Stephen Colbert on Making The Late Show His Own
It was early July , about nine weeks before the debut of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and we were sitting in his temporary office above a BMW dealership on the far west side of Manhattan.
那是七月初，距离《史蒂芬·科尔伯特深夜秀》首播大约九周，我们坐在他位于曼哈顿远西区一家宝马经销店楼上的临时办公室里。
He looked very tired, and he was apologizing (unnecessarily) for rambling on in a way that was maybe a little uncomfortably overemotional.
他看起来很累，而且他正在为胡言乱语而道歉（不必要地），这种方式可能有点令人不安的过度情绪化。
“I didn't leave the studio until 2 A.M.
“直到凌晨 2 点我才离开工作室。
last night,” he said.
昨晚，”他说。
“Didn't get to bed until three, and I've been traveling and just got here—.”
“直到三点才上床睡觉，我一直在旅行，刚刚到这里——”
He'd been up late doing a strange stunt the night before, stepping in unannounced as host of Only in Monroe, a local public-access program in Monroe, Michigan, about forty miles south of Detroit.
前一天晚上，他熬夜做了一个奇怪的特技，在没有事先通知的情况下，作为“Only in Monroe”的主持人，这是密歇根州门罗市的一个当地公共广播节目，该节目位于底特律以南约四十英里处。
There was all sorts of pressure on their first show, he said.
他说，他们的第一场演出面临着各种各样的压力。
“First show!
“首秀！
First show!
首秀！
Well, fuck the first show.
好吧，他妈的第一场演出。
There's going to be 202 this year—how do you do a first one?
今年将有 202 场——第一个如何进行？
So I just wanted to go do a show someplace.
所以我只是想去某个地方做一场演出。
And now we've done it.”
现在我们已经做到了。”
The idea was to do Only in Monroe more or less as it always is—same production values, same set and graphics and crew—just a ton more jokes.
我们的想法是《只有梦露》或多或少像往常一样——相同的制作价值、相同的布景、图像和工作人员——只是多了很多笑话。
His first guests were the show's regular hosts, Michelle Bowman and (former Miss America) Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson.
他的第一批嘉宾是该节目的常任主持人米歇尔·鲍曼和（前美国小姐）凯·拉尼·雷·拉夫科·威尔逊。
(Colbert on-air: “I'm not sure how many people that is.”) He did Monroe news and the Monroe calendar, and about twenty minutes in, he brought out his next guest, “a local Michigander who is making a name for himself in the competitive world of music, Marshall Mathers.”
（科尔伯特在广播中：“我不确定有多少人。”）他做了门罗新闻和门罗日历，大约二十分钟后，他带出了他的下一位客人，“一位在竞争激烈的音乐界声名鹊起的当地密歇根人，马歇尔·马瑟斯。”
We were talking about the logistics involved in pulling off something like this, and how great it felt for him to be improvising in front of a camera again, and the curious tensions that popped up in his interview with Eminem.
我们谈论了完成这样的事情所涉及的后勤工作，以及他再次在镜头前即兴创作的感觉是多么棒，以及他在接受阿姆采访时出现的奇怪的紧张气氛。
And then we got onto the subject of discomfort and disorientation, and the urge he has to seek out those feelings, and from there it was a quick jump to the nature of suffering.
然后我们谈到了不适和迷失方向的主题，以及他必须寻找这些感觉的冲动，从那里我们很快就跳到了痛苦的本质。
Before long we were sitting there with a plate of roast chicken and several bottles of Cholula on the table between us, both of us rubbing tears from our eyes.
不久，我们坐在那里，桌子上摆着一盘烤鸡和几瓶乔卢拉酒，我们俩都擦着眼泪。
“The level of emotion you're getting from me right now—I'm not saying it's dishonest,” he said.
“你现在从我这里感受到的情绪水平——我并不是说这是不诚实的，”他说。
“I'm just saying it's not normal.
“我只是说这不正常。
I'd really love to go to bed.
我真的很想睡觉。
I promise you, I do not spend my time on the edge of tears.”
我向你保证，我不会把时间花在眼泪的边缘。”
I've easily played the recording of that conversation a dozen times, only one of them in order to transcribe.
我轻松地将那段对话的录音播放了十几遍，其中只有一次是为了转录。
And while we spent plenty of time talking about comedy and the conventions of late-night and the sheer practical challenge of doing a show twice as long as his old one—the thing I've been thinking about the most since my time with Colbert is loss.
虽然我们花了很多时间谈论喜剧和深夜的惯例，以及制作比他以前的节目长两倍的节目所面临的纯粹的实际挑战，但自从我和科尔伯特在一起以来，我一直在思考最多的事情就是失去。
The losses he's experienced in his life, yes, but really the meaning we all make of our losses.
是的，他一生中经历过的损失，但实际上是我们所有人对损失的意义。
Deaths of loved ones, the phases of our children's lives hurtling by, jobs and relationships we never imagined would end.
亲人的去世，孩子生命中的各个阶段，我们从未想象过的工作和人际关系会结束。
All of it.
所有这一切。
Among other things, our lives are compendiums of loss and change and what we make of it.
除其他外，我们的生活是损失和变化以及我们如何利用它的概要。
I've never met anyone who's faced that reality more meaningfully than Stephen Colbert.
我从未见过比史蒂芬·科尔伯特更有意义地面对现实的人。
I suppose, more than anything, that's what this story is about.
我想，最重要的是，这就是这个故事的主题。
Also: ball jokes.
还有：球笑话。
Or the absence of them.
或者没有他们。
They're doing network now, after all, and Colbert has declared a moratorium on ball jokes.
毕竟，他们现在正在做网络，科尔伯特已经宣布暂停球类笑话。
(I believe I was present for the last one.
（我相信我参加了最后一场比赛。
It involved Greece and the Eurozone—and Paul Krugman's balls.)
它涉及希腊和欧元区——以及保罗·克鲁格曼的球。）
They did the public-access show live at midnight, with no advance publicity and no Twitter or Facebook posts afterward.
他们在午夜进行了公开直播，没有提前宣传，之后也没有在 Twitter 或 Facebook 上发布帖子。
The only way the world would ever know that it happened is if someone, an insomniac or an inmate or one of the show's twelve viewers, looked up at the screen at some point and recognized Colbert hanging out with Eminem next to the potted plant.
全世界知道这件事发生的唯一方法是，如果有人，一个失眠症患者，一个囚犯，或者节目的十二名观众之一，在某个时候抬头看着屏幕，认出了科尔伯特和埃米纳姆在盆栽旁边闲逛。
Maybe that person would tell somebody, and maybe that other person would tweet about it.
也许那个人会告诉某人，也许另一个人会发推文谈论这件事。
“I have to check right now to see how many people have seen this fucker,” Colbert said.
“我现在必须检查一下，看看有多少人见过这个混蛋，”科尔伯特说。
“When we showed it at midnight, nobody watched it.
