thandie newton embracing otherness, embracing myself
拥抱他人，拥抱自己
embracing otherness. when i first heard this theme, i thought, well, embracing otherness is embracing myself. and the journey to that place of understanding and acceptance has been an interesting one for me, and it's given me an insight into the whole notion of self, which i think is worth sharing with you today.
拥抱他类。当我第一次听说这个主题时，我心想，拥抱他类不就是拥抱自己吗。我个人懂得理解和接受他类的经历很有趣，让我对于“自己”这个词也有了新的认识，我想今天在这里和你们分享下我的心得体会。
we each have a self, but i don't think that we're born with one. you know how newborn babies believe they're part of everything; they're not separate? well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly. it's like that initial stage is over -- oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive. it's no longer valid or real. what is real is separateness, and at some point in early babyhood, the idea of self starts to form. our little portion of oneness is given a name, is told all kinds of things about itself, and these details, opinions and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, our identity. and that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world. but the self is a projection based on other people's projections. is it who we really are? or who we really want to be, or should be?
我们每个人都有个自我，但并不是生来就如此的。你知道新生的宝宝们觉得他们是任何东西的一部分，而不是分裂的个体。这种本源上的“天人合一”感在我们出生后很快就不见了，就好像我们人生的第一个篇章--和谐统一：婴儿，未成形，原始--结束了。它们似幻似影，而现实的世界是孤独彼此分离的。而在孩童期的某段时间，我们开始形成自我这个观点。宇宙中的小小个体有了自己的名字，有了自己的过去等等各种信息。这些关于自己的细节，看法和观点慢慢变成事实，成为我们身份的一部分。而那个自我，也变成我们人生路上前行的导航仪。然后，这个所谓的自我，是他人自我的映射，还是我们真实的自己呢?我们究竟想成为什么样，应该成为什么样的呢?
so this whole interaction with self and identity was a very difficult one for me growing up. the self that i attempted to take out into the world was rejected over and over again. and my panic at not having a self that fit, and the confusion that came from my self being rejected, created anxiety, shame and hopelessness, which kind of defined me for a long time. but in retrospect, the destruction of my self was so repetitive that i started to see a pattern. the self changed, got affected, broken, destroyed, but another one would evolve -- sometimes stronger, sometimes hateful, sometimes not wanting to be there at all. the self was not constant. and how many times would my self have to die before i realized that it was never alive in the first place?
这个和自我打交道，寻找自己身份的过程在我的成长记忆中一点都不容易。我想成为的那些“自我”不断被否定再否定，而我害怕自己无法融入周遭的环境，因被否定而引起的困惑让我变得更加忧虑，感到羞耻和无望，在很长一段时间就是我存在状态。然而回头看，对自我的解构是那么频繁，以至于我发现了这样一种规律。自我是变化的，受他人影响，分裂或被打败，而另一个自我会产生，这个自我可能更坚强，可能更可憎，有时你也不想变成那样。所谓自我不是固定不变的。而我需要经历多少次自我的破碎重生才会明白其实自我从来没有存在过?
i grew up on the coast of england in the '70s. my dad is white from cornwall, and my mom is black from zimbabwe. even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people. but nature had its wicked way, and brown babies were born. but from about the age of five, i was aware that i didn't fit. i was the black atheist kid in the all-white catholic school run by nuns. i was an anomaly, and my self was rooting around for definition and trying to plug in. because the self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong. that confirms its existence and its importance. and it is important. it has an extremely important function. without it, we literally can't interface with others. we can't hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success. but my skin color wasn't right. my hair wasn't right. my history wasn't right. my self became defined by otherness, which meant that, in that social world, i didn't really exist. and i was "other" before being anything else -- even before being a girl. i was a noticeable nobody.
我在70年代英格兰海边长大，我的父亲是康沃尔的白人，母亲是津巴布韦的黑人。而想象我和父母是一家人对于其他人来说总是不太自然。自然有它自己的魔术，棕色皮肤的宝宝诞生了。但 从我五岁开始，我就有种感觉我不是这个群体的。我是一个全白人天主教会学校里面黑皮肤无神论小孩。我与他人是不同的，而那个热衷于归属的自我却到处寻找方式寻找归属感。这种认同感让自我感受到存在感和重要性，因此十分重要。这点是如此重要，如果没有自我，我们根本无法与他人沟通。没有它，我们无所适从，无法获取成功或变得受人欢迎。但我的肤色不对，我的头发不对，我的过去不对，我的一切都是另类定义的，在这个社会里，我其实并不真实存在。我首先是个异类，其次才是个女孩。我是可见却毫无意义的人。
another world was opening up around this time: performance and dancing. that nagging dread of self-hood didn't exist when i was dancing. i'd literally lose myself. and i was a really good dancer. i would put all my emotional expression into my dancing. i could be in the movement in a way that i wasn't able to be in my real life, in myself.
