TED演讲:创意隐藏在哪里(4)
And this, then, led to my big questions. And they’re the same ones that I have today.
这让我想到一个大问题。一些我今日仍然在想的问题。
And they are: why do things happen, and how do things happen?
为什么事情会发生，它们是怎么发生的？
And the one my mother asked: how do I make things happen?
和我母亲问的那句：我怎么让这些事情发生的？
It’s a wonderful way to look at these questions, when you write a story.
在撰写故事的时候，这都是一些很重要的问题。
Because, after all, in that framework, between page one and 300,
因为你必须三百页的篇幅中回答这些问题：
you have to answer this question of why things happen, how things happen, in what order they happen.
为什么事情会这样发生，它是怎么发生的。
What are the influences? How do I, as the narrator, as the writer, also influence that?
事情发生的顺序和影响？我，身为一个述说者，对这个故事又有什么影响？
And it’s also one that, I think, many of our scientists have been asking.
我想这也是所有科学家所问的问题。
It’s a kind of cosmology, and I have to develop a cosmology of my own universe, as the creator of that universe.
我在我的世界中发展出自己的宇宙观，像一个宇宙的创造者。
And you see, there’s a lot of back and forth in trying to make that happen,
这中间有许多的反复尝试着创造，
trying to figure it out — years and years, oftentimes.
尝试着理出头绪，年复一年，往往。
So, when I look at creativity, I also think that it is this sense or this inability to repress,
当我想到创作力的时候，我也认为这来自一种对日常生活中每件事无法压抑的看法。
my looking at associations in practically anything in life.
我在许多事件发生时做出观察。
And I got a lot of them during what’s been going on throughout this conference, almost everything that’s been going on.
在这个大会中，几乎是所有发生的事情。
And so I’m going to use, as the metaphor, this association: quantum mechanics, which I really don’t understand,
让我在这里用量子力学做比喻：虽然我并不理解量子力学，
but I’m still gonna use it as the process for explaining how it is the metaphor.
但我将以它做为一种过程，来解释为何它是个比喻。
So, in quantum mechanics, of course, you have dark energy and dark matter.
在量子力学中，有着暗能量和暗物质。
And it’s the same thing in looking at these questions of how things happen.
就像我们尝试解释事情为何会发生的时候。
There’s a lot of unknown, and you often don’t know what it is except by its absence.
有许多未知，你不知道那是什么，只知道它不在。
But when you make those associations, you want them to come together in a kind of synergy in the story,
但当你尝试找出关联性时，当你希望能在故事中把事件连接起来时，
and what you’re finding is what matters. The meaning.
你突然发现了事物的核心。它的意义。
And that’s what I look for in my work, a personal meaning.
这就是我在我的作品中所想要找寻的，对我而言的意义。
小说家谭恩美寻找她发展创意的过程，探讨创意从何而来。