“当我们在午夜放映时，没有人观看。
I mean nobody....
我的意思是没有人....
We dug a hole in the backyard, yelled a show into it, then covered it up with dirt and said, ‘Don't tell anybody.’ ”
我们在后院挖了一个洞，对着里面大喊大叫，然后用泥土把它盖起来，并说，‘不要告诉任何人。’”
Someone must have spotted him on the show's morning rerun, because Twitter was beginning to light up in confusion and amazement.
一定有人在早间重播的节目中发现了他，因为推特上开始充满困惑和惊讶。
“YouTube has frozen the count,” he said.
“YouTube 已经冻结了计数，”他说。
“They usually do that when people are hitting it so fast they go, ‘Wait, this might be bots.’ ” He seemed really pleased with how this experiment in pure virality was playing out.
“当人们点击速度太快时，他们通常会这样做，他们会说，‘等等，这可能是机器人。’”他似乎对这个纯粹的病毒式传播实验的结果感到非常满意。
“We worked really hard for no one to know it was happening,” he said, “to see if anybody would know that it was happening.”
“我们非常努力地工作，不让任何人知道这件事正在发生，”他说，“看看是否有人会知道它正在发生。”
The question that has been hanging over the entire Late Show staff since last December, when Colbert put to rest the righteous blowhard he'd played for the past nine years, was: Who will he be now that he's no longer in character?
自去年12月科尔伯特安息了他在过去九年里扮演的正义吹牛人以来，一直悬在整个深夜秀工作人员面前的问题是：既然他不再扮演角色，他会是谁？
How will his style change—and his opinions be expressed—if he's not delivering his jokes through an imbecile's mouth?
如果他不是通过一个低能之人的嘴讲笑话，他的风格将会如何改变，他的观点会如何表达？
When you're speaking to a huge swath of America each night, can you still carry a knife?
当你每天晚上对美国广大地区讲话时，你还能带刀吗？
It's interesting to watch his interview with Eminem with this in mind.
考虑到这一点，观看他对阿姆的采访很有趣。
The whole thing is great, but there are a few spots that are electric, because we assume that Eminem is in on the conceit—that Colbert is playing a character who is aggressively ignorant of who he is—and yet he appears in these moments to be totally baffled by what's going on.
整件事很棒，但有几个地方令人震惊，因为我们认为埃米纳姆是在自负——科尔伯特扮演的角色完全不知道自己是谁——但在这些时刻，他似乎对正在发生的事情完全感到困惑。
“I'm so confused right now,” Eminem says at one point.
“我现在很困惑，”埃米纳姆有一次说道。
“I'm trying to figure out if you're serious.” Colbert remains stubbornly, insultingly in character.
“我想看看你是不是认真的。”科尔伯特的性格仍然顽固、侮辱性。
“I'd like to apologize,” he says, “if you're a bigger deal than I know about.” Eminem stares back at him in disbelief.
“如果你的事情比我知道的更重要，”他说，“我想道歉。”阿姆难以置信地回头看着他。
“Are you serious right now?” he says again.
“你现在是认真的吗？”他又说道。
“I'm trying to figure out if you're serious right now.” Colbert straightens in his chair.
“我想看看你现在是不是认真的。”科尔伯特在椅子上直起身子。
“You seem pretty mad,” he says.
“你看起来很生气，”他说。
And it's true, he does!
这是真的，他确实如此！
If Eminem's reaction were purely a performance, there would be a very different energy there.
如果阿姆的反应纯粹是一种表演，那么那里会有一种非常不同的能量。
We'd just be watching two guys play make-believe.
我们只是看两个人玩假戏。
But something else is going on.
但还有其他事情正在发生。
It's so subtle and (I imagine) unintentional, but in his sly execution of the conceit, Colbert is pushing them toward something more real than if he'd played it straight—difficult questions of ego and fame.
这是如此微妙和（我想）无意的，但在他狡猾地执行这个自负的过程中，科尔伯特正在推动他们走向比他直截了当地更真实的东西——关于自我和名誉的难题。
“I don't know what parts of the interview he, like, truly doesn't know what the fuck's going on,” Colbert said.
“我不知道采访的哪些部分他真的不知道到底发生了什么，”科尔伯特说。
“But yeah, I think there were times when he was genuinely confused.”
“但是，是的，我认为有时候他真的很困惑。”
Shedding the suit of the high-status dummy he played for nine years has liberated him to do the comedy he really wants to do, he said.
他说，脱掉他扮演了九年的高地位假人的服装让他解放了，可以去做他真正想做的喜剧。
Whatever comes next—however he shape-shifts between being recognizably himself and playing a veiled or not-so-thinly-veiled character—the motivation will be all his.
无论接下来发生什么——无论他如何在明显的自我和扮演一个戴着面纱或不那么薄面纱的角色之间转变——动力都将是他的。
“I just want to do things that scratch an itch for me.
“我只想做一些让我感到痒痒的事情。
That itch is often something that feels wrong.
那种痒通常是一种感觉不对劲的感觉。
It's wrong because it breaks convention or is unexpected or at times uncomfortable.
这是错误的，因为它打破了惯例，或者是出乎意料的，或者有时是不舒服的。
I like that feeling.”
我喜欢那种感觉。”
The old character was “a continual style joke,” he said, and that style, punditry, had been a reaction to a time when O'Reilly and Limbaugh and the rest of the shouters exerted a real gravitational pull on the American psyche.
他说，这个旧角色是“一个持续的风格笑话”，而这种风格、专家观点，是对奥莱利、林堡和其他呼喊者对美国人心灵施加真正引力的时代的反应。
For however often Jon Stewart and Colbert dismissed the notion that they had any mission beyond the (very difficult) one of telling great jokes, they had become a portal through which viewers made sense of American insanity.
尽管乔恩·斯图尔特和科尔伯特经常否认他们除了讲好笑话（非常困难）之外还有任何使命，但他们已经成为观众了解美国疯狂行为的门户。
Their shows served as dense clouds of satirical antimatter.
他们的表演就像浓密的反物质讽刺云。
And then things changed, slowly.
然后事情慢慢发生了变化。
America is different now.
美国现在不同了。
There will never be a shortage of daily atrocities to be satirized, but Colbert began to strain against the limitations of the character he played—“to have to pull everything through the keyhole of his worldview.” Even before CBS offered him the Late Show gig, he had decided to shut The Colbert Report down.
每天都会有可供讽刺的暴行，但科尔伯特开始努力克服他所扮演的角色的局限性——“必须把一切都从他的世界观的钥匙孔里拉出来。”甚至在哥伦比亚广播公司向他提供深夜秀演出之前，他就决定关闭《科尔伯特报道》。
“I no longer felt that that model served to address the national mood,” he said.
“我不再认为这种模式能够解决国民情绪，”他说。
Ten years ago, the country was palpably more afraid and angry.