这时候，另一个世界向我敞开了大门：舞蹈表演。那种关于自我的唠叨恐惧在舞蹈时消失了，我放开四肢，也成为了一位不错的舞者。我将所有的情绪都融入到舞蹈的动作中去，我可以在舞蹈中与自己相溶，尽管在现实生活中却无法做到。
and at 16, i stumbled across another opportunity, and i earned my first acting role in a film. i can hardly find the words to describe the peace i felt when i was acting. my dysfunctional self could actually plug in to another self, not my own, and it felt so good. it was the first time that i existed inside a fully-functioning self -- one that i controlled, that i steered, that i gave life to. but the shooting day would end, and i'd return to my gnarly, awkward self.
16岁的时候，我遇到了另一个机会，第一部参演的电影。我无法用语言来表达在演戏的时候我所感受到的平和，我无处着落的自我可以与那个角色融为一体，而不是我自己。那感觉真棒。这是第一次我感觉到我拥有一个自我，我可以驾驭，令其富有盛名的自我。然而当拍摄结束，我又会回到自己粗糙不明，笨拙的自我。
by 19, i was a fully-fledged movie actor, but still searching for definition. i applied to read anthropology at university. dr. phyllis lee gave me my interview, and she asked me, "how would you define race?" well, i thought i had the answer to that one, and i said, "skin color." "so biology, genetics?" she said. "because, thandie, that's not accurate. because there's actually more genetic difference between a black kenyan and a black ugandan than there is between a black kenyan and, say, a white norwegian. because we all stem from africa. so in africa, there's been more time to create genetic diversity." in other words, race has no basis in biological or scientific fact. on the one hand, result. right? on the other hand, my definition of self just lost a huge chunk of its credibility. but what was credible, what is biological and scientific fact, is that we all stem from africa -- in fact, from a woman called mitochondrial eve who lived 160,000 years ago. and race is an illegitimate concept which our selves have created based on fear and ignorance.
19岁的时候，我已经是富有经验的专业电影演员，而我还是在寻找自我的定义。我申请了大学的人类学专业。phyllis lee博士面试了我，她问我：“你怎么定义种族?”我觉得我很了解这个话题，我说：“肤色。”“那么生物上来说呢，例如遗传基因?”她说，“thandie 肤色并不全面，其实一个肯尼亚黑人和乌干达黑人之间基因差异比一个肯尼亚黑人和挪威白人之间差异要更多。因为我们都是从非洲来的，所以在非洲，基因变异演化的时间是最久的。”换句话说，种族在生物学或任何科学上都没有事实根据。另一方面，我对于自我的定义瞬时失去了一大片基础。 但那就是生物学事实，我们都是非洲后裔，一位在160 0XX年前的伟大女性mitochondrial eve的后人。而种族这个无效的概念是我们基于恐惧和无知自己捏造出来的。
strangely, these revelations didn't cure my low self-esteem, that feeling of otherness. my desire to disappear was still very powerful. i had a degree from cambridge; i had a thriving career, but my self was a car crash, and i wound up with bulimia and on a therapist's couch. and of course i did. i still believed my self was all i was. i still valued self-worth above all other worth, and what was there to suggest otherwise? we've created entire value systems and a physical reality to support the worth of self. look at the industry for self-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over. we'd be right in assuming that the self is an actual living thing. but it's not. it's a projection which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from the reality of death.
奇怪的是，这个发现并没有治好我的自卑，那种被排挤的感觉。我还是那么强烈地想要离开消失。我从剑桥拿到了学位，我有份充满发展的工作，然而我的自我还是一团糟，我得了催吐病不得不接受治疗师的帮助。我还是相信自我是我的全部。我还是坚信“自我”的价值甚过一切。而且我们身处的世界就是如此，我们的整个价值系统和现实环境都是在服务“自我”的价值。看看不同行业里面对于自我的塑造，看看它们创造的那些工作，产出的那些利润。我们甚至必须相信自我是真实存在的。但它们不是，自我不过是我们聪明的脑袋假想出来骗自己不去思考死亡这个话题的幌子。
but there is something that can give the self ultimate and infinite connection -- and that thing is oneness, our essence. the self's struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator -- to you and to me. and that can happen with awareness -- awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood. for a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves. it happens when i dance, when i'm acting. i'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended. in those moments, i'm connected to everything -- the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy from the audience. all my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as an infant might feel -- that feeling of oneness.
