J·K·罗琳：就算输了也要保持微笑

06 J·K·罗琳：就算输了也要保持微笑

人生难免有输赢，做赢家要虚怀若谷，不小心输了也得保持优雅。

在一次大型艺术展开始之前，笔者有幸遇到了Maqbool Fida Husain先生，他当时正在接受采访。

“So, Mr.Husain, how does it feel to be a winner?”

记者：“Husain先生，当一个赢家是什么感觉？”

He said in his soft, resonant voice, “I am an artist.”

他用低沉和蔼的声音回答道：“我是一个艺术家。”

“Yes.How does it feel to be winning prizes?”

记者：“嗯，我知道，那得奖是什么感觉？”

He said, more firmly, “Every day I come to this studio and what I do is, I use my imagination, I make draft sketches, and then I paint.Every day, I make art.You understand? Winning is not what I spend my days doing.”

他的语气更加坚定，他说：“每天我来到工作室所做的事情就是发挥想象力，画草图，上色。每天我都在制造艺术品。你懂么？我每天费尽心力并不是为了赢。”

It's been more than 20 years, but I've often thought of that exchange, which I'd recorded in my notes.Winning and losing: we do so much of each in our lives, and most of us have, if we're honest, a complicated, intensely personal relationship with competitiveness.Modern culture places a premium on learning how to do either gracefully.You're supposed to lose with a smile, a shrug, to make a handsome bow in the direction of the one who won the shining trophy instead of you.You're supposed also to be a good winner, expansive in your moment of triumph towards those who didn't make the cut, to display humility, gratitude, generosity.

这件事已经过去20多年了，但是我还是会时常想起那次对话，我把这些内容记到了笔记中。赢和输：我们在生活之中不断经历输赢，坦白说，我们中大多数人与竞争力都有着千丝万缕的、密切的私交。现代文化使得人们更加注重学习“无论输赢都优雅应对”的能力。哪怕输了，你也应该保持微笑，或者耸耸肩，或者向着那个赢的人的方向潇洒鞠上一躬，毕竟他赢得了熠熠生辉的奖杯，而不是你。如果你赢了，你也应该做一个好的赢家，向没有晋级的人张开胸怀，展现出你是个虚怀若谷、心怀感恩、慷慨大方的人。

When the US president rage-tweets his anger at losing the popular vote in the recent elections, declaring that “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”, he is not merely breaking a norm of social politeness by being a bad loser.He demonstrates that even the most powerful can succumb to an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, an inability to accept a loss and move on.

美国总统由于在最近的大选中输了直接选票，就怒发推特来宣泄他的愤怒，他说：“如果去掉那些非法投票的人的选票，那我就赢了。”这样做使他成了一个彻底的输家，不仅仅是破坏社会礼貌规范那么简单了。从他身上我们可以看出，哪怕是最有权力的人也会屈服于一发不可收拾的特权感，难以接受失去，然后继续前行。

Wanting to win is different from wanting to be successful—to win, you must have opponents to beat, which is what I find slightly uncomfortable about the business of prizes and shortlists.Success is more internal; it has a private side to it.

渴望成为赢家与渴望成功有所不同。如果要赢，你必须打败对手，这也是我认为商业奖项和提名的些许不妥之处。而成功则主要在于内心，有更加私人的一面。

In 2008, JK Rowling made a commencement address to Harvard students.She said that, at their age, her greatest fear was not of poverty, but of failure.She experienced both—seven years after her graduation, she had a failed marriage, was jobless, a single parent, very poor.But she decided to speak about the benefits of failure, because “failure meant a stripping away of the inessential”.It freed her to find out what really mattered to her, when all she had was the daughter she loved, some friends, and “an old typewriter and a big idea”.

2008年，J·K·罗琳给哈佛大学学生做了一次毕业演讲。她说，当她在大家这个年龄时，她最怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。毕业7年以后，这两种苦她都尝了个遍。她婚姻失败，丢了工作，是个单身母亲，还生活窘迫。但是她想谈的是失败的益处，因为“失败将那些非本质的东西都剥离了”。因此她可以找到对她真正重要的东西，因为她所拥有的全部仅有一个深爱的女儿、一些朋友、一台旧的打字机和脑袋里的宏伟蓝图。

Why do people love this story? Because of the determination Rowling expresses, and her fierce discipline, but chiefly because she succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.Without the success of the Harry Potter series, the failures she describes would be dismally ordinary, the everyday circumstance of someone with talent never writing her books, or never getting published, or being published and falling unremarked upon through the cracks.