十年前，这个国家显然更加恐惧和愤怒。
“We're in a different place now.” Gay marriage.
“我们现在在不同的地方了。”同性婚姻。
The reasonable and occasionally unifying course of the Obama administration.
奥巴马政府的合理且偶尔统一的方针。
“We can stop freaking out that the guy's middle name is Hussein,” he said.
“我们不必再因为这个人的中间名是侯赛因而感到害怕，”他说。
“What else?
“还有什么？
Our response to the horror in South Carolina is to take the flag down.
我们对南卡罗来纳州恐怖事件的反应是降下国旗。
That is something I didn't think was ever going to happen.”
这是我认为永远不会发生的事情。”
Publishing bylaws practically require a comparison at this point between the styles of Jimmy and Conan and James and Jimmy and Seth and Carson and now Colbert.
出版章程实际上需要对吉米和柯南、詹姆斯和吉米、塞斯和卡森以及现在的科尔伯特的风格进行比较。
But it feels silly to think about him in those terms.
但以这种方式思考他感觉很愚蠢。
He's so unlike anyone else on television, or even anyone in TV memory, that the real question becomes what kind of public figure will emerge over time, and how much influence he'll have beyond the nightly delivery of great jokes (again, so hard to do that!).
他与电视上的其他人，甚至电视记忆中的任何人都非常不同，以至于真正的问题是，随着时间的推移，将会出现什么样的公众人物，以及除了每晚发布精彩笑话之外，他还会产生多大的影响力（再次，很难做到这一点！）。
When I raised the idea that he was one of the country's few public moral intellectuals, and that there were plenty of people out there wondering how that role might express itself in the new show, he said, “I have a morality.
当我提出他是这个国家为数不多的公共道德知识分子之一，并且有很多人想知道这个角色在新剧中如何表达时，他说，“我有道德。
I don't know if it's the best morality.
我不知道这是否是最好的道德。
And I do like thinking.
而且我确实喜欢思考。
If people perceive that as a moral intellectualism, that's fine.
如果人们认为这是一种道德理智主义，那很好。
That's up to them to decide.
这由他们决定。
A friend of mine once said, ‘If someone says you're influencing them, then you're influential.
我的一个朋友曾经说过，‘如果有人说你正在影响他们，那么你就是有影响力的。
It's not up for you to say.
这不由你说了算。
You can't take that away from them.’ But it's entirely not my intention.
你不能把它从他们身上夺走。”但这完全不是我的本意。
This I promise you.
这是我向你保证的。
Because that's a short road to being a comedian in all seriousness.
因为这是成为一名真正的喜剧演员的捷径。
‘As a comedian, in all seriousness, let me not entertain you.’ ”
“作为一名喜剧演员，说真的，我不会娱乐你的。””
Three days after the massacre in Charleston, Colbert returned to his hometown to lay flowers at the steps of Emanuel AME and join the peace march across the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.
查尔斯顿大屠杀三天后，科尔伯特回到家乡，在伊曼纽尔 AME 的台阶上献花，并参加了穿过小亚瑟·拉芙内尔大桥的和平游行。
He described it as the most moving and affirming gathering he'd ever witnessed.
他形容这是他所见过的最令人感动和肯定的聚会。
I know I wasn't alone, though, in wishing he had been on the air—and not because the country needed a laugh, obviously.
不过，我知道我并不是唯一一个希望他能上台的人——显然，这并不是因为这个国家需要笑声。
What the country needed was a model for how to see and think and be.
这个国家需要的是一个如何看待、思考和存在的模式。
Jon Stewart went a long way toward providing that, with his I have no jokes opening monologue and his quiet, contained-rage attack on political opportunism.
乔恩·斯图尔特（Jon Stewart）在实现这一点方面付出了很大的努力，他的《我没有笑话》开场独白以及他对政治机会主义的安静、克制的愤怒攻击。
But the voice I selfishly longed for was Colbert's.
但我自私地渴望的声音是科尔伯特的。
“We would have done it, if we had to,” he said when I asked if any part of him had felt a desire to talk about it on the air.
当我问他是否有任何一部分想要在广播中谈论这件事时，他说：“如果必须的话，我们会这么做的。”
“But no,” he said.
“但是不，”他说。
“It's such an old form of a particular evil.
“这是一种特殊邪恶的古老形式。
Such a pure form, that it feels very old.
如此纯粹的形式，让人感觉很古老。
It was like a dragon showed up.
就好像一条龙出现了。
Like, yeah, there used to be dragons.
就像，是的，曾经有龙。
I didn't know there still were dragons…and I don't necessarily crave facing that dragon with my little sword.” He paused for a moment and looked down at the table.
我不知道还有龙……而且我也不一定渴望用我的小剑去面对那条龙。”他停顿了一会儿，低头看着桌子。
“Tragedy is sacred,” he said.
“悲剧是神圣的，”他说。
“People's suffering is sacred.”
“人们的苦难是神圣的。”
Sebastian Kim We took a ride one day from the temporary offices over to the completely gutted Ed Sullivan Theater.
塞巴斯蒂安·金 有一天，我们从临时办公室搭车到完全被毁坏的埃德·沙利文剧院。
Along the way, Colbert talked about watching that week's episode of The Bachelorette with his family.
一路上，科尔伯特谈到了与家人一起观看那周的《单身女郎》一集。
His wife and daughter were sitting on the sofa wearing facial masks, and he decided to join them, he said, because the woman who does his makeup told him he had to get better at moisturizing.
他说，他的妻子和女儿戴着口罩坐在沙发上，他决定加入他们的行列，因为给他化妆的女人告诉他，他必须在保湿方面做得更好。
“I have a face like a catcher's mitt.” He went into the bathroom and dug through a pile of products and found one that, after you smear it on, congeals over your face in a thick golden gel.
“我的脸就像捕手的手套。”他走进浴室，翻出了一堆产品，发现了一种，涂抹后，会在脸上凝结成一层厚厚的金色凝胶。
He pulled up a picture of him and his son both wearing it.
他拿出一张他和儿子都穿着这件衣服的照片。
“You know what it looks like?” he said.
“你知道它是什么样子吗？”他说。
He thumbed in a search on his phone.
他用拇指在手机上搜索。
“Here.
” “这里。
Look at this.
看看这个。
The Death Mask of Agamemnon.”
阿伽门农的死亡面具。”
Inside there were scaffolds everywhere, including one in the middle of the floor that rose to the top of the theater's dome, which had been blocked for decades by air ducts and sound buffers and was now being fully restored.
里面到处都是脚手架，其中一个位于地板中间，一直延伸到剧院圆顶的顶部，几十年来，圆顶一直被通风管道和声音缓冲区堵塞，现在正在完全修复。
There's a massive wooden chandelier up there that predates Ed Sullivan and has individual stained-glass chambers that house its bulbs.
