293: A Little Bit of Knowledge - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #293 | July 11, 2014 293: A Little Bit of Knowledge Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 293 集 | 2014 年 7 月 11 日 293：一点知识 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass OK America, prepare to have your life change for the better.
序言 艾拉·格拉斯 OK 美国，准备好让你的生活变得更好吧。
There is a situation that you find yourself in all the time.
总有一种情况是你发现自己处于其中的。
And it has been unclear what to say or do in that situation until now.
到目前为止，还不清楚在这种情况下该说什么或该做什么。
We heard about it, and it was like Post-its.
我们听说过它，它就像便利贴一样。
It was just all of the sudden something that you needed to use all the time.
它只是突然之间你需要一直使用的东西。
It just explained so much.
就解释了这么多。
That's Nancy Updike, one of the regular contributors to our radio show.
那是南希·厄普代克，我们广播节目的定期撰稿人之一。
And she tells the story this way.
她是这样讲故事的。
A couple years ago, friends of hers were traveling in Europe, and they are walking through these old buildings.
几年前，她的朋友在欧洲旅行，他们走过这些古老的建筑。
And these people do not know anything special about architecture.
这些人对建筑一无所知。
But you know how it is when you're a tourist.
但当你是一名游客时你就会知道那是怎样的。
They're walking through these buildings, and they're looking at the doorways and the tiles.
他们走过这些建筑物，看着门口和瓷砖。
And they decide that they think that this one building has a very Moorish influence.
他们认为这一栋建筑具有非常摩尔式的影响。
And they're pointing out details, and saying the Moors this, and the Moors that.
他们指出细节，说摩尔人这个，摩尔人那个。
And finally, one of them turns to the other and says, you know what?
最后，其中一个转向另一个说，你知道吗？
We sound like we're in a magazine, a magazine called Modern Jackass.
我们听起来就像是在一本杂志上，一本叫做《Modern Jackass》的杂志。
Modern Jackass.
现代蠢货。
Of course, there is no Modern Jackass .
当然，没有现代蠢驴。
But ever since I heard that story, I found myself referring to Modern Jackass all the time.
但自从我听到这个故事后，我发现自己一直在指“现代蠢驴”。
It's incredibly useful, and it could be useful to you, to back out of all kinds of awkward conversational situations.
它非常有用，而且对你来说也很有用，可以帮助你摆脱各种尴尬的对话情境。
The thing about Modern Jackass is, it's usually not something about which you know nothing.
现代蠢驴的特点是，它通常不是你一无所知的东西。
It's something about which you know a little bit, enough to sort of get yourself into trouble.
你对它有一点了解，足以让自己陷入麻烦。
Like you read an article.
就像你读一篇文章一样。
Nancy Updike Exactly, or something on the web.
南希·厄普代克（Nancy Updike） 确实如此，或者网上的一些东西。
Just last weekend, I was out for breakfast with some friends.
就在上周末，我和一些朋友出去吃早餐。
And we got into this conversation about these people who do caloric restriction.
我们就这些限制热量的人进行了对话。
Have you heard about this?
你听说过这个吗？
Apparently, there are these people who believe that if you eat a lot less, it can make you live longer.
显然，有些人相信，如果你少吃一点，就能让你活得更久。
As so we're talking about this, and somebody's explaining the cells of your body go through all this wear and tear when you actually digest food.
因此，我们正在谈论这个，有人解释说，当您实际消化食物时，您身体的细胞会经历所有这些磨损。
And before you know it, one of my friends-- somebody who knows nothing about biology, actually-- starts talking about mitochondria.
不知不觉中，我的一位朋友——实际上对生物学一无所知——开始谈论线粒体。
Mitochondria.
线粒体。
And maybe he had a little bit of knowledge about this.
也许他对此有一点了解。
But it was totally Modern Jackass .
但这完全是现代蠢货。
Modern Jackass , the medical edition, which Nancy says that she finds herself in quite a bit.
《现代蠢驴》，医学版，南希说她发现自己很喜欢这个版本。
My mother sends me information about partially hydrogenated oils.
我妈妈给我发了有关部分氢化油的信息。
And then when somebody says, wait, why is partially hydrogenated oil bad again?
然后当有人说，等等，为什么部分氢化油又不好呢？
I say, well, it's an unstable compound, which it is.
我说，好吧，它是一种不稳定的化合物，确实如此。
It's oil to which hydrogen has been added in order to make it solid at room temperature.
它是添加了氢气以使其在室温下呈固体的油。
That I know.
我知道。
That's a fact.
这是事实。
Well, that's where we get into Modern Jackass territory.
好吧，这就是我们进入现代蠢驴领域的地方。
It's unstable in your body.
它在你的身体里不稳定。
There's an extra hydrogen atom that can interact with things.
有一个额外的氢原子可以与物体相互作用。
Oxygen and form water.
氧气并形成水。
Nancy Updike Exactly.
南希·厄普代克 没错。
Having no information, that's one thing.
没有信息，这是一回事。
That's pure.
那是纯粹的。
The trouble is when you have a little bit of information about the problems with electronic voting machines, what it really means, the battle between carbs and protein.
问题是，当你对电子投票机的问题有一点了解时，它的真正含义是什么，碳水化合物和蛋白质之间的斗争。
It's hard for some people not to take the tiny pigment contained in that tiny bit of information and paint a vast canvas of the entire world.
对于某些人来说，很难不利用那微小信息中所包含的微小颜料来描绘出整个世界的广阔画布。
It is exactly the problem that people encounter in every story in our program today.
这正是我们今天节目中每个故事中人们遇到的问题。
It's This American Life, from WBEZ Chicago, distributed by Public Radio International.
《这就是美国生活》，来自芝加哥 WBEZ，由国际公共广播电台发行。
Today we bring you four stories of people taking a smidgen, a tiny smidgen of understanding, and stretching it far past the breaking point.
今天，我们为您带来四个故事，讲述人们获得一点一点的理解，并将其延伸到远远超出临界点的故事。
Because as everybody knows, all over the world, a little bit of knowledge can be a very entertaining thing.
因为众所周知，在世界各地，一点点知识可以是一件非常有趣的事情。
We have Dan Savage matching wits with a six year old boy.
丹·萨维奇 (Dan Savage) 与一名六岁男孩斗智斗勇。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, When Small Thoughts Meet Big Brains.
第一幕，当小想法遇到大头脑。
We have this story about people functioning with a tiny little bit of knowledge, long past the point that you think they would, from Alex Blumberg.
我们有一个来自亚历克斯·布隆伯格（Alex Blumberg）的故事，讲述的是人们仅凭一点点知识就能发挥作用，远远超出了你想象的范围。
I can reconstruct the events that led me to one of the most embarrassing conversations of my adult life.
我可以回忆起那些导致我成年后最尴尬的谈话之一的事件。
The chain starts back when I was 11 or 12, and I first heard the term Nielsen family.
这家连锁店的历史可以追溯到我 11 或 12 岁的时候，我第一次听到尼尔森家族这个词。
I was probably listening to some adults talk.
我可能是在听一些大人说话。
And from their conversation I gathered that networks consulted Nielsen families to find out how popular a television show was.
从他们的谈话中，我了解到网络咨询了尼尔森家庭，以了解电视节目的受欢迎程度。
But that didn't make sense.
但这没有意义。
Why would they only ask people named Nielsen which shows they liked.
为什么他们只问名叫尼尔森的人他们喜欢哪些节目。
I started thinking.
我开始思考。
I knew that when they figured things like this out, they didn't ask everybody, they just asked a small percentage of people, and then extrapolated.
我知道，当他们弄清楚这样的事情时，他们并没有询问所有人，他们只是询问了一小部分人，然后进行推断。
I think I figured they had done some research and found that the name Nielsen-- because it was a common name maybe, and it seemed to cut across class and economic lines-- actually came pretty close to a representative sample.
我想我认为他们做了一些研究，发现尼尔森这个名字——因为它可能是一个常见的名字，而且它似乎跨越了阶级和经济界限——实际上非常接近一个代表性样本。
I knew this wasn't the way they measured public opinion now, but it seemed like the Nielsen surveys had been around for a while.
我知道这不是他们现在衡量公众舆论的方式，但尼尔森的调查似乎已经存在了一段时间。
And I figured they were just a holdover from a more primitive, less statistically rigorous time.
我认为它们只是一个更原始、统计上不那么严格的时代的遗留物。
After that, I really didn't think about it again.
之后我就真的没有再去想这个问题了。
Or if I did, it was only with a mild curiosity.
或者即使我这样做了，也只是出于轻微的好奇心。
I wonder why TV still does it that way?
我想知道为什么电视仍然这样做？
Fast forward 20 years.
快进 20 年。
I was talking with a friend of mine, who was telling me about her friend, who had been selected to be a Nielsen family.
我正在和我的一个朋友聊天，她告诉我她的朋友被选为尼尔森家族成员。
And I said to her, isn't that weird that they're all named Nielsen?
我对她说，他们都叫尼尔森，这不是很奇怪吗？
My friend looked at me for what seemed like a long time.
我的朋友看着我，似乎看了很长时间。
Somewhere during her very long pause-- because of the very long pause, in fact-- I realized, of course they're not all named Nielsen.
在她长时间停顿期间的某个地方——事实上，因为停顿时间很长——我意识到，他们当然不都叫尼尔森。
That makes no sense at all.
这完全没有意义。
At the time of this conversation, I was 34 years old, and I couldn't believe I had gotten this far without ever stopping to think it through.
进行这次谈话时，我已经 34 岁了，我简直不敢相信自己竟然在没有停下来认真思考的情况下就已经走到了这一步。
It made me wonder what else I'd missed, and if this has ever happened to anyone besides me.
这让我想知道我还错过了什么，以及除了我之外的任何人是否也发生过这种情况。
When I was a kid, and I would see the school crossing signs, and there's the picture of the little kids walking, and it would say school x-ing And I thought that the x-ing was a word.
当我还是个孩子的时候，我会看到学校的十字路口标志，还有小孩子走路的照片，上面会写着学校 x-ing，我以为 x-ing 是一个词。
And I pronounced it zing.
我把它发音为“zing”。
Turns out, I'm not alone.
事实证明，我并不孤单。
I've been talking to people about this for weeks.
几周来我一直在和人们谈论这个问题。
And there are a lot of us out there-- like me and this woman, Jodie Mace-- carting around our childhood beliefs well into adulthood.
我们中有很多人——比如我和这个女人，朱迪·梅斯——一直坚持着我们童年的信仰，一直到成年。
Jodie thought there were lots of zings, deer zings, railroad zings.
朱迪认为有很多嗡嗡声，鹿的嗡嗡声，铁路的嗡嗡声。
That makes sense.
这是有道理的。
When I was in my 20s, and I was walking into work, and about 10 geese walked in front of me on the sidewalk.