为什么人们喜欢这个故事？可能是因为罗琳表达出的决心，或她所经历的磨炼，但是最主要的还是她成功了，甚至实现了人们异想天开的梦想。如果哈利·波特系列没有成功，她所描述的失败也就不足挂齿，那就是一个普通的故事，一个有才华的人从未写书，或所写的书从未出版，或出版之后无人问津。

I believed that I had developed an immunity of sorts to the deep vulnerability that accompanies competitiveness, after being on the other side, evaluating applications for residencies and books for literary prizes.The first time I was asked to be on a prize jury, I swung between extremes of pleasure—so many voluptuous hours of reading！—and anxiety, completely terrified that I might miss a quiet gem, make the wrong decisions, not do sufficient justice to some writer's talent.

我认为，在审批居住申请、评估获奖图书之后，我已经拥有了免疫力，对抗伴随竞争力而来的深深的脆弱。我第一次被邀请出任评奖委员会委员时，我既兴奋——可以数小时享受阅读的快乐——又充满焦虑，非常害怕我可能会错过一块璞玉，做出错误的决定，使得一些作家明珠暗投。

From that time of reading other writers' work and being on juries, I learnt something that helped me get over my own fear of losing.After some years you recognise that, beyond prizes, there is an almost endless stream of ideas, and possibilities, and rewards.Some are visible, some are more subtle, but this stream is available to artists, writers and anyone willing to discipline themselves to the routines of practice and creation.

通过阅读其他作者的作品，担任评委，我学到了能够帮助我战胜怕输心态的办法。许多年后你会意识到，永不干涸的灵感之泉，无限的可能性和回报，比奖项重要得多。有些是有形的，有些则需要仔细观察才能发现，但是艺术家、作家，或是任何想要通过练习和创造磨炼自己的人，都能拥有这涓涓细流。

I had come to this happy realisation, won a few prizes, lost out on some, and retained my equilibrium through both sets of experiences, when I met a writer who was a legend to his readers in his local language but, at that time, almost unknown to Indians who read only in English.

我已经产生了以上令人欣喜的顿悟，赢了一些奖，也输了一些。输过赢过之后，我的心态已经较为平衡，这时，我遇到了一个作家，在说当地语言的读者们心中，他是传奇人物，但是在只说英语的印度人中却默默无闻。

He had won a major prize for authors in translation.He dealt with the media with the grace and humility you hope that writers you admire will demonstrate, and I thought that here was a lesson in not taking prizes too seriously.

他赢得了一个译作界的大奖。他在面对媒体时，十分得体谦逊，展现出了你对所喜爱作家期待的一切品质。我认为这个人就是能看淡奖项的典范。

We were sharing a taxi to the awards ceremony.The writer got in, checked quickly to see that no one else was watching—and then bounced on the seat like an excitable three-year-old.“I won！” he said.“I'm so happy that I won the prize！” Then he confided to me, as though it was a most precious secret: “You see, I like winning.”

我们去颁奖典礼坐的是同一辆车。这个作家上车之后，迅速环顾四周看看确保没人在看他后，兴奋地跳上座位，仿佛一个三岁孩子。他说：“我赢啦。能得到这个奖我真开心！”接下来，他对我坦白说：“你看，我喜欢做赢家”，仿佛是在告诉我一个最珍贵的秘密。

词汇总结

resonant ['rez(ə)nənt]

adj.引起回响的；产生共鸣的

He said in his soft, resonant voice, “I am an artist.”

他用低沉和蔼的声音回答道：“我是一个艺术家。”

place a premium on

诱发;鼓励

Modern culture places a premium on learning how to do either gracefully.

现代文化使得人们更加注重学习“无论输赢都优雅应对”的能力。

shortlist ['ʃɔ:tlist]

n.（英）供最后挑选用的候选人名单

To win, you must have opponents to beat, which is what I find slightly uncomfortable about the business of prizes and shortlists.Success is more internal; it has a private side to it.

如果要赢，你必须打败对手，这也是我认为商业奖项和提名的些许不妥之处。

commencement address

毕业演讲

In 2008, JK Rowling made a commencement address to Harvard students.

2008年，J·K·罗琳给哈佛大学学生做了一次毕业演讲。

voluptuous [və'lʌptʃʊəs]

adj.撩人的；骄奢淫逸的；沉溺酒色的

The first time I was asked to be on a prize jury, I swung between extremes of pleasure—so many voluptuous hours of reading！

我第一次被邀请出任评奖委员会委员时，我既兴奋——可以数小时享受阅读的快乐。