TED英語演講：這才是愛情應有的樣子

今天小編為大家收集整理了關於TED英語演講：這才是愛情應有的樣子,希望大家會喜歡,同時也希望給你們帶來一些參考的作用!

A better way to talk about love

OK, so today I want to talk about how wetalk about love. And specifically, I want to talk about what's wrong with howwe talk about love.

今天我想談談我們是如何談論愛情的。我尤其想和你們聊的是，我們談論愛情時到底哪裡出錯了。

Most of us will probably fall in love a fewtimes over the course of our lives, and in the English language, this metaphor,falling, is really the main way that we talk about that experience. I don'tknow about you, but when I conceptualize this metaphor, what I picture isstraight out of a cartoon — like there's a man, he's walking down the sidewalk, withoutrealizing it, he crosses over an open manhole, and he just plummets into thesewer below. And I picture it this way because falling is not jumping. Fallingis accidental, it's uncontrollable. It's something that happens to us withoutour consent. And this — this is the main way we talk about starting a new relationship.

我們大多數人在一生中可能深愛過幾次，在英語中，墜入愛河這個比喻，是我們談論這段經歷的主要方式。我不知道你是怎麼想的，但是當我把這個比喻概念化的時候，我腦海裡浮現的是一幅漫畫——就像有一個人，他走在人行道上，沒有意識到自己走過一個開啟的井蓋，然後他就一頭栽進下面的下水道里。我會這麼想是因為，墜落不是跳躍。墜落是偶然的，是無法控制的。是沒經過我們的同意就發生了，而這我們說到開始一段新的感情，主要就用的這種方式去表達的。

I am a writer and I'm also an Englishteacher, which means I think about words for a living. You could say that I getpaid to argue that the language we use matters, and I would like to argue thatmany of the metaphors we use to talk about love — maybe even most ofthem — are a problem.

我是一名作家，同時也是一位英語老師，這就意味著我以思考語言為生。你可能會說，我們使用的語言很重要，我認為我們用來談論愛情的許多隱喻——甚至可能是其中的大多數都是有問題的。

So, in love, we fall. We're struck. We arecrushed. We swoon. We burn with passion. Love makes us crazy, and it makes ussick. Our hearts ache, and then they break. So our metaphors equate theexperience of loving someone to extreme violence or illness.

於是，我們墜入愛河。我們被擊潰。我們意亂情迷。愛讓我們瘋狂，也讓我們難受不已。我們的心會痛，會心碎。所以我們把深愛某人比喻為與極端暴力和疾病相關的比喻。

They do. And they position us as thevictims of unforeseen and totally unavoidable favorite one ofthese is "smitten," which is the past participle of the word"smite." And if you look this word up in the dictionary —you will seethat it can be defined as both "grievous affliction," and, "tobe very much in love." I tend to associate the word "smite" witha very particular context, which is the Old Testament. In the Book of Exodusalone, there are 16 references to smiting, which is the word that the Bibleuses for the vengeance of an angry God.

確實是這樣的。這些比喻把我們看作在不可預見和完全不可避免的情況的受害者。我最喜歡的一個是smitten，它是smite的過去分詞如果你在字典裡查這個詞-你會發現它既可以被定義為“極度痛苦”，也可以被定義為“神魂顛倒”。我傾向於把"smite"這個詞和一個非常特殊的語境聯絡起來，那就是《舊約》。僅在《出埃及記》中，就有16處提到了smiting，這是聖經中用來描述憤怒的上帝復仇的詞。

(Laughter)

Here we are using the same word to talkabout love that we use to explain a plague of t?So, how did thishappen? How have we come to associate love with great pain and suffering?Andwhy do we talk about this ostensibly good experience as if we are victims?These are difficult questions, but I have some theories. And to think thisthrough, I want to focus on one metaphor in particular, which is the idea oflove as madness.

