TED演讲:创意隐藏在哪里(5)
There is also the uncertainty principle, which is part of quantum mechanics, as I understand it.
在量子力学中还有测不准原理，至少我想有。
And this happens constantly in the writing.
同样的事也时常发生在写作中。
And there’s the terrible and dreaded observer effect, in which you’re looking for something,
还有一种可怕的观者效应，当你在找寻一些事情的时候，
and you know, things are happening simultaneously, and you’re looking at it in a different way,
那些同时发生的事情，你尝试用不同角度去看它，
and you’re trying to really look for the about-ness, or what is this story about.
你尝试找出它和其他事物的关联性，或是这个故事和什么有关。
And if you try too hard, then you will only write the about. You won’t discover anything.
如果你过分强求，最后你写下的只是“关联”。却什么也没发现。
And what you were supposed to find, what you hoped to find in some serendipitous way, is no longer there.
而你应该找到的，你真正希望能找到的，在无意中，却已经不在了。
Now, I don’t want to ignore the other side of what happens in our universe, like many of our scientists have.
我并不想忽略在宇宙另一边发生的事，像一些科学家所做的一样。
And so, I am going to just throw in string theory here,
所以在这里我也要顺便谈谈弦理论，
and just say that creative people are multidimensional, and there are 11 levels, I think, of anxiety.
证明创意人不仅是多维的，还有着十一种层次的焦虑。
And they all operate at the same time.
而且它们全部一起发生。
There is also a big question of ambiguity.
再来还有模棱两可的问题。
And I would link that to something called the cosmological constant.
像是你们说的宇宙常数。
And you don’t know what is operating, but something is operating there.
你不明白什么在运作，但有些事情在运作。
And ambiguity, to me, is very uncomfortable in my life, and I have it. Moral ambiguity. It is constantly there.
模棱两可是一种非常不舒服的感觉，对我的人生来说但它仍然存在。道德的不确定性总是存在着。
And, just as an example, this is one that recently came to me.
举例来说，最近刚发生了一件事。
It was something I read in an editorial by a woman who was talking about the war in Iraq.
在我从事编辑工作时，我读到一个女人在描写伊拉克战争时，
And she said, “Save a man from drowning, you are responsible to him for life.”
她说，“救一个溺水者，你便得为他的一生负责。”
A very famous Chinese saying, she said.
一句很有名的中国谚语。
And that means because we went into Iraq, we should stay there until things were solved.
意味着既然我们进入了伊拉克，我们便应该长驻直到事情解决。
You know, maybe even 100 years. So, there was another one that I came across, and it’s “saving fish from drowning.”
你知道，就算要上百年。还有另一个例子就是“救溺水的游鱼”。
And it’s what Buddhist fishermen say, because they’re not supposed to kill anything.
来自一个信仰佛教的渔夫，佛教相信人不该杀生。
And they also have to make a living, and people need to be fed.
但渔夫却仍得谋生，养家。
So their way of rationalizing that is they are saving the fish from drowning, and unfortunately, in the process the fish die.
为了将杀生合理化，他们声称自己是在救溺水的鱼，但鱼不幸地在过程中死了。
小说家谭恩美寻找她发展创意的过程，探讨创意从何而来。