当我20多岁的时候，我步行去上班，人行道上大约有10只鹅走在我前面。
So I just turned to my coworker and casually said, it looks like they should have a zing sign there for the geese.
所以我只是转向我的同事，漫不经心地说，看起来他们应该为鹅贴上一个“Zing”的标志。
There was a sort of long, awkward silence.
一阵漫长而尴尬的沉默。
And I thought that he was thinking, you know, that really is a good idea.
我认为他在想，你知道，这确实是个好主意。
But instead, he finally said, you know, zing isn't a word.
但相反，他最后说，你知道，“zing”不是一个词。
In talking to people, I found out that a lot of these lingering misconceptions involve mispronunciation.
在与人们交谈时，我发现很多这些挥之不去的误解都与发音错误有关。
And often, the mispronunciation survives into adulthood because the mistake just sounds better, or makes more sense.
通常，这种发音错误会一直持续到成年，因为这个错误听起来更好，或者更有意义。
It should be a word, and it should be zing.
它应该是一个词，而且应该是zing。
You don't want a kid to walk slowly across the crossing.
你不希望孩子慢慢地走过十字路口。
If he's smart, he's going to zing.
如果他很聪明，他就会很聪明。
Consider the word misled.
考虑一下“误导”这个词。
I talked to three people, including my own father, who used to pronounce it mizeled.
我和三个人交谈过，其中包括我自己的父亲，他过去常常将这个词发音为 mizeled。
All three believed it was the past tense of a nonexistent verb, mizel, which means to deceive or to mislead.
三个人都认为这是一个不存在的动词 mizel 的过去式，意思是欺骗或误导。
There's another guy I spoke to who thought, well into his early 20s, that the word quesadilla was Spanish for what's the deal?
我采访过的另一个人，在他 20 岁出头的时候就认为“quesadilla”这个词是西班牙语，这有什么关系？
Most of the common childhood myths, like that babies come from storks, get corrected sooner or later.
大多数常见的童年神话，比如婴儿来自鹳，迟早会被纠正。
They're not obscure enough to sneak into adulthood unscrutinized.
它们还没有默默无闻地潜入成年而不受审视。
But occasionally, even a very popular childhood myth can make it through, like unicorns.
但有时，即使是非常流行的童年神话也能成功，比如独角兽。
In my head, a unicorn wasn't really any different than a zebra.
在我看来，独角兽和斑马没有什么不同。
This is Kristy Kruger.
这是克里斯蒂·克鲁格。
Kristy Kruger I mean, in terms of believability, I think the unicorn is really ahead of the dinosaur.
克里斯蒂·克鲁格（Kristy Kruger）我的意思是，就可信度而言，我认为独角兽确实领先于恐龙。
What do you mean?
你是什么意思？
Kristy Kruger Well, I mean, when you think about a dinosaur from a kid's perspective, a dinosaur is these really large, monstrous animals roaming the Earth.
克里斯蒂·克鲁格：好吧，我的意思是，当你从孩子的角度思考恐龙时，恐龙就是这些在地球上漫游的巨大而可怕的动物。
And then you have a unicorn, which is basically just a horse with a horn.
然后你就有了一只独角兽，它基本上只是一匹有角的马。
As Kristy Kruger grew up, she says that if she ever thought about unicorns, they were on a grassy plane somewhere in Africa, drinking from a watering hole with the wildebeest and the impala.
克里斯蒂·克鲁格 (Kristy Kruger) 长大后说，如果她曾经想到过独角兽，那一定是它们在非洲某个地方的草地上，与角马和黑斑羚一起从水坑里喝水。
And then one night, she found herself in a conversation at a party.
然后有一天晚上，她发现自己正在一场聚会上谈话。
It was about a group of five to seven people, kind of standing around the keg, just talking.
大约有五到七个人，站在小桶周围，只是说话。
And somehow a discussion of endangered species came up, in which I posed the question, is the unicorn endangered or extinct?
不知何故，出现了关于濒危物种的讨论，其中我提出了一个问题，独角兽是濒临灭绝还是灭绝了？
And basically, there was a big gap of silence.
基本上，有一段很大的沉默。
As you might be gathering, at some point in all these stories, you come to a big gap of silence.
当你们聚集在一起时，在所有这些故事的某个时刻，你们会遇到一个巨大的沉默间隙。
And then everybody laughed.
然后大家都笑了。
And then that laughter was followed by more silence when they realized I wasn't laughing.
当他们意识到我没有笑时，笑声过后是更多的沉默。
And I was like, yeah, oh God, unicorns aren't real?
我当时想，是啊，天啊，独角兽不是真的吗？
Oh no.
哦不。
Sometimes a ridiculous belief will survive into adulthood, and it's our parents who are to blame.
有时，一种荒谬的信念会一直延续到成年，而罪魁祸首就是我们的父母。
Robin didn't think there was anything strange about the way she was raised.
罗宾并不认为她的成长方式有什么奇怪的。
She lived together with her sister and her parents in a nice house in the suburbs.
她与姐姐和父母一起住在郊区的一所漂亮的房子里。
She went to school like the other kids, watched TV and did her homework.
她像其他孩子一样去学校，看电视，做作业。
And she ate the exact same thing for dinner every night of her life, baked chicken.
她一生中每天晚上的晚餐都吃同样的东西：烤鸡。
It was like Monday, chicken.
这就像星期一，鸡。
Tuesday, chicken.
星期二，鸡。
Wednesday, chicken.
周三，鸡。
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, chicken, chicken chicken, chicken, chicken, every night of my life until I left for college.
周四、周五、周六、周日，鸡鸡鸡鸡鸡鸡鸡鸡，我生命中的每个晚上，直到我去上大学。
At the end of the first week of college-- when everyone's desperately trying to fit in, and it's important that you act cool and sophisticated and whatever-- everyone begins complaining about the food that we're being served.
大学第一周结束时——每个人都拼命想融入其中，表现得冷静、老练等等都很重要——每个人都开始抱怨我们所吃的食物。
What was the hard stuff in the sloppy joe?
邋遢乔身上的硬东西是什么？
What was that mystery meat?
那神秘的肉到底是什么？
What animal did it come from?
它来自什么动物？
And I'm looking at these people like they are crazy.
我看着这些人，就像他们疯了一样。
The variety we are getting here every night.
我们每天晚上都会来这里。
Every night there's a different meal.
每天晚上都有不同的饭菜。
One night it's mac and cheese.
一天晚上吃的是通心粉和奶酪。
One night it's mystery meat.
有一天晚上，这是神秘的肉。
One night it's sloppy joe.
有一天晚上，乔是个邋遢的人。
I was like, how can you criticize?
我当时就想，你怎么能批评呢？
I mean, it's a testament to what great chefs they must be that they can make a different meal every single night of the week.
我的意思是，这证明了他们一定是多么伟大的厨师，他们可以在一周的每个晚上做一顿不同的饭菜。
And they just kind of stared.
他们只是盯着看。
And they're like, what?
他们就像，什么？
And I'm like, what, what?
我想，什么，什么？
What's running through my head is, wait a minute, these people are implying that they had variation in their meal plan for their entire life.
我脑子里闪过的是，等一下，这些人暗示他们一生的饮食计划都有所变化。
It's mind-bending.
这是令人费解的。
I mean, I don't care what I learned throughout college.
我的意思是，我不在乎我在大学期间学到了什么。
This is the revelation that has stuck with me.
这是一直困扰着我的启示。
This is what I've learned.
这是我学到的。
All of a sudden like, holy God.
突然间，神圣的上帝。
When Robin came home for Thanksgiving that year, and confronted her mother with the startling fact that everyone else ate things besides chicken growing up, her mother just shrugged her shoulders and said, you liked chicken.
那年感恩节，当罗宾回家时，她面对母亲一个令人震惊的事实，那就是其他人在成长过程中都吃除了鸡肉以外的东西，她母亲只是耸耸肩说，你喜欢鸡肉。
Robin had to concede the point.
罗宾不得不承认这一点。
Even when they'd gone out to restaurants, Robin ordered chicken.
即使他们去餐馆，罗宾也会点鸡肉。
They all had.
他们都有。
Here's one more.
这里还有一个。
When Harriet Lerner was a girl, her family was going through some lean years.
当哈丽特·勒纳（Harriet Lerner）还是个小女孩的时候，她的家庭正经历着一段艰难的岁月。
There were two kids, the house needed repairs.
有两个孩子，房子需要修理。
There wasn't much money for holiday gifts.
没有多少钱买节日礼物。
Harriet was seven and she wanted a bike.
哈丽特七岁了，她想要一辆自行车。
Her sister Susan was 12.
她的妹妹苏珊 12 岁。
She wanted a set of encyclopedias.
她想要一套百科全书。
But when they came downstairs on Christmas morning, there were only two small boxes waiting for them.
但当他们在圣诞节早上下楼时，只有两个小盒子在等着他们。
What was inside them-- and we both had exactly the same gift-- were these real ugly, metal tissue holders painted black, with these corny red and yellow roses.
它们里面的东西——我们都有完全相同的礼物——是这些真正丑陋的金属纸巾架，漆成黑色，上面有这些老土的红色和黄色玫瑰。
They were painted with these cheesy looking red and yellow roses.
它们被涂上了这些看起来俗气的红色和黄色玫瑰。
And I looked at my tissue box, and I started to cry.
我看着我的纸巾盒，我开始哭了。
And I looked at my big sister Susan, and I thought, of course she was going to cry too.
我看着我的姐姐苏珊，我想，她当然也会哭。
And she looked like maybe she was going to cry.
她看起来可能要哭了。
But then she sort of put on a big smile.
但随后她露出了灿烂的笑容。
And then she told me that the boxes were painted by trained monkeys.
然后她告诉我，这些盒子是由受过训练的猴子画的。
The box became Harriet's prized possession.
这个盒子成了哈丽特的珍贵财产。
She kept it on display in her room through elementary school, through high school.
从小学到高中，她一直把它放在自己的房间里展示。
Her friends asked her about it, she'd say, oh yeah, it was painted by trained monkeys.
她的朋友问她这件事，她会说，哦，是的，这是由受过训练的猴子画的。
Nobody ever challenged her on it, maybe because she believed it herself so completely.
从来没有人在这方面挑战过她，也许是因为她自己对此深信不疑。
And then one day, she was home from college, back in the house where she grew up.
然后有一天，她从大学回家，回到了她长大的房子。
And I'm going through some papers, or maybe I was snooping through Susan's papers, and I found a composition, and it had her name on it.
我正在翻阅一些论文，或者也许我正在翻阅苏珊的论文，我发现了一篇作文，上面有她的名字。
And she had written it in high school.
她是在高中时写的。
And it was called "The Tissue Box Story." So I sat down on the floor of Susan's bedroom to read this composition.
它被称为“纸巾盒的故事”。于是我坐在苏珊卧室的地板上读这篇作文。
And Susan told the story just as I told it, except that she wrote how she felt when she saw me crying.