我們談論愛情時所使用的詞語和我們用來解釋蝗蟲的瘟疫所用的詞語是同一個。對吧?那麼，怎麼會這樣呢?我們是為什麼會把愛和巨大的痛苦聯絡在一起呢?為什麼我們談論這種看似美好的經歷時將自己看做受害者呢?這些問題很難回答，但我有一些理論。為了深入思考這個問題，我想特別關注一個比喻，那就是愛是瘋狂的想法。

When I first started researching romanticlove, I found these madness metaphors everywhere. The history of Westernculture is full of language that equates love to mental illness. These are justa few examples. William Shakespeare: "Love is merely a madness," from"As You Like It."Friedrich Nietzsche: "There is always somemadness in love." "Got me looking, got me looking so crazy in love — "fromthe great philosopher, Beyoncé Knowles.

當我第一次開始研究浪漫愛情時，我發現這些瘋狂的隱喻無處不在。西方文化史上充滿了將愛情等同於精神疾病的語言。這只是幾個例子。莎士比亞:“愛只不過是一種瘋狂”，出自《皆大歡喜》。尼采:“愛情總有瘋狂的時刻。”偉大的哲學家碧昂絲·諾爾斯曾說過:“讓我看起來瘋狂，像是愛瘋了”

I fell in love for the first time when Iwas 20, and it was a pretty turbulent relationship right from the start. And itwas long distance for the first couple of years, so for me that meant very highhighs and very low lows. I can remember one moment in particular. I was sittingon a bed in a hostel in South America, and I was watching the person I lovewalk out the door. And it was late, it was nearly midnight, we'd gotten into anargument over dinner, and when we got back to our room, he threw his things inthe bag and stormed out. While I can no longer remember what that argument wasabout, I very clearly remember how I felt watching him leave.

我第一次墜入愛河是在我20歲的時候，從一開始這段關係就跌宕起伏。在最初的幾年裡，我們處於異地戀的狀態，所以對我來說，這意味著要麼極度幸福要麼極度痛苦。我能特別記得那一刻，我坐在南美一家旅社的床上，看著我愛的奪門而出。已經很晚了，將近午夜了，我們在吃晚飯的時候發生了爭吵，當我們回到房間時，他把他的東西扔進包裡，氣沖沖地走了。雖然我已經不記得我們當時因為什麼在爭吵了，但我非常清楚地記得看著他離開時我的感受。

I was 22, it was my first time in thedeveloping world, and I was totally alone. I had another week until my flighthome, and I knew the name of the town that I was in, and the name of the citythat I needed to get to to fly out, but I had no idea how to get around. I hadno guidebook and very little money, and I spoke no Spanish.

那時我22歲，這是我第一次來到發展中國家，我孤身一人。還有一個星期我才能飛回家，我知道我要去的城鎮的名字，也知道我要飛到的城市的名字，但是我不知道該怎麼走。我沒有旅遊指南，也沒有多少錢，而且我不會說西班牙語。

Someone more adventurous than me might haveseen this as a moment of opportunity, but I just froze. I just sat there. Andthen I burst into tears. But despite my panic, some small voice in my headthought, "Wow. That was dramatic. I must really be doing this love thingright."

一些比我更有冒險精神的人可能會把這看作是一個機遇，但我卻愣住了。我只是坐在那裡。然後我淚流滿面。儘管我很恐慌，但我腦子裡還是有個很小的聲音在想:“哇!這是很戲劇性的，我真的愛上這個人了!”

Because some part of me wanted to feelmiserable in love. And it sounds so strange to me now, but at 22, I longed tohave dramatic experiences, and in that moment, I was irrational and furious anddevastated, and weirdly enough, I thought that this somehow legitimized thefeelings I had for the guy who had just left me.

因為我在這一刻想要被愛折磨，現在聽起來很奇怪，但在我22歲的時候，我渴望有戲劇性的經歷，在那一刻，我失去理智，憤怒和崩潰，奇怪的是，我認為這在某種程度上，我對那個剛摔門而去的我的男人產生這樣的感情是合理的。

I think on some level I wanted to feel alittle bit crazy, because I thought that that was how loved worked. This reallyshould not be surprising, considering that according to Wikipedia, there areeight films, 14 songs, two albums and one novel with the title "CrazyLove."