那里有一盏巨大的木制枝形吊灯，其历史早于埃德·沙利文，并有单独的彩色玻璃室来容纳灯泡。
We climbed to the top, and after running a few questions by the guys working up there (turns out that whoever's job it was to change the bulbs all those years ago used to stub out his cigars and leave them in the chandelier), Colbert wandered over to the edge of the scaffolding to look at the scene depicted in the arched stained-glass windows that had also been revealed.
我们爬到了山顶，问了在那里工作的人几个问题后（事实证明，无论谁的工作是在多年前更换灯泡，都会把雪茄掐灭，然后把它们留在枝形吊灯里），科尔伯特漫步到脚手架的边缘，看看拱形彩色玻璃窗上描绘的场景，这也被揭示了。
“Look at that lute player,” he said, and then he gave a quick little off-the-cuff lecture on Venetian-Moorish design.
“看看那个鲁特琴演奏者，”他说，然后他就威尼斯摩尔式设计进行了简短的即兴演讲。
The micro level at which he is involved in every aspect of preparations is bewildering.
他参与准备工作各个方面的微观层面令人眼花缭乱。
He moved so quickly throughout the theater, followed by a small phalanx of architects and designers and contractors.
他在剧院里走得如此之快，后面跟着一小群建筑师、设计师和承包商。
He climbed small hidden ladders in the wings to stand on exposed beams and demonstrate how he needed sneak doors to swing.
他爬上机翼中隐藏的小梯子，站在裸露的横梁上，展示他如何需要隐藏的门来摆动。
He headed down below stage level, into what will be either a writers' room or a greenroom, to propose how an air-conditioning duct be rerouted.
他走到舞台下方，进入编剧室或演员休息室，提出如何重新布置空调管道的建议。
In every moment of every conversation, his focus on the person in front of him and the logistical conundrum at hand was complete.
在每次谈话的每时每刻，他的注意力都集中在面前的人和手头的后勤难题上。
He never showed frustration, never seemed overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff coming at him.
他从不表现出沮丧，也从不因眼前的大量事情而不知所措。
If you didn't know he was the talent and came upon that scene with a van full of HVAC parts, you'd definitely be like, Oh, that's the guy I need to ask where to install these.
如果你不知道他是个天才，并且带着一辆装满暖通空调部件的货车来到这个场景，你肯定会说，哦，这就是我需要问在哪里安装这些部件的人。
There were so many details to consider.
有很多细节需要考虑。
The arc of the stage and the exact angle of his desk and if Jon Batiste's band should be on one level or two.
舞台的弧度和办公桌的确切角度，以及乔恩·巴蒂斯特的乐队是否应该在一层或两层。
(Jon wants to be able to look into the eyes of the drummer, which makes sense, but there were other aesthetic and practical concerns to weigh, too.) Would the panels behind his desk be just one shade of cobalt, or could they get a range of cobalts?
（乔恩希望能够看着鼓手的眼睛，这是有道理的，但还需要权衡其他美学和实际问题。）他办公桌后面的面板只是一种钴色，还是可以得到一系列钴色？
What about the bulbs?
灯泡呢？
Does it need to be LED, or can we use strips of good old GE bulbs?
是否需要 LED，或者我们可以使用旧的 GE 灯泡灯条吗？
Back at his office, Colbert delivered a soliloquy on the necessity of focus and intention, being fully present for whatever moment you are in.
回到办公室后，科尔伯特发表了一段独白，讲述了专注和意图的必要性，无论你身处什么时刻，都要全神贯注。
He was talking about comedy, and how to make a TV show 200 times a year, but it also felt like a text lifted from the Buddha's sutras.
他谈论的是喜剧，以及如何每年制作 200 部电视节目，但也感觉像是从佛经中摘录的文本。
The final goal, the product, is beside the point.
最终目标，即产品，已经不是重点了。
“The end product is jokes, but you could easily say the end product is intention.
“最终产品是笑话，但你可以很容易地说最终产品是意图。
Having intentionality at all times…
任何时候都有意向性……
The process of process is process.”
过程就是过程。”
And then he talked about the Food Network show Chopped.
然后他谈到了食品网络节目《切碎》。
The reason he loves Chopped is that it's a show that is wholly about process, about creation within a limited range of possibilities.
他喜欢《Chopped》的原因是，这是一个完全关于过程、关于在有限的可能性范围内进行创作的节目。
“This show,” he said, meaning The Late Show, “is Chopped.
“这个节目，”他说，指的是《深夜秀》，“被砍掉了。
Late-night shows are Chopped.
深夜节目被砍掉。
Who are your guests tonight?
今晚你的客人是谁？
Your guests tonight are veal tongue, coffee grounds, and gummy bears.
今晚你的客人是小牛舌、咖啡渣和小熊软糖。
There, make a show.…
在那里，进行表演。
Make an appetizer that appeals to millions of people.
制作一道吸引数百万人的开胃菜。
That's what I like.
这就是我喜欢的。
How could you possibly do it?
你怎么可能做到呢？
Oh, you bring in your own flavors.
哦，你带来了你自己的口味。
Your own house band is another flavor.
你自己的家庭乐队是另一种风味。
You have your own flavor.
你有你自己的味道。
The audience itself is a base dish, like a rice pilaf or something.
观众本身就是一道底菜，比如抓饭什么的。
And then together it's ‘Oh shit, that's an actual meal.’ And that's what every day is like at one of these shows.
然后合在一起就是“哦，该死，这才是真正的一顿饭。”这就是这些节目中每一天的样子。
Something is one thing in the morning, and then by the end of the day it's a totally different thing.
有些事情早上是一回事，到了一天结束时就完全是另一回事了。
It's all process.”
这都是过程。”
Earlier that day the world went haywire for a few hours.
那天早些时候，世界陷入混乱了几个小时。
The New York Stock Exchange went offline, and at that point nobody knew why.
纽约证券交易所下线，当时没有人知道原因。
Stocks in China were cratering.
中国股市暴跌。
United Airlines grounded hundreds of flights because of computer glitches.
由于电脑故障，联合航空公司停飞了数百架航班。
In a morning pitch meeting, one of the show's writers got a news alert, and they decided to try to put together a video to be released online later that day.
在一次早上的推介会上，该剧的一位编剧收到了一条新闻提醒，他们决定尝试制作一个视频，并在当天晚些时候在网上发布。
They'd been doing this once or twice a week, as a way of keeping the tools sharp and their audience engaged.
他们每周都会这样做一两次，作为保持工具锋利和观众参与的一种方式。
Early afternoon, a handful of writers and producers filed into Colbert's office and passed the script around.
下午早些时候，几位编剧和制片人鱼贯进入科尔伯特的办公室，分发剧本。
The gist was that technology had failed us, and Colbert, possibly the last celebrity alive, had barricaded himself in a room with piles of office supplies and snack foods and a chicken with which he would procreate and start civilization anew.