苏珊讲述的故事和我讲述的一样，只是她写了当她看到我哭泣时的感受。
And how she then looked at my parents, and saw that my mother was about to cry too.
然后她看着我的父母，发现我的母亲也快要哭了。
And how she looked at the tissue boxes, and then she remembered that my father had a friend who made them.
她看着纸巾盒，然后她想起我父亲有一个朋友制作了纸巾盒。
And she knew how much my parents hated taking charity.
她知道我的父母有多么讨厌接受慈善事业。
And suddenly, even though she was about to cry, she forced herself to smile.
突然，尽管她快要哭了，但她还是强迫自己微笑。
And she pretended those boxes were painted by trained monkeys.
她假装这些盒子是由受过训练的猴子画的。
And of course, I didn't know any of this.
当然，我对这些一无所知。
But the funny thing she wrote in her composition is that she just rushed upstairs and started crying all over her pillow.
但她在作文中写到的有趣之处在于，她只是冲上楼，就开始在枕头上哭泣。
And she wasn't really sad about the gift really, is what she said in the composition.
正如她在作文中所说，她对这份礼物并不是真的感到难过。
She wasn't sure why she was crying, except that it was sort of like she had volunteered to be a grown up before she was even ready for it.
她不知道自己为什么哭，只是觉得这有点像她在还没准备好之前就自愿长大了。
Up until that moment, I had never thought to question my sister's story.
在那一刻之前，我从未想过要质疑姐姐的故事。
I had never subjected it to the scrutiny of a grown up mind.
我从来没有用成年人的思维来审视它。
I mean, I was 20.
我的意思是，我当时20岁。
I don't know, I had this tissue box that was painted by trained monkeys.
我不知道，我有一个由受过训练的猴子画的纸巾盒。
And then it wasn't painted by trained monkeys, really.
而且它真的不是由训练有素的猴子画的。
Up until reading that story, Harriet thought that her sisters lies had been only to torment her, like the time Harriet swallowed an apple seed, and her big sister convinced her that she had an apple tree growing inside her.
在读到这个故事之前，哈丽特一直以为姐姐们的谎言只是为了折磨她，就像哈丽特吞下一颗苹果种子一样，她的姐姐让她相信她体内长着一棵苹果树。
She had always been jealous of her sister, always wanted to be the big sister.
她一直嫉妒姐姐，一直想当姐姐。
But reading her sister's story that day made her realize how responsible her sister felt for her, and for their entire family, and how there were benefits to being the baby.
但那天读到姐姐的故事让她意识到姐姐对她和整个家庭有多么的责任，以及作为婴儿的好处。
It was good to learn all that.
学到这一切真是太好了。
But the vision of the lie-- that we live in a world where monkeys can be trained to paint-- is hard to give up.
但谎言的愿景——我们生活在一个可以训练猴子绘画的世界——很难放弃。
And really, it's just that I can still picture this tissue box, and how much I loved it, this tissue box painted by trained monkeys.
事实上，我仍然可以想象这个纸巾盒，以及我是多么喜欢它，这个由训练有素的猴子画的纸巾盒。
I know what she means.
我知道她的意思。
For me, there's something appealingly weird about a world where only people who happened to have been born with the name Nielsen get to decide what goes on television.
对我来说，这个世界有一种奇怪的吸引人的地方，只有出生时名字恰好是尼尔森的人才能决定电视上播放的内容。
And not long after the day that Jodie Mace's coworker set her straight about the word zing, she found herself on the opposite side of the exact same situation.
就在朱迪·梅斯的同事向她直言“活力”这个词的那天后不久，她发现自己处于完全相同的情况的另一面。
She was having a conversation with another coworker, and he asked her if elves were real.
她正在与另一位同事交谈，他问她精灵是否真实存在。
Elves?
精灵？
Like that live in the forest, she asked, with the pointy toes?
就像住在森林里一样，她问，脚趾尖尖的？
He nodded.
他点点头。
She paused.
她停了下来。
And then she said, yeah, of course they are.
然后她说，是的，当然是。
Alex Blumberg is one of the producers of our show.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格是我们节目的制片人之一。
[MUSIC - "ZING ZING, ZOOM ZOOM" BY PERRY COMO]
[音乐 - PERRY COMO 的“ZING ZING，ZOOM ZOOM”]
Act Two, And Daddy Makes Three.
第二幕，爸爸又拍了第三幕。
Around the time in 2004 that gay couples were starting to marry in San Francisco, and gay marriage became a hot national issue in the presidential race, Dan Savage found that his own family became very interested in the subject, but in ways that seemed to defy every stereotype.
2004 年左右，同性恋伴侣开始在旧金山结婚，同性婚姻成为总统竞选中的一个全国性热点问题，丹·萨维奇 (Dan Savage) 发现他自己的家人对这个话题非常感兴趣，但方式似乎打破了一切刻板印象。
Dan's mom-- a nice Catholic lady from Chicago's North Side-- wanted him to marry his longtime boyfriend, Terry.
丹的妈妈——一位来自芝加哥北区的和善的天主教女士——希望他嫁给他相恋多年的男友特里。
Dan's dad-- a Republican and former Chicago cop-- felt exactly the same way.
丹的父亲是一名共和党人，曾任芝加哥警察，他也有同样的感觉。
And they felt this way for the most traditional reasons-- commitment, love.
他们有这种感觉是出于最传统的原因——承诺、爱。
Meanwhile, Dan and Terry, the actual couple, the actual homosexuals in the story, they weren't even sure if they wanted to get married.
与此同时，丹和特里，故事中真正的情侣，真正的同性恋者，他们甚至不确定自己是否想结婚。
And there was one person in the family who was adamantly opposed to gay marriage.
家里还有一个人坚决反对同性婚姻。
Here's Dan.
这是丹。
Even my mother has spoken to him, but he refuses to budge.
就连我母亲也跟他说过话，但他拒绝让步。
Boys don't marry boys, he insists, and girls don't marry girls.
他坚持认为，男孩不嫁给男孩，女孩也不嫁给女孩。
He has also made it clear that if Terry and I ever married, he would refuse to attend the ceremony.
他还明确表示，如果特里和我结婚，他将拒绝参加仪式。
Who is this stubborn relative?
这个顽固的亲戚是谁？
My father, the family's sole Republican?
我的父亲，家里唯一的共和党人？
Terry's born again Christian brother?
特里重生的基督徒兄弟？
My sister's Texan boyfriend?
我姐姐的德克萨斯州男朋友？
No, try our six year old adopted son, DJ.
不，试试我们六岁的养子 DJ。
One of his first pronouncements on the issue came when he was just four, when he announced from the back seat of the car that Terry and I didn't really love each other.
他在这个问题上的第一个声明是在他四岁的时候，当时他在汽车后座上宣布特里和我并不真正相爱。
Why not, we asked.
为什么不呢，我们问道。
Because you're not married, DJ explained calmly.
因为你还没有结婚，DJ平静地解释道。
People who don't love each other don't get married.
不相爱的人是不会结婚的。
And since you're not married and can't get married, that means you can't love each other, not really.
既然你们没有结婚，也不能结婚，那就意味着你们不能彼此相爱，不是真的。
We traced the circular logic back to its source, a five year old girl.
我们将这个循环逻辑追溯到它的源头，一个五岁的女孩。
When her parents divorced, they told their only daughter they couldn't stay married because they weren't in love anymore.
当她的父母离婚时，他们告诉唯一的女儿，他们不能再维持婚姻了，因为他们不再相爱了。
These words bounced around the little rock tumbler that is her mind until an opportunity to wound another child presented itself to her.
这些话在她的脑海中不断回荡，直到她有机会伤害另一个孩子。
Her parents weren't in love anymore and couldn't stay married, she told DJ.
她告诉 DJ，她的父母不再相爱，也无法维持婚姻。
And since his parents can't get married, we can't love each other.
既然他的父母不能结婚，我们就不能彼此相爱。
We have done our best to root this notion out, explaining to DJ that marriage is a promise two people make each other.
我们已尽最大努力根除这个观念，并向 DJ 解释婚姻是两个人彼此做出的承诺。
And that while most men marry women, and most women marry men, men can marry men and women can marry women.
虽然大多数男人与女人结婚，大多数女人与男人结婚，但男人可以与男人结婚，女人也可以与女人结婚。
We've made a point of showing him same sex wedding announcements in the Style section in the Sunday New York Times .
我们特意在《星期日纽约时报》的时尚版块上向他展示了同性婚礼的公告。
We watched some same sex weddings in the evening news.
我们在晚间新闻中观看了一些同性婚礼。
And after two years of exposure to the liberal media, DJ now concedes that we could get married.
在接触自由派媒体两年后，DJ 现在承认我们可以结婚。
But he nevertheless insist that we shouldn't.
但他仍然坚持认为我们不应该这样做。
If we do get married, he insists that he's not coming to the wedding.
如果我们真的结婚了，他坚持说他不会参加婚礼。
He'll come to the party after the wedding, provided there is cake, but there is no way he is going to the ceremony.
婚礼结束后他会来参加聚会，只要有蛋糕，但他不可能去参加仪式。
He agrees that we can love each other, but he insists that boys don't marry boys, and girls don't marry girls, and no gay wedding announcements in The New York Times are going to change his mind.
他同意我们可以彼此相爱，但他坚持认为男孩不嫁给男孩，女孩不嫁给女孩，《纽约时报》上的任何同性婚礼公告都不会改变他的想法。
It's odd to reflect that my 64 year old Catholic mom-- raised to view marriage as a sacrament-- believes marriage is about love and commitment, not about genitals.
我 64 岁的天主教母亲从小就将婚姻视为圣礼，但她却认为婚姻关乎爱和承诺，而不关乎生殖器，这让我觉得很奇怪。
But my six year old son-- raised by a gay couple, and not having seen the inside of a church since the day he was baptized-- somehow came to believe that marriage is about matched sets of boys and girls.
但我六岁的儿子——由一对同性恋夫妇抚养长大，自从受洗那天起就没有见过教堂的内部——不知何故开始相信婚姻是关于男孩和女孩的配对。
How'd that happen?
这是怎么发生的？
DJ's traditional position on gender is not something he learned at home.
DJ 对性别的传统立场并不是他在家里学到的。
While he was always into all the traditional boy things-- cars, trucks, guns-- until he was four, the boy things he liked were just the things he happened to like.
虽然他一直喜欢所有传统的男孩事物——汽车、卡车、枪支——直到他四岁，但他喜欢的男孩事物只是他碰巧喜欢的东西。
He liked guns because he liked guns, not because boys were supposed to like guns.
他喜欢枪是因为他喜欢枪，而不是因为男孩应该喜欢枪。
Then one day we packed DJ off to preschool.
然后有一天，我们送 DJ 去幼儿园。
The teachers at his progressive Montessori school would sooner feed children tacks than force boys to do boy things and girls to do girl things.
