預(yù)付款的書。電話那邊沉默了很久。 “也許你該再考慮一下，”他說。“為什么?”在所羅門兄弟公司再干10年，賺一大筆錢，然后再寫你的書，”他說。我根本不需要考慮。我知道知性表達(dá)的激情是什么感覺——因為在這里，普林斯頓，我曾感受過——而我想重燃那份激情。我那時26歲。如果我真的等到36歲，我將永遠(yuǎn)無法寫成那本書。我會已經(jīng)忘記了那種感覺。