要点是，技术让我们失望了，而科尔伯特，可能是最后一个活着的名人，把自己关在一个房间里，里面堆满了办公用品、零食和一只鸡，他将用它来繁殖并重新开始文明。
He started reading the script in character, rewriting bits on the fly, and those updates were typed into an updated script that would be loaded into a monitor for the shoot.
他开始阅读角色剧本，即时重写一些内容，然后将这些更新输入到更新的剧本中，然后将其加载到监视器中进行拍摄。
They finished the script, and he headed off to check out the set, which had been thrown together in a small, windowless room—“the bad room,” they call it—that some writers normally work in.
他们完成了剧本，他去检查布景，布景被放在一个没有窗户的小房间里——他们称之为“糟糕的房间”——一些作家通常在里面工作。
The desk in the bad room was now covered with piles of papers and snacks and a jug labeled urine.
坏房间的桌子上现在堆满了文件、零食和一个贴着尿液标签的罐子。
There was a tire and a thick rope and a mound of those little coffee K-Cups in assorted flavors.
有一个轮胎、一根粗绳子和一堆各种口味的小咖啡 K 杯。
A woman carrying the chicken arrived and stood in the hall outside the bad room.
一个拎着鸡的女人到了，站在坏房间外的大厅里。
“They only gave me a half hour's notice,” she told me, and then described how she had to drive several miles to her farm in Jersey to find the one she'd recently used in an episode of Orange Is the New Black.
“他们只提前半小时通知我，”她告诉我，然后描述了她如何不得不开车几英里到泽西岛的农场才能找到她最近在《女子监狱》一集中使用的那个。
Colbert appeared from makeup and said, “Hi, great to see you again.
科尔伯特化完妆出现，说道：“嗨，很高兴再次见到你。
Come on in,” and led her into the bad room, where they cleared a spot for her and the chicken beneath the desk.
进来吧，”然后把她领进了那个坏房间，他们在桌子下面为她和那只鸡腾出了一个地方。
The whole shoot took about twenty minutes and ended with the chicken flying out of his arms (“She's scrappy!”) and then Colbert realizing that the one thing he forgot to bring into his bunker was the K-Cup machine.
整个拍摄花了大约二十分钟，最后以小鸡从他怀里飞了出来（“她好斗！”）结束，然后科尔伯特意识到他忘记带进掩体的一件事就是 K-Cup 机器。
He bites into one of the plastic K-Cups in despair.
他绝望地咬住了其中一个塑料 K 杯。
The coffee grounds go all over his face and mouth and up his nose.
咖啡渣沾满了他的脸、嘴，还有鼻子。
“Oh, that's really pumpkin-y.” End scene.
“哦，那真是南瓜味。”结束场景。
He went to the bathroom to wash the coffee out of his nose and then as he was heading back to his office got an update on a request they'd made to Mitt Romney to do a teaser spot for the new show.
他去洗手间洗掉鼻子里的咖啡，然后当他回到办公室时，他收到了他们向米特·罗姆尼提出的为新节目制作预告片的请求的最新消息。
They felt it was important that their first fun interaction with a politician involve a Republican.
他们认为，与政客的第一次有趣互动涉及的是共和党人，这一点很重要。
(“I think he'll do it,” Colbert said.
（“我认为他会这么做，”科尔伯特说。
“I think he likes to have fun.
“我认为他喜欢玩乐。
Plus, he's got nothing else going on.”) Then it was into a meeting with various camera techs and graphic artists to discuss complicated questions regarding how images might be projected onto the surfaces of the new theater (I'm sworn to silence on this, but the stuff they were talking about was very cool), and from there he headed to an editing bay down the hall.
另外，他没有其他事情要做。”）然后是与各种相机技术人员和图形艺术家开会，讨论有关如何将图像投影到新剧院表面的复杂问题（我发誓对此保持沉默，但他们谈论的东西非常酷），从那里他前往大厅的编辑室。
He took a seat on the floor to watch a replay of the video—“Apocalypse Dow”—and give notes.
他坐在地板上观看视频“Apocalypse Dow”的重播并做笔记。
“I am high as a kite right now!” he said.
“我现在心情很高涨！”他说。
“I tried to wash my nose out, but all I did was brew a cup of pumpkin-spice coffee in my nose.”
“我试图洗鼻子，但我所做的只是在鼻子里泡了一杯南瓜香料咖啡。”
“Everybody was jumping in.
“每个人都跳进去了。
Everybody was saying, ‘What is an unasked added value that I can give the show?’ ” Colbert said.
每个人都在问，‘我能为这部剧带来什么不请自来的附加值？’”科尔伯特说。
“And that is true joy.
“这才是真正的快乐。
That's the joy machine.”
这就是快乐机器。”
The next hour goes by so fast.
接下来的一个小时过得真快。
They make their way through the video, beat by beat.
他们在视频中，一个节拍一个节拍地表演。
The look on Colbert's face as he edits is pure focus and elation.
科尔伯特在编辑时脸上的表情纯粹是专注和兴高采烈。
He moves his lips along with the lines, he mimics the changing expression of his face in the scene.
他的嘴唇随着线条移动，模仿场景中自己面部表情的变化。
His notes are hyper-detailed.
他的笔记非常详细。
Cut this line.
剪掉这条线。
It's gotta be faster from here to here.
从这里到这里必须更快。
Let's make the screen go warbly-staticky every time I hit the desk.
让我们让屏幕在我每次走到办公桌前时都变得静态。
No, still too clean, more static.
不，还是太干净，更静态。
Do we know yet what actually happened with the stock exchange?
我们知道证券交易所到底发生了什么吗？
Someone mentions there was a tweet by a member of Anonymous yesterday, warning of something to come.
有人提到昨天匿名者组织的一名成员发了一条推文，警告即将发生的事情。
Okay, let's get a standard Getty image of a Guy Fawkes mask and insert it, just a flicker, during one of the warbles.
好吧，让我们获取盖伊·福克斯面具的标准 Getty 图像，并将其插入其中，在其中一个颤音期间闪烁一下。
Just one.
只有一个。
Subtle.
微妙的。
It needs to warble like everything else in the picture.
它需要像图片中的其他东西一样发出颤音。
Let's look at the news clips for the top.
让我们看一下顶部的新闻剪辑。
Okay, let's do these five in this order.
好吧，让我们按这个顺序做这五个。
No, still too long.
不，还是太长了。
It's gotta go: United, China, cyber-failure, Wall Street, poodle.
必须离开：曼联、中国、网络故障、华尔街、贵宾犬。
I want a static cut between each of the clips, then longer static after the poodle, and that transitions into me.
我想要在每个剪辑之间进行静态剪切，然后在贵宾犬之后进行更长的静态剪切，然后过渡到我身上。
He leaves the editing room and heads back to his office and learns along the way that Mitt Romney is in for shooting the teaser, they'll bring him in for a day from New Hampshire—“Yeah, Daddy-o!”—then stops at his assistant's desk, and she reminds him that he still has to record a podcast and not to forget that he has the thing for Catholic Charities.