他所在的蒙特梭利学校的老师们宁愿给孩子们灌输大头针，也不愿强迫男孩做男孩的事，女孩做女孩的事。
No, it was the other children who indoctrinated DJ into the world of gender expectations.
不，是其他孩子向 DJ 灌输了性别期望的世界。
From day one, it was the boys versus the girls.
从第一天起，这就是男孩与女孩之间的竞争。
And there wasn't much the adults could do about it.
而成年人对此无能为力。
When the children weren't engaged in Talmudic discussions about which toys or activities were male or female, the boys were chasing the girls around the yard during recess.
当孩子们没有参与塔木德讨论哪些玩具或活动是男性或女性时，男孩们就会在课间休息时在院子里追女孩。
And what did DJ learn from the other children about marriage?
DJ 从其他孩子那里学到了什么关于婚姻的知识？
It was a boy and girl thing, his classmates all agreed.
这是男孩和女孩的事，他的同学都同意。
And it wasn't an agreeable thing to the boys.
这对男孩们来说并不是一件令人愉快的事情。
Marriage was a weapon, something the girls would threaten to do to the boys if they ever actually caught them.
婚姻是一种武器，女孩们会威胁说，如果男孩们真的抓住了他们，她们就会对他们做这种事。
To turn the tables, the girls only had to threaten to marry the boys.
为了扭转局面，女孩们只需威胁要嫁给男孩即可。
Marriage was nuclear cooties.
婚姻是核虱子。
Once the threat was issued, the boys would turn tail and run, the girls chasing after them now, like a bunch of magnetized pinballs whose charge had suddenly reversed.
一旦发出威胁，男生们就会掉头就跑，而女生们则像一群突然反转电荷的磁化弹球一样紧追不舍。
So to DJ, it didn't make any sense that his two dads, both boys, would contemplate marrying each other.
因此，对于 DJ 来说，他的两个男孩父亲考虑结婚是没有任何意义的。
Boys weren't supposed to be interested in marriage anymore than they were supposed to be interested in dolls, or dresses, or fairy tales about princesses.
男孩不应该对婚姻感兴趣，就像他们不应该对洋娃娃、裙子或关于公主的童话故事感兴趣一样。
Marriage was a girl thing.
婚姻是女孩子的事情。
And since there weren't any girls in our family, why was this subject even coming up?
既然我们家里没有女孩，为什么会提出这个话题？
Grandma thinks Terry and I should get married, I told DJ one day in the car.
有一天，我在车上告诉 DJ，奶奶认为我和特里应该结婚。
Look at me, Daddy, he responded from the backseat.
看着我，爸爸，他在后座回答道。
I twisted around and watched as DJ attempted to roll his eyes.
我转过身，看到 DJ 试图翻白眼。
Eye rolling is an important interpersonal skill that DJ hasn't quite mastered yet.
翻白眼是 DJ 尚未完全掌握的一项重要的人际交往技巧。
Instead of rolling his eyes, he looks up and to the left, and slowly rolls his head around his fixed eyes.
他没有翻白眼，而是向上看向左边，并慢慢地将头绕着他固定的眼睛转动。
Are you trying to tell me something, DJ?
你想告诉我什么吗，DJ？
You know, he answered.
你知道，他回答道。
I know, but Terry doesn't.
我知道，但特里不知道。
He can't see you.
他看不到你。
So I'll have to tell him.
所以我必须告诉他。
Terry, when I looked back, DJ was nodding his head, which I guess means he wants us to get married.
特里，当我回头看时，DJ 正在点头，我猜这意味着他希望我们结婚。
No, DJ said.
不，DJ 说。
Rolling my eyes means I don't want you to get married.
我翻白眼表示我不想让你结婚。
Why not?
为什么不呢？
Dad, boys don't marry boys.
爸爸，男孩不嫁给男孩。
So should we marry some girls, Terry said.
“所以我们应该娶一些女孩吗？”特里说。
No, DJ said.
不，DJ 说。
Why not?
为什么不呢？
Aren't boys supposed to marry girls?
男孩子不应该娶女孩子吗？
DJ thought about this for a second.
DJ 思考了一下这个问题。
Then he explained that we weren't the kind of boys who marry girls.
然后他解释说我们不是那种娶女孩的男孩。
Since we loved each other, and since we were his dads, we had to live together forever.
因为我们彼此相爱，而且我们是他的父亲，所以我们必须永远生活在一起。
Married people live together, and we wouldn't be able to do that, since we had to live with each other and be his dads forever.
已婚人士住在一起，我们不能这样做，因为我们必须住在一起，永远做他的父亲。
And so we couldn't get married, because then we would have to live with the girls we married and not with each other, which we couldn't do because we were his dads and had to live together forever, because we were his dads.
所以我们不能结婚，因为那样我们就必须和我们结婚的女孩住在一起，而不是彼此住在一起，我们不能这样做，因为我们是他的父亲，必须永远生活在一起，因为我们是他的父亲。
A few weeks later, DJ woke up in the middle of the night with an earache.
几周后，DJ 在半夜因耳痛醒来。
I got some Children's Tylenol into him, and we curled up together on the couch in the living room, waiting for the medicine to do its job.
我给他注射了一些儿童泰诺，我们一起蜷缩在客厅的沙发上，等待药物发挥作用。
We talked about skateboarding.
我们谈论了滑板。
We talked about school.
我们谈论了学校。
We talked about the cosmic injustice that earaches represent.
我们讨论了耳痛所代表的宇宙不公正。
Then we talked about sex.
然后我们谈论了性。
Dad?
爸爸？
I want to be gay with Joshua when I grow up.
我长大后想和约书亚做同性恋。
It was a radical change of topic, but it wasn't a bolt from the blue.
这是话题的彻底转变，但并不是晴天霹雳。
DJ had been asking questions lately about what exactly gay meant.
DJ 最近一直在询问同性恋到底意味着什么。
He knew he had gay parents, and that gay marriage was always in the news, and that if his parents married, it would be one of those gay marriages.
他知道他有同性恋父母，同性婚姻总是出现在新闻中，如果他的父母结婚，那将是同性婚姻之一。
Despite our best efforts to explain what gayness was without popping in an old Chi Chi LaRue video, DJ was still a little fuzzy on the concept.
尽管我们尽最大努力解释什么是同性恋，但没有在旧的 Chi Chi LaRue 视频中出现，DJ 对这个概念仍然有点模糊。
Apparently, he had concluded that being gay meant living with your best friend.
显然，他得出的结论是，同性恋意味着和你最好的朋友住在一起。
I didn't want to tell DJ that he couldn't be gay when he grew up, but I didn't believe he was going to be gay when he grew up.
我不想告诉DJ他长大后不能是同性恋，但我也不相信他长大后会成为同性恋。
As best anyone can tell, most kids, over 90%, will grow up to be straight, whether they're raised by gay or straight parents.
众所周知，大多数孩子（超过 90%）长大后都会成为异性恋，无论他们是由同性恋父母还是异性恋父母抚养长大。
I almost told him he wouldn't be gay.
我几乎告诉他他不会是同性恋。
He plays with trucks.
他玩卡车。
He likes Power Rangers.
他喜欢《电力别动队》。
He threw a perfect spiral the first time he picked up a football.
当他第一次拿起足球时，他就扔出了一个完美的螺旋。
He was throwing it to me and I dropped it, naturally.
他把它扔给我，我自然地把它扔掉了。
The kid is straight.
孩子是直的。
But on the off chance that he wasn't going to be straight, I started naming all the couples we knew, gay and straight.
但万一他不是异性恋，我就开始说出我们认识的所有情侣的名字，同性恋和异性恋。
And DJ joined in.
DJ 也加入了进来。
There was Eddie and Mickey, Billy and Kelly, Laura and Joe, Grandma and Gramps, Mark and Diane, Shirley and Rose, Brad and Rachel, Nancy and Barrack, David and Jake, Amy and Sonya, Henry and Beth, Maureen and Ed.
有埃迪和米奇、比利和凯利、劳拉和乔、奶奶和爷爷、马克和黛安、雪莉和罗斯、布拉德和瑞秋、南希和巴拉克、大卫和杰克、艾米和索尼娅、亨利和贝丝、莫琳和埃德。
Most of the men we know are with?
我们认识的大多数男人都在一起吗？
I asked.
我问。
Girls, DJ said.
女孩们，DJ 说。
That's because most men wind up falling in love with women when they grow up.
这是因为大多数男人长大后都会爱上女人。
And most women wind up falling in love with men.
大多数女人最终都会爱上男人。
Those men are called straight.
这些人被称为直人。
Men who fall in love with men, like me and Daddy, are called gay.
像我和爸爸这样爱上男人的男人被称为同性恋。
Am I going to be gay?
我会成为同性恋吗？
I don't know, DJ, but probably not.
我不知道，DJ，但可能不是。
Most men aren't gay.
大多数男人都不是同性恋。
You could be gay when you grow up, but it's much more likely that you're going to be straight, like Uncle Billy, or Uncle Eddie, or Tim, or Brad.
长大后你可能是同性恋，但更有可能是异性恋，就像比利叔叔、埃迪叔叔、蒂姆或布拉德一样。
But I want to be gay, like you and Dad.
但我想成为同性恋，就像你和爸爸一样。
Ah, I thought, somewhere a fundamentalist Christian's heart is breaking.
啊，我想，某个原教旨主义基督徒的心正在破碎。
This is precisely what they worry about when they condemn gay parents.
这正是他们谴责同性恋父母时所担心的。
Our kids will want to be gay.
我们的孩子会想成为同性恋。
They will want to emulate their parents and adopt their sexuality.
他们会想要效仿他们的父母并接受他们的性取向。
If you believe, against all evidence, that sexuality is a matter of choice, it may be a rational fear.
如果你不顾所有证据而相信性行为是一个选择问题，那么这可能是一种理性的恐惧。
But sexuality isn't a matter of choice.
但性取向不是一个选择的问题。
It's an inborn trait.
这是一种与生俱来的特质。
And DJ could no more choose to be gay like his parents than I could choose to be straight, like mine.
DJ 不能像他父母一样选择同性恋，就像我不能像我一样选择异性恋一样。
It's not a decision you get to make, I said.
我说，这不是你可以做出的决定。
It's not a decision I got to make.
这不是我必须做出的决定。
It's a decision your heart makes.
这是你内心做出的决定。
When?
什么时候？
When you're older, I said.
当你老了，我说。
One day, your heart will let you know whether you're going to be the kind of man who falls in love with a woman or a man.
有一天，你的心会让你知道你会成为那种爱上女人还是男人的男人。
There was a long silence, and I thought DJ had fallen asleep.
一阵长时间的沉默，我以为DJ已经睡着了。
He was curled up next to me, resting his head against my side, and I couldn't see his face.
他蜷缩在我身边，头靠在我身边，我看不到他的脸。
I stayed very still.
我一动不动。
Grandma says you're supposed to marry the person you love, DJ suddenly said.