但其实我们的终极自我其实是我们的本源，合一。挣扎自我是否真实，究竟是什么永远没有终结，除非它和赋予它意义的创造者合一，就是你和我。而这点当我们意识到现实是你中有我，我中有你，和谐统一，而自我是种假象时就会体会到了。我们可以想想，什么时候我们是身心统一的，例如说我跳舞，表演的时候，我和我的本源连结，而我的自我被抛在一边。那时，我和身边的一切--空气，大地，声音，观众的反馈都连结在一起。我的知觉是敏锐和鲜活的，就像初生的婴儿那样，合一。
and when i'm acting a role, i inhabit another self, and i give it life for awhile, because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and judgment. and i've played everything from a vengeful ghost in the time of slavery to secretary of state in XX. and no matter how other these selves might be, they're all related in me. and i honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and my progress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure. i always wondered why i could feel others' pain so deeply, why i could recognize the somebody in the nobody. it's because i didn't have a self to get in the way. i thought i lacked substance, and the fact that i could feel others' meant that i had nothing of myself to feel. the thing that was a source of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.
当我在演戏的时候，我让另一个自我住在我体内，我代表它行动。当我的自我被抛开，紧随的分歧和主观判断也消失了。我曾经扮演过奴隶时代的复仇鬼魂，也扮演过XX年的国务卿。不管他们这些自我是怎样的，他们都在那时与我相连。而我也深信作为演员，我的成功，或是作为个体，我的成长都是源于我缺乏“自我”，那种缺乏曾经让我非常忧虑和不安。我总是不明白为什么我会那么深地感受到他人的痛苦，为什么我可以从不知名的人身上看出他人的印痕。是因为我没有所谓的自我来左右我感受的信息吧。我以为我缺少些什么，我以为我对他人的理解是因为我缺乏自我。那个曾经是我深感羞耻的东西其实是种启示。
and when i realized and really understood that my self is a projection and that it has a function, a funny thing happened. i stopped giving it so much authority. i give it its due. i take it to therapy. i've become very familiar with its dysfunctional behavior. but i'm not ashamed of my self. in fact, i respect my self and its function. and over time and with practice, i've tried to live more and more from my essence. and if you can do that, incredible things happen.
当我真的理解我的自我不过是种映射，是种工具，一件奇怪的事情发生了。我不再让它过多控制我的生活。我学习管理它，像把它带去看医生一样，我很熟悉那些因自我而失调的举动。我不因自我而羞耻，事实上，我很尊敬我的自我和它的功能。而随着时间过去，我的技术也更加熟练，我可以更多的和我的本源共存。如果你愿意尝试，不可以思议的事情也会发生在你身上。
i was in congo in february, dancing and celebrating with women who've survived the destruction of their selves in literally unthinkable ways -- destroyed because other brutalized, psychopathic selves all over that beautiful land are fueling our selves' addiction to ipods, pads, and bling, which further disconnect ourselves from ever feeling their pain, their suffering, their death. because, hey, if we're all living in ourselves and mistaking it for life, then we're devaluing and desensitizing life. and in that disconnected state, yeah, we can build factory farms with no windows, destroy marine life and use rape as a weapon of war. so here's a note to self: the cracks have started to show in our constructed world, and oceans will continue to surge through the cracks, and oil and blood, rivers of it.
今年二月，我在刚果和一群女性一起跳舞和庆祝，她们都是经历过各种无法想象事情“自我”遍体鳞伤的人们，那些备受摧残，心理变态的自我充斥在这片美丽的土地，而我们仍痴迷地追逐着ipod，pad等各种闪亮的东西，将我们与他们的痛苦，死亡隔得更远。如果我们各自生活在自我中，并无以为这就是生活，那么我们是在贬低和远离生命的意义。在这种脱节的状态中，我们是可以建设没有窗户的工厂，破坏海洋生态，将xx作为战争的工具。为我们的自我做个解释：这是看似完善的世界里的裂痕，海洋，河流，石油和鲜血正不断地从缝中涌出。
crucially, we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness with the earth and every other living thing. we've just been insanely trying to figure out how to live with each other -- billions of each other. only we're not living with each other; our crazy selves are living with each other and perpetuating an epidemic of disconnection.
关键的是，我们还没有明白如何和自然以及其他所有生物和谐地共处。我们只是疯狂地想和其他人沟通，几十亿其他人。只有当我们不在和世界合一的时候，我们疯狂的自我却互相怜惜，并永远继续这场相互隔绝的疫症。
let's live with each other and take it a breath at a time. if we can get under that heavy self, light a torch of awareness, and find our essence, our connection to the infinite and every other living thing. we knew it from the day we were born. let's not be freaked out by our bountiful nothingness. it's more a reality than the ones our selves have created. imagine what kind of existence we can have if we honor inevitable death of self, appreciate the privilege of life and marvel at what comes next. simple awareness is where it begins.
让我们共生共荣，并不要太过激进着急。试着放下沉重的自我，点亮知觉的火把，寻找我们的本源，我们与万事万物之间的联系。我们初生时就懂得这个道理的。不要被我们内心丰富的空白吓到，这比我们虚构的自我要真实。想象如果你能接受自我并不存在，你想要如何生活，感恩生命的可贵和未来的惊奇。简单的觉醒就是开始。
thank you for listening.
(applause) 谢谢。
(鼓掌)