他离开剪辑室，回到办公室，一路上得知米特·罗姆尼要拍摄预告片，他们会把他从新罕布什尔州带过来待一天——“是的，爸爸哦！”——然后在他助理的办公桌前停下来，她提醒他，他仍然需要录制播客，并且不要忘记他有天主教慈善机构的东西。
It's a little after seven, and the sun's starting to set over the Hudson River.
七点刚过，太阳开始在哈德逊河上落下。
There are several bottles of expensive bourbon in his office, and he pours a glass for each of us and then sits down and exhales.
他的办公室里有几瓶昂贵的波本威士忌，他为我们每人倒了一杯，然后坐下来呼了口气。
“ That was fun,” he says.
“这很有趣，”他说。
“What you just saw me do—the number of things you saw me talk to people about, the number of different things—you saw like four different tags on a single idea.…
“你刚才看到我所做的事情——你看到我与人们谈论的事情的数量，不同事情的数量——你看到一个想法上有四个不同的标签......
That's it.
就是这样。
That's what liking process gets you to, the ability to process a great deal of information.
这就是喜欢过程带给你的，处理大量信息的能力。
And everybody in this building can do it.
这栋大楼里的每个人都可以做到。
Everybody was jumping in.
每个人都跳进去。
Everybody had ideas.
每个人都有想法。
Everybody was saying, ‘What is an unasked added value that I can give the show?’ And that is true joy.
每个人都在说，“我能为这部剧带来什么不请自来的附加价值？”这才是真正的快乐。
That's the joy machine.”
这就是快乐机器。”
He used to have a note taped to his computer that read, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the existence of God.”
他的电脑上曾经贴过一张纸条，上面写着：“喜乐是上帝存在的最可靠的标志。”
It's hard to imagine any comedian meditating every day on so sincere a message.
很难想象有哪个喜剧演员每天都会思考如此真诚的信息。
It's even harder when you know his life story, which bears mentioning here—that he is the youngest of eleven kids and that his father and two of his brothers, Peter and Paul, the two closest to him in age, were killed in a plane crash when he was 10.
当你了解他的人生故事时，这就更难了，这里值得一提的是，他是十一个孩子中最小的一个，他的父亲和他的两个兄弟，彼得和保罗，两个年龄最接近他的兄弟，在他 10 岁时在一次飞机失事中丧生。
His elder siblings were all off to school or on with their lives by then, and so it was just him and his mother at home together for years.
那时，他的哥哥姐姐们都已经去上学了，或者已经开始了自己的生活，所以多年来只有他和他的母亲在一起。
They moved from James Island to downtown Charleston, and she sent him to a prep school, Porter-Gaud, where for the next several years he did next to nothing academically.
他们从詹姆斯岛搬到了查尔斯顿市中心，她把他送到了波特高德预科学校，在那里接下来的几年里，他在学业上几乎没有做任何事情。
“There was no way to threaten me,” he said.
“没有办法威胁我，”他说。
“It was like, ‘ What?
“就像是，‘什么？
What's that?
那是什么？
Oh, okay, I might get a bad grade?
哦，好吧，我可能会考得很差？
Oh no. Wouldn't want that.’ ”
哦不。我不想这样。’”
His first night professionally onstage with Second City, Colbert learned the most important lesson of his career: “You have to learn to love the bomb.”
科尔伯特在《第二城市》专业舞台上的第一个晚上，学到了他职业生涯中最重要的一课：“你必须学会热爱炸弹。”
He was completely traumatized, of course.
当然，他完全受到了创伤。
And one way of contending with the cruel indifference of the universe is to be indifferent in return.
与宇宙的残酷冷漠抗争的一种方法就是以冷漠作为回报。
But he was also raised in a deeply Catholic intellectual family (his father had been a dean of Yale Medical School and St. Louis University and the Medical College of South Carolina).
但他也是在一个虔诚的天主教知识分子家庭中长大的（他的父亲曾担任耶鲁大学医学院、圣路易斯大学和南卡罗来纳医学院的院长）。
And so his rebellion against the world was curiously self-driven and thoughtful.
因此，他对世界的反叛是出奇的自我驱动和深思熟虑。
He refused to do anything his teachers required of him, but would come home every day and shut himself in his room and read books.
他拒绝做老师要求他做的任何事情，而是每天回家把自己关在房间里看书。
“I had so many books taken away from me,” he said.
“我的很多书都被拿走了，”他说。
“I read a book a day.
“我每天读一本书。
Spent all of my allowance on books.
我所有的零用钱都花在买书上了。
Every birthday, confirmation, Christmas—books, please, stacks of books.”
每个生日、确认节、圣诞节——请带书，成堆的书。”
He barely graduated from high school and then went to Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia only because a friend had applied there.
他高中刚毕业，就因为一位朋友申请了弗吉尼亚州的汉普登悉尼学院。
He studied philosophy; he joined the school's theater troupe.
他学习哲学；他加入了学校的剧团。
After his sophomore year he transferred to Northwestern's theater program, where he was purely focused on drama.
大二结束后，他转到西北大学的戏剧项目，在那里他纯粹专注于戏剧。
“I was doing Stanislavsky and Meisner, and I was sharing my pain with everyone around me,” he says in an interview that appears in Judd Apatow's book Sick in the Head.
“我在表演斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基和迈斯纳的作品，我与周围的每个人分享我的痛苦，”他在贾德·阿帕托的《头脑有病》一书中接受的采访中说道。
“It was therapy as much as it was anything.”
“这既是一种治疗，也是一种治疗。”
And then he met Del Close, the legendary improv teacher and mentor and champion of the idea that improvisational comedy, when performed purely, was in fact high expressive art.
然后他遇到了德尔·克洛斯（Del Close），这位传奇的即兴表演老师、导师和拥护者认为，即兴喜剧在纯粹表演时，实际上是高表现力的艺术。
“I went, ‘I don't know what this is, but I have to do it,’ ” he said.
“我说，‘我不知道这是什么，但我必须这么做，’”他说。
“I have to get up onstage and perform extemporaneously with other people.” He was part of the same Second City class that included Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello and Chris Farley.
“我必须站上舞台，和其他人一起即兴表演。”他属于同一个 Second City 班级，其他班级还包括艾米·塞达里斯 (Amy Sedaris)、保罗·迪内洛 (Paul Dinello) 和克里斯·法利 (Chris Farley)。
“Our first night professionally onstage,” he said, the longtime Second City director Jeff Michalski told them that the most important lesson he could pass on to them was this: “You have to learn to love the bomb.”
“我们在舞台上的第一个晚上，”他说，长期担任《第二城市》导演的杰夫·米哈尔斯基告诉他们，他可以传授给他们的最重要的一课是：“你必须学会热爱炸弹。”
“It took me a long time to really understand what that meant,” Colbert said.