“奶奶说你应该嫁给你爱的人，”DJ突然说道。
He hadn't fallen asleep.
他还没有睡着。
He'd just been quietly working through something.
他只是在默默地处理一些事情。
That's right, I said, Grandma does say that all the time.
是啊，我说，奶奶确实经常这么说。
But you love me, and we're not going to get married.
但你爱我，我们不会结婚。
Grown up love is a special kind of love.
长大后的爱是一种特殊的爱。
People don't fall in that special kind of love with their sisters or their mothers or their sons.
人们不会对他们的姐妹、母亲或儿子产生那种特殊的爱。
There's something in your heart that makes you go out into the world and find someone new, someone you've never met before, and that's the person you fall in love with.
你内心深处有某种东西促使你走向这个世界并找到一个新的人，一个你以前从未见过的人，而那个人就是你爱上的人。
Why?
为什么？
Because that's how new families are made.
因为新家庭就是这样组建的。
And one day you'll meet the person you want to make a new family with, and that's the person you're supposed to marry.
有一天，你会遇到你想与之组建新家庭的人，那就是你应该结婚的人。
Why?
为什么？
Because marriage is a promise that you make to that other person, a promise to stay in love with them forever, to be related forever, so that you'll always be together.
因为婚姻是你对对方的一个承诺，一个与他们永远相爱、永远有联系、永远在一起的承诺。
Did Henry's parents fall out of love?
亨利的父母失恋了吗？
Henry was a friend of DJ's whose parents were in the middle of an ugly divorce.
亨利是 DJ 的朋友，他的父母正在经历一场丑陋的离婚。
Yes, they did.
是的，他们做到了。
So they broke their promise?
所以他们违背了诺言？
Yes, I guess they did.
是的，我想他们做到了。
DJ got quiet again.
DJ又安静了。
Do you and Daddy want to get married?
你和爸爸想结婚吗？
Sometimes we do, I said, but sometimes we don't.
我说，有时我们会这样做，但有时我们不会。
Grandma wants us to get married, you don't.
奶奶要我们结婚，你不肯。
I changed my mind.
我改变了主意。
Why?
为什么？
You and dad have to stay together forever.
你和爸爸必须永远在一起。
We will, I said.
我们会的，我说。
We love each other and always will.
我们彼此相爱，并且永远如此。
DJ sat up on the couch and looked me in the eye.
DJ 在沙发上坐起来，看着我的眼睛。
I want you and Daddy to promise, to pinky promise, to seriously and forever promise, and no breaking your promise.
我要你和爸爸许下承诺，小指的承诺，认真的、永远的承诺，不要食言。
You want us to get married then, I said.
你想让我们结婚吧，我说。
Yes.
是的。
And there it was, my reward for a sleepless night.
这就是我对一个不眠之夜的奖励。
My son was giving me his blessing to marry.
我儿子正在祝福我结婚。
I'll tell Terry, I said.
我会告诉特里，我说。
We'll see what Daddy says.
我们看看爸爸怎么说。
Dan Savage, reading from his book The Commitment , in which his mom and his six year old son wage a battle of ideas.
丹·萨维奇（Dan Savage）正在读他的书《承诺》（The Commitment），书中他的妈妈和他六岁的儿子展开了一场思想斗争。
His great, great podcast is available at thestranger.com.
他的精彩播客可以在 thestranger.com 上找到。
Coming up, baby Einstein takes on the real Einstein.
即将到来，小爱因斯坦将挑战真正的爱因斯坦。
That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International, when our program continues.
稍后，芝加哥公共广播电台和国际公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
It's This American Life .
这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.
当然，每周我们的节目都会选择一个主题，为您带来有关该主题的各种不同类型的故事。
Today's program, A Little Bit of Knowledge, taking a small bit of information and drawing on it.
今天的节目《一点知识》，获取一点信息并加以利用。
And coming to conclusions and inferences is, of course, a sign of intelligence.
当然，得出结论和推论是智慧的标志。
We all do that.
我们都这样做。
It's just sometimes, it gets a little complicated.
只是有时候，事情会变得有点复杂。
We've arrived at Act Three.
我们已经到了第三幕了。
Act Three, Sucker MC-Squared.
第三幕，Sucker MC-Squared。
We have this story from Robert Andrew Powell.
我们从罗伯特·安德鲁·鲍威尔那里得到了这个故事。
Bob Berenz didn't come into my life as a physicist.
鲍勃·贝伦茨并不是以物理学家的身份进入我的生活的。
I knew him originally as the goalie on my hockey team.
我最初认识他时是我曲棍球队的守门员。
I'd see him every Wednesday night.
我每周三晚上都会见到他。
We'd play hockey for an hour or so, and then he'd go back to his house, and his family, and his job as an electrician.
我们会打一个小时左右的曲棍球，然后他会回到他的家，和他的家人，以及他作为电工的工作。
He retired from the team a couple years ago.
几年前他从球队退役。
He was 48, a bit too old to be stopping slap shots.
他已经 48 岁了，对于停止打耳光来说有点太老了。
Away from the rink and with extra time on his hands, he hatched an idea for an invention, a superconductor of some sort.
远离溜冰场，利用空闲时间，他萌生了一个发明的想法，某种超导体。
Bob's a tinkerer, great with car engines, computers, any kind of electronics.
鲍勃是一位修补匠，擅长汽车发动机、电脑和各种电子产品。
But to build something as ambitious as a superconductor, he needed to go back and study basic physics, something he hadn't done since high school.
但为了建造像超导体这样雄心勃勃的东西，他需要回去学习基础物理学，这是他自高中以来就没有做过的事情。
So I sat down, I got out my books and started reading.
于是我坐下来，拿出书开始读书。
Of course, I never got to the invention because I found something else, something that I couldn't understand, couldn't resolve.
当然，我从未接触过这项发明，因为我发现了其他东西，一些我无法理解、无法解决的东西。
And I think something much more important, because it's something every Nobel Prize-winning physicist missed.
我认为有更重要的事情，因为这是每个诺贝尔奖获得者物理学家都错过的事情。
That something, he said, was the most significant development in physics in a century.
他说，这是一个世纪以来物理学最重要的发展。
I discovered that physics is fundamentally operating off an incorrect principle.
我发现物理学从根本上是按照错误的原理运作的。
And the principle is that e equals mc squared.
原理是e等于mc的平方。
That's wrong, without question.
这是错误的，毫无疑问。
It gives you wrong answers every time you use it.
每次使用它时它都会给你错误的答案。
I guarantee it.
我保证。
Bob believed he'd disproved Einstein's theory of relativity, and that's why he got back in touch with me.
鲍勃相信他已经反驳了爱因斯坦的相对论，这就是他重新与我联系的原因。
I'm a journalist.
我是一名记者。
Bob said he needed my help drafting a book about his findings.
鲍勃说他需要我帮助起草一本关于他的发现的书。
He said the book would make him famous.
他说这本书会让他出名。
He said it would make us both rich.
他说这会让我们俩都富有。
Bob suggested we call the book E Does Not Equal MC Squared.
鲍勃建议我们将这本书命名为“E 不等于 MC 平方”。
I met up with Bob at his small yellow house in South Miami.
我在鲍勃位于南迈阿密的黄色小房子里见到了他。
On his bookshelves, alongside hockey trophies and framed photos of his daughters, stand copies of Physics Demystified, Trigonometry Demystified, and Calculus Demystified.
在他的书架上，除了曲棍球奖杯和女儿们的镶框照片之外，还放着《揭秘物理》、《揭秘三角函数》和《揭秘微积分》。
Physics is simple, he says.
他说，物理学很简单。
It's the physics community, academia that mystifies him.
让他感到困惑的是物理学界和学术界。
All right, in this point I have to be completely honest.
好吧，在这一点上我必须完全诚实。
I did write a paper early on, and I submitted it to a physics site.
我很早就写了一篇论文，并将其提交给了一个物理网站。
And it was summarily rejected out of hand.
但它立即被拒绝了。
But I did learn an important lesson, that physicists and what's being done by them is very complicated, very mathematically intensive.
但我确实学到了一个重要的教训，物理学家和他们所做的事情非常复杂，数学密集型。
What I've got is none of that, so it completely, almost in reverse, goes over their heads.
我所得到的都不是这些，所以它完全，几乎相反，超出了他们的理解范围。
OK, we're going to have an arrow.
好的，我们将有一个箭头。
This arrow represents force.
这个箭头代表力。
I'll put a big letter F there.
我会在那里放一个大字母F。
In a nutshell, Bob believes Einstein misunderstood the relationship between energy and time.
简而言之，鲍勃认为爱因斯坦误解了能量和时间之间的关系。
Bob insists the error is self-explanatory and obvious.
鲍勃坚持认为这个错误是不言自明的、显而易见的。
But whenever he's tried to show me his reasoning, I don't see it.
但每当他试图向我展示他的推理时，我都看不出来。
I can't tell if I'm confused or if Bob's confused.
我分不清是我困惑还是鲍勃困惑。
--times its velocity.
——乘以它的速度。
It actually should be mass times speed.
它实际上应该是质量乘以速度。
It's a mathematical thing, it's no big deal.
这是数学问题，没什么大不了的。
Unless you're a physicist, then you'll focus on it, to the exclusion of the truth.
除非你是物理学家，否则你就会专注于它，而排除真相。
So if we look at the mass times the speed--
所以如果我们看一下质量乘以速度——
The only physics class Bob ever took was in high school.
鲍勃上过的唯一一堂物理课是在高中。
After graduating, Bob audited a couple college courses, but they weren't for him.
毕业后，鲍勃旁听了几门大学课程，但这些课程不适合他。
Last summer, right before he called me, Bob had decided to give himself a year to find a wider audience for his discovery, a full year, free from electrical work.
去年夏天，就在鲍勃给我打电话之前，他决定给自己一年的时间，为他的发现找到更广泛的受众，整整一年，不做任何电气工作。
His wife, Celia, supported this sabbatical.
他的妻子西莉亚支持这个休假。
She earned enough money in her corporate job to keep them afloat.
她在公司工作赚了足够的钱来维持生计。
What if it's totally true, and I didn't support him?
如果这是完全正确的，而我不支持他怎么办？
I mean, would I feel like a schmuck or what?
我的意思是，我会觉得自己像个笨蛋还是什么？
I mean, really, it's like, so go for it.
我的意思是，真的，就像这样，所以就去做吧。
You can ask Celia if she believes Bob has disproved Einstein.
你可以问西莉亚她是否相信鲍勃反驳了爱因斯坦。
But for her, that's not the point.
但对她来说，这不是重点。
He felt strongly about it.
他对此有强烈的感受。
It's like, just because I don't understand it doesn't mean that it's not real.
就像，仅仅因为我不明白它并不意味着它不是真实的。
He's done all this research, and he sits here and does all this studying, and he reads all these books, and he does these tests.