我想在某種程度上，我讓自己有點瘋狂，因為我認為這才是愛一個人的方式。這一點都不奇怪，畢竟維基百科上顯示有8部電影、14首歌曲、兩張專輯和一本名為《瘋狂的愛》的小說。

About half an hour later, he came back toour room. We made up. We spent another mostly happy week traveling then, when I got home, I thought, "That was so terrible and must be a real romance." I expected my first love to feel likemadness, and of course, it met that expectation very well. But loving someonelike that — as if my entire well-being depended on him loving me back — was notvery good for me or for him.

大約半小時後，他回來了。我們和解了。我們又一起度過了快樂的一週，一起旅行。當我回到家，我想，那真是一段又可怕又美好的一段經歷。這一定是一段真正的羅曼史。我期待我的初戀是瘋狂的，當然，我如願以償了。但是愛一個人就像是我整個人的狀態感受都取決於他是否也愛我。這與我，與他而言都不是一件好事。

But I suspect this experience of love isnot that unusual. Most of us do feel a bit mad in the early stages of romanticlove. In fact, there is research to confirm that this is somewhatnormal,because, neurochemically speaking, romantic love and mental illness arenot that easily distinguished. This is true.

但我懷疑這種愛的體驗並不是那麼不尋常。在大多數人剛開始一段戀情時都感到有那麼一點瘋狂。事實上，有研究證實這其實是正常的，因為從神經化學的角度來說，浪漫的愛情和精神疾病並不是那麼容易區分的。

This study from 1999 used blood tests toconfirm that the serotonin levels of the newly in love very closely resembledthe serotonin levels of people who had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsivedisorder.

1999年的這項研究通過血液測試證實，剛戀愛的人的血清素水平與被診斷為強迫症的人的血清素水平非常相似。

Yes, and low levels of serotonin are alsoassociated with seasonal affective disorder and depression. So there is someevidence that love is associated with changes to our moods and our there are other studies to confirm that most relationships begin this way.

是的，低血清素水平也與季節性情緒失調和抑鬱症有關。所以有證據表明，愛與我們情緒和行為的變化有關。還有其他研究證實，大多數關係都是這樣開始的。

Researchers believe that the low levels ofserotonin is correlated with obsessive thinking about the object of love, whichis like this feeling that someone has set up camp in your brain. And most of usfeel this way when we first fall in love. But the good news is, it doesn'talways last that long —usually from a few months to a couple of years.

研究人員認為，血清素水平低與相思有關，就像有人在你的大腦中安營紮寨一樣。我們大多數人在第一次戀愛時都有這種感覺。但好訊息是，它並不總是持續那麼長時間——通常從幾個月到幾年。

When I got back from my trip to SouthAmerica, I spent a lot of time alone in my room,checking my email, desperate tohear from the guy I loved. I decided that if my friends could not understand mygrievous affliction, then I did not need their friendship. So I stopped hangingout with most of them. And it was probably the most unhappy year of my I think I felt like it was my job to be miserable, because if I could bemiserable, then I would prove how much I loved if I could prove it,then we would have to end up together eventually.

當我從南美旅行回來後，我花了很多時間獨自呆在房間裡，檢視電子郵件，急切地想要收到我愛的人的來信。我決定，如果我的朋友不能理解我的痛苦，那麼我就不需要他們的友誼。所以我不再和他們中的大多數出去玩了。那可能是我一生中最不快樂的一年。但我認為痛苦是我必須要經歷的，因為如果我能感受到痛苦，我就能證明我有多愛他。如果我能證明這一點，我們最終會在一起。

This is the real madness, because there isno cosmic rule that says that great suffering equals great reward, but we talkabout love as if this is true.