“我花了很长时间才真正理解这意味着什么，”科尔伯特说。
“It wasn't ‘Don't worry, you'll get it next time.’ It wasn't ‘Laugh it off.’ No, it means what it says.
“这不是‘别担心，下次你会得到它’。这不是‘一笑而过’。不，它的意思就是它所说的。
You gotta learn to love when you're failing.…
当你失败的时候，你要学会去爱......
The embracing of that, the discomfort of failing in front of an audience, leads you to penetrate through the fear that blinds you.
拥抱这一点，以及在观众面前失败的不适感，会让你穿透蒙蔽你双眼的恐惧。
Fear is the mind killer.” (You're welcome, Dune nerds.)
恐惧是心灵杀手。” （不客气，沙丘书呆子们。）
The central tension in his life, he said, is between being a “reasonably friendly, good-at-a-cocktail-party guy” and walking around the world feeling like he's not quite a part of it.
他说，他生活中的主要矛盾在于成为一个“相当友好、擅长参加鸡尾酒会的人”和在世界各地走来走去，感觉自己不太参与其中。
“I'm a very uncomfortable person,” he said.
“我是一个非常不舒服的人，”他说。
“I really like people, and I also don't always know what to do with them.…
“我真的很喜欢别人，但我也不总是知道该怎么对待他们......
I have always had an eclectic roster of friends, but there's something about my work that speaks to a deep discomfort with being in society.”
我一直有各种各样的朋友，但我的工作中有些东西表明了我对社会生活的深深不安。”
He said he trained himself, not just onstage but every day in life, even in his dream states, to steer toward fear rather than away from it.
他说，他不仅在舞台上训练自己，而且在生活中的每一天，甚至在梦中，都训练自己走向恐惧，而不是远离恐惧。
“I like to do things that are publicly embarrassing,” he said, “to feel the embarrassment touch me and sink into me and then be gone.
“我喜欢做一些让公众感到尴尬的事情，”他说，“感觉这种尴尬感触动了我，融入了我的内心，然后就消失了。
I like getting on elevators and singing too loudly in that small space.
我喜欢乘电梯，在狭小的空间里大声唱歌。
The feeling you feel is almost like a vapor.
你感受到的感觉几乎就像蒸汽一样。
The discomfort and the wishing that it would end that comes around you.
你周围的不适和希望它结束的愿望。
I would do things like that and just breathe it in.” He stopped and took in a deep yogic breath, then slowly shook his head.
我会做类似的事情，然后把它吸进去。”他停下来，深深地吸了一口气，然后慢慢地摇了摇头。
“Nope, can't kill me.
“不，杀不了我。
This thing can't kill me.”
这东西杀不了我。”
I apologized for the lack of subtlety and asked him how much he connected that urge to his training, and how much he felt it had roots that went deeper into his life.
我为自己的不够微妙表示歉意，并问他这种冲动与他的训练有多大联系，以及他觉得这种冲动在多大程度上扎根于他的生活。
Was it at one point purely a defense mechanism against the pain he'd experienced?
这是否在某一时刻纯粹是一种防御机制，以抵御他所经历的痛苦？
He raised an eyebrow.
他扬起了一边眉毛。
“I don't know, Doctor.
“我不知道，医生。
You tell me.”
你告诉我吧。”
And then he said, “Obviously there's something defensive about it.
然后他说：“显然这有一些防御性的成分。
What you're doing is sipping little bits of arsenic so that you can't be poisoned by the rest of your discomfort.
你所做的就是喝一点砒霜，这样你就不会因为其余的不适而中毒。
You're Rasputin-ing your way through the rest of your life.”
你正在用拉斯普廷的方式度过你的余生。”
That day after he got back from Michigan, we eventually got around to the question of how it could possibly be that he suffered the losses he's suffered and somehow arrived here.
那天他从密歇根州回来后，我们最终想到了一个问题：他怎么可能遭受了他所遭受的损失并以某种方式到达这里。
It's not just that he doesn't exhibit any of the anger or open-woundedness of so many other comedians; it's that he appears to be so genuinely grounded and joyful.
这不仅是因为他没有表现出许多其他喜剧演员的愤怒或公开受伤；而是他显得如此真诚和快乐。
He sat silently for a while and then smiled.
他静静地坐了一会儿，然后笑了。
“Yeeeahhhh,” he said.
“是啊啊啊，”他说。
“I'm not angry.
“我没有生气。
I'm not.
我不是。
I'm mystified, I'll tell you that.
我很困惑，我会告诉你。
But I'm not angry.”
但我并不生气。”
“That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage.
“这可能就是为什么你不认为我是一个在舞台上愤怒并发泄内心恶魔的人。
It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”
我喜欢的是我最希望没有发生的事情。”
It was hard to talk about these things, he said.
他说，谈论这些事情很难。
“I want to answer in ways that are not pat.
“我想以不寻常的方式回答。
And so I want to take a moment and think of a way to answer that isn't pre-packaged.”
因此，我想花点时间想出一种方法来回答这个问题，但这个问题并不是预先包装好的。”
There was a time when he'd done a lot of press for his old show, which inevitably entailed answering some version of this question over and over.
曾经有一段时间，他为他的旧节目做了很多媒体报道，这不可避免地需要一遍又一遍地回答这个问题的某个版本。
And then he decided to stop, refusing even to do any exit interviews when The Colbert Report came to an end.
然后他决定停下来，当《科尔伯特报告》结束时，他甚至拒绝接受任何离职面谈。
“I can't imagine why anyone wants to hear anything about me anymore,” he said.
“我无法想象为什么有人想再听到有关我的任何事情，”他说。
“This is not meant as resistance, or pejoratively.
“这并不意味着抵抗，或者贬义。
I'm just being honest.” And so the challenge was “to find a way to do press that isn't just a carbonated version of a drink I brewed many, many years ago.
我只是说实话。”因此，挑战是“找到一种方法来进行压榨，而不仅仅是我很多年前酿造的碳酸饮料。
Just throw effervescence into a drink I've already brewed.”
只需将泡腾剂倒入我已经泡好的饮料中即可。”
He didn't have to do this.
他不必这样做。
He was exhausted.
他已经筋疲力尽了。
He had so many other things to do that day, meetings stacked up for the next few hours, people peeking in through his office window hoping to grab a moment of his time.
那天他还有很多其他事情要做，接下来的几个小时里，会议堆积如山，人们从他办公室的窗户往里看，希望能占用他的时间。
He could have certainly given a version of the answer he's given before.
他当然可以给出他之前给出的答案的一个版本。
Or he could have said, Come on, man, right now?
或者他可以说，来吧，伙计，现在就可以吗？
Just let me eat my chicken with hot sauce in peace, will you?
让我安静地吃辣酱鸡好吗？
Instead he said, “So my reaction when I hear that question isn't”—he shifted into a somber, sonorous voice—“ ‘Oh, I don't want to talk about that.’ It's that I don't want to say this— ready?