他完成了所有这些研究，他坐在这里进行所有这些研究，他阅读了所有这些书籍，他做了这些测试。
I mean, he's the most disciplined individual I have ever known.
我的意思是，他是我所认识的最自律的人。
Just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean a damn thing.
仅仅因为我不明白，并不意味着什么。
Bob's my friend.
鲍勃是我的朋友。
He was my goalie.
他是我的守门员。
I didn't want to be the guy to kill his dream either, and like his wife, I didn't feel qualified to disprove him.
我也不想成为扼杀他梦想的人，而且像他的妻子一样，我觉得自己没有资格反驳他。
Maybe he had stumbled onto something simple and profound.
也许他偶然发现了一些简单而深刻的东西。
Electrician disproves theory of relativity, that would make for a pretty good book.
电工反驳了相对论，这将是一本相当不错的书。
I told Bob I'd run his work past a trained physicist.
我告诉鲍勃我会通过一位训练有素的物理学家来运行他的工作。
This turned out to be more difficult than I had expected.
结果这比我预想的要困难。
A scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory replied to my email with a curt, please don't waste my time again.
洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室的一位科学家回复了我的邮件，简短地说，请不要再浪费我的时间了。
The head of the Physics Department at the University of Miami dropped Bob's research paper like it was radioactive.
迈阿密大学物理系主任把鲍勃的研究论文扔在地上，就像它带有放射性一样。
He receives one of these papers each week, he said.
他说，他每周都会收到一篇这样的论文。
It turns out, there is a whole community of people out there who also claim to have disproved Einstein's theory.
事实证明，有一整群人也声称反驳了爱因斯坦的理论。
So persistent are these outsiders that John Baez, a Professor of Mathematics in California, felt compelled to publish the crackpot index.
这些局外人如此顽固，以至于加州数学教授约翰·贝兹 (John Baez) 觉得有必要发布这个疯子指数。
It's an online quiz you can take to see if you are, by his definition, a crackpot.
这是一个在线测验，你可以参加这个测验来看看你是否按照他的定义是一个疯子。
There are 35 items in the index, including 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein.
该指数共有 35 个项目，其中每一项将自己与爱因斯坦进行有利比较，即可得 10 分。
10 points for each claim that the theory of relativity is fundamentally misguided.
每一项认为相对论从根本上被误导的说法 10 分。
10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a quote, "paradigm shift." 10 points for each statement along the lines of, I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right.
声称你的工作处于“范式转变”这句话的前沿，有 10 分。每个陈述 10 分，大致如下：我不擅长数学，但我的理论在概念上是正确的。
Here's Baez.
这是贝兹。
I'm sure that I've seen at least 100 different crackpot theories.
我确信我至少见过 100 种不同的疯狂理论。
I will get emails from people asking me to help them work out the details of their theory.
我会收到人们发来的电子邮件，要求我帮助他们弄清楚他们的理论的细节。
And so it's sort of like saying I'm good at music, but I just don't know what the notes are supposed to be in this piece.
这有点像说我擅长音乐，但我只是不知道这首曲子中的音符应该是什么。
If you could just write down the notes, I could come up with a great piece of music.
如果你能写下音符，我就能创作出一首很棒的音乐。
He told me about a few of the more infamous crackpots.
他告诉我一些更臭名昭著的疯子。
One guy who calls himself Ludwig Von Plutonium believes the solar system consists of a single radioactive atom.
一个自称路德维希·冯·钚的人相信太阳系由单个放射性原子组成。
Another was Alexander Abian.
另一位是亚历山大·阿比安。
He was a math professor at the University of Iowa who, in his later years, came up with the theory that all the diseases on Earth are due to the pernicious influence of the moon, and so that we should destroy the moon, in fact.
他是爱荷华大学的数学教授，晚年提出了这样的理论：地球上的所有疾病都是由于月球的有害影响造成的，因此我们实际上应该摧毁月球。
Destroy the moon?
摧毁月球？
John Baez Yeah, we have to blow it up to prevent the spread of AIDS.
约翰·贝兹 是的，我们必须炸毁它才能防止艾滋病的传播。
And he also had an equation that was sort of like e equals mc squared, something about how energy gets used up pushing time forwards.
他还有一个方程，有点像 e 等于 mc 平方，关于能量如何消耗并推动时间前进。
Why do people do this?
人们为什么要这样做？
John Baez I think they do it because they really want to understand the universe.
约翰·贝兹（John Baez）我认为他们这样做是因为他们真的想了解宇宙。
And they have very noble, albeit grandiose, motivations, trying to do what us regular physicists also are trying to do for our own noble and grandiose motivations.
他们有着非常崇高但宏伟的动机，试图做我们普通物理学家也为了我们自己崇高而宏伟的动机而努力做的事情。
And I think what distinguishes them from physicists who can make a useful contribution is that they don't want to be somebody whose epitaph says that they tightened the screws on a particle accelerator that made a great experiment.
我认为他们与能够做出有用贡献的物理学家的区别在于，他们不想成为一个墓志铭上写着他们拧紧了粒子加速器上的螺丝，做了一个伟大实验的人。
They want to be Einstein.
他们想成为爱因斯坦。
And most of us can't be Einstein.
我们大多数人都无法成为爱因斯坦。
And that's the trouble.
这就是麻烦所在。
When I told Bob about the index, he had already seen it on the internet, had taken the test, and had concluded that, technically, he's a crackpot.
当我告诉鲍勃有关该索引的信息时，他已经在互联网上看到了该索引，并进行了测试，并得出结论，从技术上讲，他是个疯子。
But that never even gave him pause.
但这甚至没有让他停下来。
There is a climate within the physics community-- because they have to go through so many years of study, and such tough mathematics, and this and that-- that anyone who comes into the zone and hasn't gone through the same steps that they have, is looked on with a little bit of disdain.
物理学界有一种氛围——因为他们必须经历这么多年的学习，以及如此艰难的数学，以及这样那样的——任何进入这个领域但没有经历过与他们相同步骤的人都会受到一点蔑视。
I'll tell you what, I do challenge any real physicist to stand with me on a blackboard, and we'll go over this.
我告诉你，我确实挑战任何真正的物理学家与我一起站在黑板上，我们将讨论这个问题。
Eventually, months later, I did find someone, a real physicist who was willing to take Bob's challenge.
最终，几个月后，我确实找到了一个人，一个真正的物理学家，愿意接受鲍勃的挑战。
I first met Dr. Brant Watson at his office in Miami.
我第一次见到布兰特·沃森博士是在他位于迈阿密的办公室。
On his wall hung a portrait of Albert Einstein, certificates recognizing several patents, and curiously, a poster of some Victoria's Secret lingerie models.
他的墙上挂着阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的肖像，承认多项专利的证书，奇怪的是，还有一些维多利亚的秘密内衣模特的海报。
Dr. Watson holds a PhD in nuclear physics.
沃森博士拥有核物理学博士学位。
He says he enjoys hearing new ideas, and was genuinely interested in reading Bob's paper, which he did.
他说他喜欢听到新的想法，并且真正有兴趣阅读鲍勃的论文，他确实这么做了。
When he finished, he handed me a Kit Kat bar as I explained that Bob had invested close to 12 months in his research.
当他完成后，他递给我一块 Kit Kat 巧克力棒，我解释说鲍勃在他的研究上投入了近 12 个月的时间。
That's too bad.
那太糟糕了。
He should have talked to me a long time before he got started.
他应该在开始之前就跟我谈了很长时间。
You can tell when somebody is worth listening to, real quick.
您可以快速判断出某人的意见何时值得倾听。
I sat in a class at Florida State with Don Robson, who was teaching theoretical physics.
我在佛罗里达州立大学和唐·罗布森一起上课，他正在教授理论物理。
And I remember one time, my jaw just dropped, like in a cartoon, but it dropped without me making it do it.
我记得有一次，我的下巴差点掉下来，就像动画片里那样，但我没让它做到这一点，它就掉下来了。
How stunned I was to see this beautiful formula that he was writing on the board.
看到他在黑板上写下的这个美丽的公式，我感到多么震惊。
And I said, my God, that one formula expresses everything, but I know I could never do it myself.
我说，天哪，一个公式可以表达一切，但我知道我自己永远无法做到。
Well Bob, with what he wrote, out of the question.
好吧，鲍勃，按照他写的内容，这是不可能的。
Dr. Watson said Bob's work was riddled with the kind of mistakes a freshman physics student would make in his first week of class.
沃森博士说，鲍勃的工作充满了物理学新生在上课第一周会犯的错误。
No, he corrected, they were the kind of mistakes a freshman sociology student taking a physics elective would make.
不，他纠正道，这是社会学新生选修物理时会犯的错误。
He said Bob's biggest error was repeatedly confusing momentum with energy, which apparently, in physics, is a big deal.
他说鲍勃最大的错误是反复混淆动量和能量，这在物理学中显然是一个大问题。
I relayed this to Bob, thinking that would be the end of it.
我把这件事转告给鲍勃，以为事情就这样结束了。
Yet Bob didn't waver.
但鲍勃并没有动摇。
He remained so earnest and so obstinate that I arranged for Bob and Dr. Watson to meet face to face.
他仍然那么认真、那么固执，以至于我安排鲍勃和沃森医生面对面见面。
I thought it would be a quick meeting, that Dr. Watson would turn Bob around.
我以为这会是一次简短的会面，沃森博士将会扭转鲍勃的局面。
I was wrong.
我错了。
I do not say momentum is the same thing as kinetic energy.
我并不是说动量与动能是同一回事。
Oh no?
哦，不？
You did about 10 times in that paper.
你在那篇论文中做了大约 10 次。
And I marked every one of them.
我对每一个都做了标记。
No, no, no, 10 times in your paper.
不，不，不，在你的论文中出现了 10 次。
Well, I don't want to get into that part of it, because--
好吧，我不想讨论这部分，因为——
That is a part of it.
这是其中的一部分。
That's what we do it into first.
这就是我们首先要做的。
As physicists, the first thing we check is the units.
作为物理学家，我们首先检查的是单位。
If the units are wrong, then apples equals oranges, which we don't accept.
如果单位错误，那么苹果就等于橙子，这是我们不接受的。
That's a very efficient way to find out if somebody's wrong or not.
这是查明某人是否错误的非常有效的方法。
That's how we do it.
我们就是这样做的。
I understand that.
我明白这一点。
Now that's not the issue.
现在这不是问题了。
The issue is--
问题是——
Accord was never reached.
协议从未达成。
Bob and Dr. Watson's frustration with each other devolved into name calling.
鲍勃和华生医生对彼此的不满最终演变成了谩骂。
In fact, I have to mention this.
其实这个我不得不提一下。
Under the hallmark of schizophrenia is, they get a good idea, and then they never investigate whether it's right or not, OK?
精神分裂症的特点是，他们有一个好主意，然后他们从不调查它是否正确，好吗？
So this is an ideation.