這是真正的瘋狂，因為沒有宇宙法則說巨大的痛苦會換來同等的報酬，但我們談論愛情時的確是這樣的。

Our experiences of love are both biologicaland cultural. Our biology tells us that love is good by activating these rewardcircuits in our brain, and it tells us that love is painful when, after a fightor a breakup, that neurochemical reward is withdrawn. And in fact — and maybeyou've heard this —neurochemically speaking, going through a breakup is a lot likegoing through cocaine withdrawal,which I find reassuring.

我們的愛情經歷和生理和文化都是相關的。通過激活了我們大腦中的這些獎賞迴路，生理反應告訴我們愛情很美好，在吵架或分手後，這種神經化學獎賞被撤回。生理反應又會告訴我們愛情很痛苦，實際上，或許你聽說過這個從神經化學的角度說經歷一場分手就像戒除毒癮，我為此感到心安。

And then our culture uses language to shapeand reinforce these ideas about love. In this case, we're talking aboutmetaphors about pain and addiction and madness. It's kind of an interestingfeedback loop. Love is powerful and at times painful, and we express this inour words and stories, but then our words and stories prime us to expect loveto be powerful and painful.

然後我們的文化用語言來塑造和強化這些關於愛的觀念。在這個例子中，我們討論的是關於痛苦，上癮和瘋狂的隱喻。這是一個有趣的反饋迴圈。愛是強大的，有時是痛苦的，我們用語言和故事來表達這種感受，但是它們反過來又讓我們期待愛情是強大且痛苦的，

What's interesting to me is that all ofthis happens in a culture that values lifelong monogamy. It seems like we wantit both ways: we want love to feel like madness, and we want it to last anentire lifetime. That sounds terrible.

我認為有趣的是，這都存在於重視終生一夫一妻制的文化中。我們似乎想要兩全其美:我們想讓愛變得瘋狂，我們想讓它持續一生。這聽起來太可怕了。

To reconcile this, we need to either changeour culture or change our expectations. So, imagine if we were all less passivein love. If we were more assertive, more open-minded, more generous and insteadof falling in love, we stepped into love. I know that this is asking a lot, butI'm not actually the first person to suggest this. In their book,"Metaphors We Live By," linguists Mark Johnson and George Lakoffsuggest a really interesting solution to this dilemma, which is to change ourmetaphors. They argue that metaphors really do shape the way we experience theworld, and that they can even act as a guide for future actions, likeself-fulfilling prophecies.

為了協調這個矛盾，我們需要改變我們的文化要麼改變我們的期望。所以，想象一下如果我們在愛情中不那麼被動。如果我們更自信、更開放、更慷慨，我們慢慢步入愛河，而不是墜入愛河。我知道這要求很多，但我並不是第一個提出這個建議的人。語言學家馬克·約翰遜(Mark Johnson)和喬治·拉考夫(George Lakoff)在他們的著作《我們賴以生存的隱喻》(metaphor We Live By)中提出了一種非常有趣的方法來解決這個難題，那就是改變我們的隱喻。他們認為隱喻確實塑造了我們體驗世界的方式，甚至可以作為未來行為的指南，比如自我實現預言。

Johnson and Lakoff suggest a new metaphorfor love: love as a collaborative work of art. I really like this way ofthinking about love. Linguists talk about metaphors as having entailments,which is essentially a way of considering all the implications of, or ideascontained within, a given metaphor. And Johnson and Lakoff talk abouteverything that collaborating on a work of art entails: effort, compromise,patience, shared goals. These ideas align nicely with our cultural investmentin long-term romantic commitment, but they also work well for other kinds ofrelationships — short-term, casual, polyamorous, non-monogamous, asexual — becausethis metaphor brings much more complex ideas to the experience of loving someone.

約翰遜和拉考夫提出了愛的一個新隱喻:愛是一種合作的藝術作品。我真的很喜歡這種思考愛情的方式。語言學家把隱喻看作是有牽連的，它本質上是一種考慮給定隱喻的所有含義或包含在其中的思想的方法。約翰遜和拉考夫認為不管是什麼要合作創造藝術需要具備以下幾點：努力、妥協、耐心、共同的目標。這些想法與我們對長期浪漫承諾的文化投資非常吻合，但它們也適用於其他型別的關係——短期的、隨意的、多角戀的、非一夫一妻制的、無性的——因為這個比喻給愛一個人的體驗帶來了更加複雜的概念。

So if love is a collaborative work of art,then love is an aesthetic experience. Love is unpredictable, love is creative,love requires communication and discipline, it is frustrating and emotionallydemanding. And love involves both joy and pain. Ultimately, each experience oflove is different.

