給你一條生活建議：那就是請警惕生活建議！
生活到處都是喜歡給別人提供建議的人，包括我也是。那麼該如何看待別人告訴你的那些建議？這篇文章或許對你有啟發。
Nassim Taleb, the modern philosopher best known for his ideas on Randomness, The Black Swan, and Antifragility, gave his first commencement address at an American University in Beirut.
納西姆·塔勒布，當代最為知名的哲學家之一，以其關於隨機性的觀點而聞名於世，其代表作有《黑天鵝》、《反脆弱》。他在位於貝魯特的一所美國大學，發表了其首次畢業典禮演講。
Like him or not, Taleb is a unique and uncompromising mind. He doesn』t suffer any fools and doesn』t sacrifice his principles for money or fame, so far as one can tell anyways. He』s willing to take tremendous personal heat if he thinks he』s right. (Again, agree with him or not.) There』s a certain honor in his approach that must be admired.
無論你是否喜歡他，塔勒布都是一個獨特且不會妥協的人。他無法忍受任何愚蠢，也不會為了金錢和名譽而犧牲自己的原則。如果他認為自己是對的，他就能承受任何巨大的外界壓力。（再說一遍，無論你認同還是不認同）在他的行為方式中，具有一種值得為人稱道的榮譽。
The most interesting part of his commencement is on the idea of life advice itself. Commencement speeches are, obviously, meant to pass advice from a wise (and famous) person to a younger generation. But Nassim goes in a bit of a different direction: He advises the students to be careful of common life advice, for if he had followed it, he』d have never become the unique and interesting person he became.
這篇演講中最有趣的部分是關於生活建議本身的。畢業典禮演說的目的（很顯然）是為了讓一位有智慧的人或者名人給年輕的一代提供建議。但納西姆表達了與意圖相悖的論述：他建議學生要警惕一般性的生活建議，如果學生聽從了這些建議，那麼他將永遠不會具備一科獨特而有趣的靈魂。
I hesitate to give advice because every major single piece of advice I was given turned out to be wrong and I am glad I didn』t follow them. I was told to focus and I never did. I was told to never procrastinate and I waited 20 years for The Black Swan and it sold 3 million copies. I was told to avoid putting fictional characters in my books and I did put in Nero Tulip and Fat Tony because I got bored otherwise. I was told to not insult the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; the more I insulted them the nicer they were to me and the more they solicited Op-Eds. I was told to avoid lifting weights for a back pain and became a weightlifter: never had a back problem since.
我很猶豫要不要給出大家一些未來的建議，因為別人給我的每一條建議，最終都證明是錯誤的，而我很慶幸我並沒有聽從這些建議。他們建議我要保持專註，但我一直也沒有做到。他們建議我不要拖延，但我花了20年才寫完《黑天鵝》，並且賣出了300萬份。他們建議我不要在自己的書中添加虛構的人物，但我在書中創造了尼祿和胖子托尼這兩個角色，否則我會覺得很無聊。他們建議我不要批評《紐約時報》和《華爾街日報》；但是我越是批評他們，他們對待我就越nice，而且邀請我寫更多的專欄。他們建議我不要去舉重，因為那樣會引發背痛；但是自打我開始舉重之後，就再也沒有出現過背痛的情況。
If I had to relive my life I would be even more stubborn and uncompromising than I have been.
如果我能重新開始我的人生，我會比想在更加的固執和不妥協。
The truth is, much of the advice you receive as a young person will be pretty good. Saving money works. Marrying the right person works. Avoiding drugs works. Etc. The obvious stuff is worth following. (You don』t always have to walk on your hands because everyone else walks on their feet.)
事實是，作為年輕人，很多建議的確對大家很有用。比如攢錢、和對的人結婚、不要吸毒等等 。這些建議明顯是值得實踐的。（你不必總是用手走路，因為其他人都是用腳走路）
But there』s a host of more subjective wisdom that, generally speaking, leads you to become a lot more like other people. 「Common wisdom,」 insofar as it』s actually common, tends to reinforce cultural norms and values. If you want to lead a comfortable existence, that may work fine. But it won』t create another Nassim Taleb, or another Steve Jobs, or another Richard Feynman. They, and many others,embracedwhat made them different.
但很多建議其實都是很主觀的。大體來說，這些建議會把你變成和他們一樣平庸的人。「一般性的智慧」其實就是集體的、共同的，其目的是加強文化認同和價值觀（統治階級的教化工具，春秋時期孔子提倡的周禮，秦代的法規，漢代的儒術，是為規範思想利於統治而提出的）。如果你想平凡的走過一生，這些建議著實不錯。但這不會造就另一個納西姆·塔勒布或者史蒂夫·喬布斯或者理查德·費曼出來。他們以及其他歷史上的很多偉人，都積極擁抱與眾不同的事物和思想。
Of course, many less successful people embraced their oddities, too. The silent grave is chock full of candidates. This isn』t a 「recipe for success」 or some other nonsense — it』s more complicated than simply being different. (The narrative fallacy is always right around the corner.)
當然！很多不成功的人也積極擁抱著自己的「奇葩」！寂靜的墳墓總是擠滿等待著的人。這並非成功的秘訣或其他無意義的事情——這比單純的追求與眾不同更複雜。（敘事謬誤總是盡在咫尺）
But one has to suspect that a more interesting and honorable life is led by those who are a bit uncompromising on the important values like integrity, self-education, and moral courage. If you can offset that by beingextremelycompromising on the unimportant stuff, you may have a shot at living an interesting and different life with a heaping scoop of integrity.
但我們不得不懷疑：那些在諸如正直誠信、自我教育和道德勇氣上毫不妥協的人能否真正過上有趣且高尚的生活。如果你能在不重要的事情上做出極端的妥協，那麼或許你才能夠有趣而且正直的活。
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