所以这是一个构想。
No, I'm telling you have to watch out for this kind of thing, because some people may think that.
不，我告诉你要小心这种事情，因为有些人可能会这么想。
Finally, Bob, defiant as always, volleyed back with what all along has been his main point: e equals mc squared doesn't make sense because it's difficult to understand.
最后，鲍勃一如既往地挑衅性地回击了他一直以来的主要观点：e 等于 mc 平方没有意义，因为它很难理解。
A fundamental law of physics should be self-explanatory.
物理的基本定律应该是不言自明的。
Well, the only thing I can see with physics is you are getting way too complicated.
好吧，我对物理学的唯一看法是你变得太复杂了。
I mean, you have to go to school forever.
我的意思是，你必须永远去学校。
You have to know this outrageous amount of calculus.
你必须知道这些令人发指的微积分。
When I see all that, I know that physics has gone off the rails.
当我看到这一切时，我知道物理学已经脱离了轨道。
Let me tell you why it looks so difficult.
让我告诉你为什么它看起来如此困难。
There comes a point at which you can see beyond the gap, that you'll never cross the gap.
总有一天，你可以看到鸿沟之外，但你永远无法跨越鸿沟。
You just can't do it.
你就是做不到。
No matter how hard you try, you can't do it.
无论你如何努力，你都做不到。
Especially when you got to the conclusion Einstein was wrong, it should be e equals mc, I guess, instead of mc squared.
特别是当你得出爱因斯坦错了的结论时，我猜应该是e等于mc，而不是mc平方。
If you used mc, there would have been no A-bomb on Hiroshima.
如果使用 mc，广岛就不会有原子弹了。
We don't have radios, we don't have lasers, we don't have atomic bombs, we don't have anything.
我们没有收音机，没有激光，没有原子弹，我们什么都没有。
No cellphone, no microwave, no nothing, man.
没有手机，没有微波炉，什么都没有，伙计。
We don't have anything.
我们什么都没有。
Back at Bob's house, we talked about it.
回到鲍勃家，我们讨论了这件事。
Bob was fuming.
鲍勃很生气。
Nothing Dr. Watson had said had changed his mind.
华生医生所说的话都没有改变他的想法。
How come Brant can't persuade you that you're wrong?
为什么布兰特不能说服你你错了？
Well, this is not really fair, but I'm going to say it anyway.
嗯，这不太公平，但无论如何我还是要说。
It's like he was talking the party line.
就好像他在谈论党的路线一样。
He didn't strike me as being all that bright.
他给我的印象并不那么聪明。
I know he has a couple of patents, and he's this big professor, and it's probably not fair for me to say that, but I'm not claiming to be this incredible genius in this one area.
我知道他拥有几项专利，而且他是一位大教授，我这么说可能不公平，但我并不是声称自己是这一领域的令人难以置信的天才。
It's very simple what I ran into.
我遇到的情况很简单。
And I need some help to get it put into a forum where people can understand it.
我需要一些帮助才能将其放入人们可以理解的论坛中。
But it really isn't that difficult.
但这确实没那么难。
I understand Bob's stubbornness this way.
我这样理解鲍勃的固执。
Since he was a kid, he was going off and reading books and figuring out things on his own.
从他还是个孩子的时候起，他就开始读书，自己解决问题。
When he was 12, he taught himself how to construct an FM transmitter from spare parts, building the coil himself.
12 岁时，他自学了如何用备件制作调频发射机，并亲自制作线圈。
He is a self-taught auto mechanic, and self-taught television repairman too.
他是一位自学成才的汽车修理工，也是自学成才的电视修理工。
Almost everything he knows about electrical work he learned from books.
他所知道的有关电气工作的几乎所有知识都是从书本上学到的。
He has based his whole life on the idea that he can figure out things on his own, technical stuff that, to most of us, seems just as hard as e equals mc squared.
他的一生都基于这样的想法：他可以自己解决问题，技术性的东西，对我们大多数人来说，就像 e 等于 mc 平方一样困难。
No wonder he thinks he can trust his own judgment on this one.
难怪他认为他可以相信自己对此的判断。
It's a hard habit to break.
这是一个很难打破的习惯。
It's hard for him to see himself any other way.
他很难以其他方式看待自己。
As the end of Bob's sabbatical neared, I had asked his wife, Celia, about a possibility Bob wouldn't even acknowledge.
当鲍勃的休假即将结束时，我向他的妻子西莉亚询问了鲍勃甚至不承认的可能性。
What would it mean, in the big picture, if Bob is totally wrong?
从大局来看，如果鲍勃完全错了，那意味着什么？
I think it would be a huge blow to his ego.
我认为这对他的自尊心来说是一个巨大的打击。
It wouldn't change anything for me, as far as how I feel about him.
就我对他的感觉而言，这不会改变我的任何事情。
He'd still be Bob, and he'd still be the man I love, and I'd still be in love with him.
他仍然是鲍勃，他仍然是我爱的人，我仍然爱他。
You have got to love him, man.
你必须爱他，伙计。
It's either you love him or hate them.
要么你爱他，要么你恨他们。
It's like he can be an arrogant son of a bitch.
就好像他可以是一个傲慢的王八蛋。
You live with the good and the bad.
你与好的和坏的一起生活。
There's so much more to him than that, than that uncombed and unkempt hair, and the fact that he doesn't keep doctors' appointments, or make them, which makes me the nagging, bitching wife, but that's OK.
他身上的东西远不止这些，除了那头不梳、蓬乱的头发，还有他不按时看医生、不预约看医生的事实，这让我成为了一个爱唠叨、爱发牢骚的妻子，但这没关系。
It's part of the package.
它是套餐的一部分。
Bob has returned to his old job, electrifying houses and office buildings.
鲍勃回到了原来的工作岗位，为房屋和办公楼通电。
At home, he set aside his physics books to focus on the wiring system on his Carmengia, a clamshell of a car he's rebuilding by himself, from the tires up.
在家里，他把物理书放在一边，专注于他的 Carmengia 上的布线系统，这是一辆他自己重建的翻盖汽车，从轮胎开始。
He says he's trying to take an engine designed in the 1930s and get it working for the 21st century.
他说他正在尝试将 20 世纪 30 年代设计的发动机运用到 21 世纪。
It's an ambitious project, complex, challenging, and totally over my head.
这是一个雄心勃勃的项目，复杂、具有挑战性，完全超出了我的能力范围。
I have no doubt he'll pull it off.
我毫不怀疑他会成功。
Robert Andrew Powell is the author of the book We Own This Game about youth football.
罗伯特·安德鲁·鲍威尔是有关青少年足球的书《我们拥有这场比赛》的作者。
He's in Boulder, Colorado.
他在科罗拉多州博尔德。
[MUSIC - "MODERN PHYSICS IN FIVE EASY VERSES" BY BRUCE LESNICK]
[音乐 - 布鲁斯·莱斯尼克的《现代物理学五首简单诗句》]
Act Four, The Art of Adult Conversation.
第四幕，成人谈话的艺术。
We end our program today with this fable of the consequences of saying more than you truly understand, from Alexa Junge.
我们以 Alexa Junge 的寓言故事结束今天的节目，讲述了超出你真正理解范围的说法的后果。
I know everybody loves their grandmother, but I really, really loved my grandmother.
我知道每个人都爱他们的祖母，但我真的非常爱我的祖母。
I still dream about her kitchen.
我仍然梦想着她的厨房。
From the time I could ride my bike to her house, pretty much every day I'd pedal over after school, drink Fresca, and listen while Grandma Maxine, mostly known as Mac, would hold court.
从我可以骑自行车去她家开始，几乎每天放学后我都会骑着自行车过去，喝弗雷斯卡，听着玛克辛奶奶（通常被称为麦克）的主持。
While all the other kids were getting high and listening to Marshall Crenshaw, I was sitting in my grandmother's kitchen, eating Christmas colored, coconut covered ice cream snowballs, while she dropped ashes and pontificated about life in New York in the '20s and '30s, her work designing costumes for the WPA Theatre, her views about sex, communists, sex with communists.
当所有其他孩子都在听马歇尔·克伦肖的表演时，我正坐在祖母的厨房里，吃着圣诞色彩的椰子冰淇淋雪球，而她则抛下灰烬，大谈特谈20世纪20年代和30年代纽约的生活、她为WPA剧院设计服装的工作、她对性、共产主义者、与共产主义者发生性关系的看法。
I don't know if she was as progressive as she pretended to be around me, but it was my grandmother who told me, sleep with a bunch of men, so that when the right one comes along, you'll know what you're doing.
我不知道她在我身边是否像她假装的那样进步，但是我祖母告诉我的，和一群男人上床，这样当合适的人出现时，你就会知道自己在做什么。
That I didn't have a boyfriend was of little consequence, since for all intents and purposes, my grandmother was my boyfriend.
我没有男朋友并不重要，因为无论出于何种目的，我的祖母都是我的男朋友。
Sometimes at night, after my parents were asleep, my brother would bang on my door and snarl at me to quit hogging the phone.
有时晚上，父母睡着后，我哥哥会敲我的门，对我咆哮，让我别再霸占电话了。
Then, as he left, he'd say, oh, and say hi to Grandma for me.
然后，当他离开时，他会说，哦，并代我向奶奶问好。
Our bond was so strong, I was moved to write Joni Mitchell influenced ditties about it, which I would play and sing loudly on the piano in our tiny house.
我们的联系如此牢固，我很感动地写了受乔尼·米切尔影响的小调，我会在我们小房子里的钢琴上大声弹奏和唱歌。
Actually, I had written a whole anthology of songs about adolescent yearning, which I scratched into my musical notebook.
事实上，我写了一本关于青春期向往的歌曲选集，我把它写进了我的音乐笔记本。
Songs from this period included "Drifter," "Rainbow Blues," " Where Is My Rainbow?" and then of course, the aforementioned testament to grandma love, "For A Friend," which went a little something like this.
这一时期的歌曲包括“Drifter”、“Rainbow Blues”、“Where Is My Rainbow？”当然，还有前面提到的祖母爱的见证，“为朋友”，有点像这样。
[SINGING] Coffee and ginger snaps, you give to me a chance to be myself.
[唱歌] 咖啡和姜片，你给了我一个做我自己的机会。
Feathers and silver rings, old cuckoo clocks, and quiet talks together.
羽毛和银戒指，古老的布谷鸟钟，还有一起安静的谈话。
That I never actually performed my composition for her was of little matter, since it was pretty much common knowledge that I was her favorite, and in case you had any questions, she was mine.
我从未真正为她演奏过我的作品，这并不重要，因为众所周知，我是她的最爱，如果你有任何疑问，她是我的。
Around the time I was thirteen, I started to become aware of a rich history of favoritism in my family.
大约在我十三岁的时候，我开始意识到我的家族有悠久的偏袒历史。
My mom, the story went, had been my Grandfather Marvin's favorite.