相反，他说，“所以当我听到这个问题时，我的反应不是”——他的声音变得阴沉而响亮——“‘哦，我不想谈论这个。’而是我不想说这个——准备好了吗？
” He snapped his fingers and locked eyes with me in a pose of dramatic intensity.
“他打了个响指，用一种戏剧性的紧张姿势与我对视。
“MY.
“我的。
MOTHER.” His face softened.
母亲。”他的脸色软了下来。
“But the answer is: my mother.”
“但答案是：我的母亲。”
He lifted his arms as if to take in the office, the people working and laughing outside his door, the city and the sky, all of it.
他举起双臂，仿佛看到了办公室、门外工作和欢笑的人们、城市和天空，这一切。
“And the world,” he said.
“还有世界，”他说。
“It's so…lovely.
“这太……可爱了。
I'm very grateful to be alive, even though I know a lot of dead people.” The urge to be grateful, he said, is not a function of his faith.
我很庆幸自己还活着，尽管我认识很多死去的人。”他说，感恩的冲动并不是他信仰的作用。
It's not “the Gospel tells us” and therefore we give thanks.
这不是“福音告诉我们”，因此我们感谢。
It is what he has always felt: grateful to be alive.
这是他一直以来的感受：庆幸自己还活着。
“And so that act, that impulse to be grateful, wants an object.
“所以这种行为，那种感恩的冲动，需要一个物体。
That object I call God.
我称之为上帝的物体。
Now, that could be many things.
现在，这可能有很多事情。
I was raised in a Catholic tradition.
我是在天主教传统中长大的。
I'll start there.
我将从这里开始。
That's my context for my existence, is that I am here to know God, love God, serve God, that we might be happy with each other in this world and with Him in the next—the catechism.
这就是我存在的背景，就是我来这里是为了认识上帝、爱上帝、事奉上帝，以便我们在这个世界上彼此幸福，在下一个世界与他在一起——教理问答。
That makes a lot of sense to me.
这对我来说很有意义。
I got that from my mom.
这是我从妈妈那里得到的。
And my dad.
还有我爸爸。
And my siblings.”
还有我的兄弟姐妹。”
He was tracing an arc on the table with his fingers and speaking with such deliberation and care.
他用手指在桌子上划出一道弧线，说话的语气是那么的从容和小心。
“I was left alone a lot after Dad and the boys died....
“爸爸和孩子们死后，我很孤独……
And it was just me and Mom for a long time,” he said.
很长一段时间里只有我和妈妈，”他说。
“And by her example am I not bitter.
“以她为榜样，我并不感到痛苦。
By her example.
以她为例。
She was not.
她不是。
Broken, yes.
破碎了，是的。
Bitter, no.” Maybe, he said, she had to be that for him.
苦涩，不。”也许，他说，她就是他的那个人。
He has said this before—that even in those days of unremitting grief, she drew on her faith that the only way to not be swallowed by sorrow, to in fact recognize that our sorrow is inseparable from our joy, is to always understand our suffering, ourselves, in the light of eternity.
他以前说过——即使在那些持续悲伤的日子里，她也相信，不被悲伤吞噬的唯一方法，事实上，认识到我们的悲伤与我们的快乐是不可分割的，就是永远在永恒的光中理解我们的痛苦，我们自己。
What is this in the light of eternity?
从永恒的角度来看，这是什么？
Imagine being a parent so filled with your own pain, and yet still being able to pass that on to your son.
想象一下，作为一名父母，你自己充满了痛苦，但仍然能够将这种痛苦传递给你的儿子。
“It was a very healthy reciprocal acceptance of suffering,” he said.
“这是对痛苦的一种非常健康的相互接受，”他说。
“Which does not mean being defeated by suffering.
“这并不意味着被苦难打败。
Acceptance is not defeat.
接受并不是失败。
Acceptance is just awareness.” He smiled in anticipation of the callback: “ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said.
接受只是意识。”他微笑着期待着回电：“‘你必须学会热爱炸弹，’”他说。
“Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10.
“天哪，我十岁的时候有没有炸弹？
That was quite an explosion.
那真是一次爆炸。
And I learned to love it.
我学会了喜欢它。
So that's why.
所以这就是原因。
Maybe, I don't know.
也许吧，我不知道。
That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage.
这可能就是为什么你不认为我是一个在舞台上愤怒并发泄内心恶魔的人。
It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”
我喜欢的是我最希望没有发生的事情。”
I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift.
我问他是否可以帮助我更好地理解这一点，他描述了托尔金写给一位牧师的一封信，这位牧师质疑托尔金的神话是否足够教条主义，因为它认为死亡不是对堕落罪恶的惩罚，而是一种礼物。
“Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table.
“托尔金在回信中说：‘上帝的什么惩罚不是礼物？’”科尔伯特用指关节敲着桌子。
“ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again.
“‘上帝的哪些惩罚不是礼物？’”他又问道。
His eyes were filled with tears.
他的眼睛里充满了泪水。
“So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude.
“因此，如果不怀着感恩的心对待一切，那就是忘恩负义。
It doesn't mean you want it.
这并不意味着你想要它。
I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”
我可以把这两个想法都记在脑子里。”
He was 35, he said, before he could really feel the truth of that.
他说，他已经 35 岁了，才真正感受到这一点。
He was walking down the street, and it “stopped me dead.
他走在街上，这“让我停住了”。
I went, ‘Oh, I'm grateful.
我说：‘哦，我很感激。
Oh, I feel terrible.’ I felt so guilty to be grateful.
哦，我感觉很糟糕。”我感到很内疚，感激不已。
But I knew it was true.
但我知道这是真的。
“It's not the same thing as wanting it to have happened,” he said.
“这与希望它发生不是一回事，”他说。
“But you can't change everything about the world.
“但你无法改变世界的一切。
You certainly can't change things that have already happened.”
你当然无法改变已经发生的事情。”
Consider that this is coming from a man who millions of people will soon watch on their televisions every night—if only there were a way to measure the virality of this, which he'll never say on TV, I imagine, but which, as far as I can tell, he practices every waking minute of his life.
想想看，这句话出自一个很快就会有数百万人每晚在电视上观看的人之口——如果有一种方法来衡量这句话的病毒式传播就好了，我想他永远不会在电视上说这句话，但据我所知，他在生命中醒着的每一分钟都在练习。
The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it around with me since.
他接下来说的话我就写在他办公室的一张纸条上，从那时起我就一直随身携带着它。
It's our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain.
是讨厌生活中的某些事物，还是热爱它们的每一刻，甚至是那些给我们带来痛苦的部分，这是我们的选择。
“At every moment, we are volunteers.”
“每时每刻，我们都是志愿者。”
JOEL LOVELL is an editor for This American Life and a story editor at The Atavist Magazine .
乔尔·洛弗尔 (JOEL LOVELL) 是《This American Life》的编辑，也是《Atavist》杂志的故事编辑。
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