所以如果愛是一種藝術合作，那麼愛就是一種審美體驗。愛是不可預測的，愛是有創造力的，愛需要交流和自律，愛是令人沮喪的，也是情感上的要求。愛包含了快樂和痛苦。最終，每一種愛的體驗都是不同的。

When I was younger, it never occurred to methat I was allowed to demand more from love, that I didn't have to just acceptwhatever love offered. When 14-year-old Juliet first meets — or, when14-year-old Juliet cannot be with Romeo, whom she has met four days ago, shedoes not feel disappointed or angsty. Where is she? She wants to die. Right?And just as a refresher, at this point in the play, act three of five, Romeo isnot dead. He's alive, he's healthy, he's just been banished from the city. Iunderstand that 16th-century Verona is unlike contemporary North America, andyet when I first read this play, also at age 14, Juliet's suffering made senseto me.

當我年輕的時候，我從來沒有想過我可以向愛索取更多，我不用對愛情逆來順受。當14歲的朱麗葉第一次遇見—或者當14歲的朱麗葉不能和她四天前見過的羅密歐在一起時，她不會感到失望或生氣。她在哪裡呢?她想死。對吧?讓我們複習一下，在第五幕的第三幕，羅密歐沒有死。他還活著，他很健康，他剛被趕出這個城市。我知道16世紀的維羅納不同於當代的北美，但當我14歲第一次讀到這部戲劇時，朱麗葉的痛苦對我來說是有意義的。

Reframing love as something I get to createwith someone I admire, rather than something that just happens to me without mycontrol or consent, is empowering. It's still hard. Love still feels totallymaddening and crushing some days, and when I feel really frustrated, I have toremind myself: my job in this relationship is to talk to my partner about whatI want to make together. This isn't easy, either. But it's just so much betterthan the alternative, which is that thing that feels like madness.

重塑愛情，就好像這是我和我仰慕的人共同創造的，而不是未經我同意或者不受控制就發生的，這會讓人感到充滿力量。這仍然很難。有時候，愛情仍然讓人抓狂，讓人崩潰，當我真的感到沮喪的時候，我必須提醒自己:我在這段關係中的工作就是和我的伴侶想要一起建立什麼。這也不容易。但這比另一種選擇要好得多，那就是那種感覺很瘋狂的東西。

This version of love is not about winningor losing someone's affection. Instead, it requires that you trust your partnerand talk about things when trusting feels difficult, which sounds so simple,but is actually a kind of revolutionary, radical act. This is because you getto stop thinking about yourself and what you're gaining or losing in yourrelationship, and you get to start thinking about what you have to offer. Thisversion of love allows us to say things like, "Hey, we're not very goodcollaborators. Maybe this isn't for us." Or, "That relationship wasshorter than I had planned, but it was still kind of beautiful."

這種愛情無關贏得或失去誰的愛慕，而是，它要求你信任你的伴侶，在很難信任對方的時候進行溝通，這聽起來很簡單，但實際上是一種革命性的、激進的行為。這是因為你不再只想到你自己在這段關係中得到或失去了什麼，你要開始思考你給予什麼。這種愛情讓我們能夠去說，“嘿，我們的合作並不是很順利呢，或許我們不合適”或者，“這段關係持續的時間比我計劃的要短，但仍然很美好。”

The beautiful thing about the collaborativework of art is that it will not paint or draw or sculpt version oflove allows us to decide what it looks like.

藝術合作的美妙之處在於，它不會自己成為藝術品。這種愛讓我們能夠決定自己的愛情應該是怎樣的

Thank you.