据说，我的妈妈是我祖父马文的最爱。
He took her to museums, taught her to paint, exposed her to Ogden Nash, Arthur Miller, made her play the cello like he did.
他带她参观博物馆，教她画画，让她接触奥格登·纳什、阿瑟·米勒，让她像他一样拉大提琴。
And because my mother was taken under my grandfather's wing, my uncle came to belong to my grandmother, just like I did.
因为我的母亲受到祖父的庇护，所以我的叔叔就像我一样属于我的祖母。
Because my grandfather died when I was six, I never really knew him.
因为我的祖父在我六岁时就去世了，所以我从来没有真正了解过他。
He was a beloved teacher.
他是一位受人爱戴的老师。
There is no question he was charismatic and multi-talented.
毫无疑问，他很有魅力且多才多艺。
The thing is, I'm not exactly sure how nice he was to his wife.
问题是，我不太确定他对他妻子有多好。
Maybe it's not even true, but I remember my father saying how dismissive he could be of my grandmother, how much she blossomed after his death.
也许这不是真的，但我记得父亲说过，他对我的祖母是多么的不屑一顾，在他去世后，她是多么的绽放。
So as far as I could tell, the Oedipal brouhaha that made it difficult for my mother and grandmother to get along had also paved the way for me.
据我所知，让我母亲和祖母难以相处的恋母情结也为我铺平了道路。
I was getting to have the relationship with my grandmother that my mother never had.
我和祖母建立了我母亲从未有过的关系。
And to my mom's enormous credit, she never even told me about the trouble between them until I started to see some tension and made the mind-bending leap that relationships are complex, and things aren't always what they seem.
值得我妈妈称赞的是，她甚至从未告诉过我他们之间的麻烦，直到我开始看到一些紧张气氛，并做出了令人难以置信的飞跃，关系是复杂的，事情并不总是像看起来的那样。
Suddenly I started to wonder if me being Grandma's favorite wasn't just about me being her favorite.
突然我开始怀疑我成为奶奶的最爱是否不仅仅因为我是她的最爱。
Maybe I was a pawn in some kind of game.
也许我是某种游戏中的棋子。
Grandma Maxine didn't get Mom, so instead she went for me.
玛克辛奶奶没有去找妈妈，所以她去找了我。
Maybe I was just a chump.
也许我只是个笨蛋。
I needed to get the bottom of it right away.
我需要立即弄清楚事情的真相。
There wasn't any plan.
没有任何计划。
And even now, I have to strain to remember what I was thinking on that day, because I wasn't.
即使现在，我也必须努力记住那天我在想什么，因为我没有。
It was a spur of the moment decision.
这是一时冲动的决定。
I really can't explain what happened.
我实在无法解释发生了什么。
I know I went to her house after school, but instead of our usual meeting in the kitchen, I crossed into the living room.
我知道放学后我去了她家，但我没有像往常一样在厨房见面，而是走进了客厅。
We chit-chatted, like grownups.
我们像大人一样闲聊。
My grandmother's ash dropped.
奶奶的骨灰掉下来了。
She caught it in her hand.
她把它抓在手里。
Then I launched in.
然后我就启动了。
I was thinking, if my husband spent all of his time with our daughter and acted like he liked her more than me, that would be a pretty hard pill to swallow.
我在想，如果我的丈夫把所有的时间都花在我们的女儿身上，并且表现得好像他更喜欢她而不是我，那将是一个很难吞咽的药丸。
I would probably hold on tight to my son and treat him like he was my favorite.
我可能会紧紧抓住我的儿子，像对待我的最爱一样对待他。
I remember she sat down and got herself an ashtray.
我记得她坐下来给自己拿了一个烟灰缸。
For 45 minutes, we talked about her marriage.
我们花了 45 分钟谈论她的婚姻。
I offered up my special insights about how her distant relationship with her father probably contributed to her dependence on my Grandfather Marvin.
我提出了我对她与父亲的疏远关系如何可能导致她对我祖父马文的依赖的特殊见解。
Maybe that's why she stopped working after having such a promising career.
也许这就是她在拥有如此有前途的职业生涯后停止工作的原因。
I remember feeling exhilarated, like I was onto something, mapping out a new world.
我记得当时感觉很兴奋，就好像我正在探索一些东西，绘制出一个新世界。
Since I was now a member of the big kids psychology club, I could kick it up a notch.
因为我现在是大孩子心理学俱乐部的成员，所以我可以把它提升一个档次。
In fact, I had to.
事实上，我不得不这么做。
Are you very sad about your father's funeral?
你对你父亲的葬礼感到非常难过吗？
You do realize he's dead and he's never coming back, don't you?
你确实意识到他死了并且永远不会回来了，不是吗？
Don't you?
不是吗？
She wasn't resistant or defensive.
她没有抵抗或防御。
She answered here and there, blew smoke rings.
她到处应声，吐着烟圈。
In fact, she seemed utterly unfazed, so much so, that when we had finished our tete-a-tete, I went off to roller skate and didn't come back until a few hours later when I was either hungry or wanted a ride home.
事实上，她似乎完全不为所动，以至于当我们结束了我们的交谈后，我去滑旱冰，直到几个小时后我要么饿了，要么想搭车回家时才回来。
I rang the doorbell.
我按响了门铃。
No answer, so I went around back.
没有人回答，我就转身回去了。
Through the screen door, I could see Maxine was sitting in the dark living room in her bathrobe.
透过纱门，我看到玛克辛穿着浴袍坐在黑暗的客厅里。
I had the distinct impression that when she had heard me at the door, she hadn't moved a muscle.
我有一个明显的印象，当她在门口听到我的声音时，她一动不动。
How long she had been sitting there I couldn't tell, but she was sniffling and blowing her nose.
我不知道她在那儿坐了多久，但她一直在抽鼻子、擤鼻子。
I went inside.
我进去了。
She apologized for not answering the door.
她为没有开门而道歉。
What's going on, I said.
这是怎么回事，我说。
Aren't you feeling well?
你不舒服吗？
She responded simply, some of the things you said upset me.
她的回答很简单，你说的一些话让我很不高兴。
Oh, she'd been sniffling because she had been crying.
哦，她一直在抽鼻子，因为她一直在哭。
I didn't recognize it because I'd never seen her cry.
我没认出来，因为我从来没有见过她哭。
It was so out of character I didn't even know she could cry, let alone be so upset by something I said.
这太不符合我的性格了，我什至不知道她会哭，更不用说因为我说的话而感到如此不安了。
The terrifying thing is that somewhere I think I had even expected my grandmother to congratulate me for being so clever in cracking the codes.
可怕的是，我什至在某个地方以为我的祖母会祝贺我如此聪明地破解了密码。
But while I was tossing off all these adult words and ideas, I didn't really understand what they would mean to her.
但当我扔掉所有这些成人的话语和想法时，我并没有真正理解它们对她意味着什么。
I don't know, I was just kicking it on up.
我不知道，我只是踢它。
I just wanted to share.
我只是想分享。
In fact, what I'd done is more along the lines of getting a sawed off shotgun, shooting willy-nilly into her house, and then coming back 20 minutes later and asking if she had redecorated.
事实上，我所做的更像是拿起一把锯短的猎枪，随意地向她的房子开枪，然后 20 分钟后回来询问她是否重新装修过。
I don't know how I got home.
我不知道我是怎么回家的。
I think my dad came and got me and my bike.
我想我爸爸来了，接走了我和我的自行车。
At dinner, I sort of mentioned that Grandma had kind of maybe been distressed about something.
晚餐时，我提到奶奶可能因为某件事而感到苦恼。
My mother had clearly been debriefed, which meant that my grandmother had called my mother and told her what happened, which was, as far as I knew, unprecedented, since the only thing my grandmother spoke to my mother about was her weight and inability to handle money.
我母亲显然已经接受了汇报，这意味着我祖母给我母亲打电话并告诉她发生了什么事，据我所知，这是前所未有的，因为我祖母对我母亲唯一谈论的是她的体重和无法处理金钱。
I guess she was upset, I conjectured.
我猜想她一定很沮丧。
Well, my mother said, what did you expect?
好吧，我妈妈说，你期待什么？
After that, things were different.
之后，情况就不同了。
I'd still sit in her kitchen while she held court, but something was lost.
当她出庭时，我仍然坐在她的厨房里，但有些东西丢失了。
When she'd be quiet like she'd been in the living room, I'd start to worry I was screwing everything up again, and then I'd work very hard to try to keep her laughing.
当她像在客厅一样安静时，我会开始担心我又把一切搞砸了，然后我会非常努力地想让她笑。
It was like after that, she knew I could hurt her, and I knew I could hurt her.
就好像在那之后，她知道我可以伤害她，我也知道我可以伤害她。
There weren't going to be any words that could undo the words I had sent out into the universe.
没有任何言语可以撤销我向宇宙发出的话语。
She couldn't trust me anymore.
她不能再相信我了。
And we could never go back.
我们永远无法回去。
I thought about it a lot over the years, how in a matter of minutes, I irreversibly corrupted what had been the most precious relationship in my life, and how it happened without me even knowing I was doing it.
这些年来我想了很多，我是如何在短短几分钟内，不可挽回地破坏了我一生中最珍贵的关系，以及它是如何在我不知道的情况下发生的。
I dream about it, sitting across from my grandmother, light slipping through Venetian blinds on a yellow grey Southern California afternoon.
我梦见了这一幕，在南加州一个黄灰色的下午，我坐在祖母对面，光线穿过百叶窗。
Some of the things you said upset me.
你说的一些话让我很不高兴。
Some of the things you said upset me.
你说的一些话让我很不高兴。
Well, our program was produced today by Lisa Pollak and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Diane Cook, Jane Feltes, and Sarah Koenig.
好吧，我们今天的节目是由 Lisa Pollak 和我本人以及 Alex Blumberg、Diane Cook、Jane Feltes 和 Sarah Koenig 制作的。
Our senior producer is Julie Snyder.
我们的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Production help from Todd Bachmann, Laura Bella, Seth Lind, PJ Vogt, and Emily Youssef.
Todd Bachmann、Laura Bella、Seth Lind、PJ Vogt 和 Emily Youssef 为制作提供了帮助。
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] Our website, where you can sign up for our free weekly podcast, absolutely free.
[致谢] 我们的网站，您可以在其中注册我们的免费每周播客，完全免费。
And you just have a little time left to enter our new t-shirt design contest, www.thisamericanlife.org.
您只剩下一点时间参加我们新的 T 恤设计竞赛，www.thisamericanlife.org。
This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
[FUNDING CREDITS] WBEZ management oversight by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia, who always has this advice for me.
[资金来源] WBEZ 管理由我们的老板 Torey Malatia 先生监督，他总是给我这样的建议。
Sleep with a bunch of men, so that when the right one comes along, you'll know what you're doing.
和一群男人上床，这样当合适的人出现时，你就会知道自己在做什么。
I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.
我是艾拉·格拉斯，下周回来，带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。