如何取得卓越成就（中英雙語版）——Paul Graham

If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it.

如果你從許多不同領域收集做出優秀工作的技巧列表，那麼這些列表的交集是什麼樣的？我決定親自嘗試找出答案。

Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise shows is that it does have a definite shape; it's not just a point labelled "work hard."

部分原因是我想要建立一份對任何領域的工作者都有用的指南。但我也對交集的形狀感到好奇。這次嘗試表明，它確實有明確的形狀；它不僅僅是一個標有“努力工作”的點。

The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious.

以下步驟適用於有雄心壯志的你。

The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work.

首先，你要決定從事什麼工作。你選擇的工作需要具備三個特性：你必須對其有天生的才能，你需要對其有深深的興趣，同時它也要有做出偉大工作的潛力。

In practice you don't have to worry much about the third criterion. Ambitious people are if anything already too conservative about it. So all you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in. [1]

在實踐中，你並不需要過分擔憂第三個標準。雄心壯志的人恰恰在這方面過於保守。所以，你需要做的只是找到你既有才能，又極度感興趣的事情。[1]

That sounds straightforward, but it's often quite difficult. When you're young you don't know what you're good at or what different kinds of work are like. Some kinds of work you end up doing may not even exist yet. So while some people know what they want to do at 14, most have to figure it out.

這聽起來簡單，但往往非常困難。當你年輕的時候，你不知道自己擅長什麼，也不知道不同型別的工作是什麼樣的。你最終可能做的某些工作現在可能還不存在。所以，雖然有些人在14歲的時候就知道他們想做什麼，但大多數人還需要去摸索。

The way to figure out what to work on is by working. If you're not sure what to work on, guess. But pick something and get going. You'll probably guess wrong some of the time, but that's fine. It's good to know about multiple things; some of the biggest discoveries come from noticing connections between different fields.

透過工作來找出自己該做什麼。如果你不確定要做什麼，就猜。但一定要選擇某樣東西，然後開始行動。你可能有時會猜錯，但那沒關係。瞭解多種事物是有好處的；許多最大的發現來自於發現不同領域之間的聯絡。

Develop a habit of working on your own projects. Don't let "work" mean something other people tell you to do. If you do manage to do great work one day, it will probably be on a project of your own. It may be within some bigger project, but you'll be driving your part of it.

養成自己做專案的習慣。不要讓“工作”僅僅成為別人告訴你該做什麼。如果你真的能做出偉大的工作，它可能會在你自己的專案中出現。這個專案可能是某個更大專案的一部分，但你將駕馭自己的那部分。

What should your projects be? Whatever seems to you excitingly ambitious. As you grow older and your taste in projects evolves, exciting and important will converge. At 7 it may seem excitingly ambitious to build huge things out of Lego, then at 14 to teach yourself calculus, till at 21 you're starting to explore unanswered questions in physics. But always preserve excitingness.

你的專案應該是什麼？那就是任何對你來說令人興奮的、有野心的事物。隨著你的成長和你對專案的品味的演變，令人興奮的事物和重要的事物會趨於一致。7歲的時候，你可能會覺得用樂高構建大型物品非常有野心，14歲的時候，你可能會自學微積分，直到21歲，你開始探索物理學中未解的問題。但無論如何，都要保持激情。

There's a kind of excited curiosity that's both the engine and the rudder of great work. It will not only drive you, but if you let it have its way, will also show you what to work on.

有一種激動的好奇心，既是偉大工作的動力，也是它的舵手。它不僅會驅使你，如果你讓它自由發揮，也會告訴你應該做什麼。

What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people? That's what you're looking for.

你對什麼有過度的好奇心——到讓大多數人感到厭煩的程度？這就是你要尋找的東西。

Once you've found something you're excessively interested in, the next step is to learn enough about it to get you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. Knowledge expands fractally, and from a distance its edges look smooth, but once you learn enough to get close to one, they turn out to be full of gaps.

一旦你找到了你非常感興趣的事物，下一步就是了解足夠多的知識，讓你能夠到達知識的前沿。知識像分形一樣擴張，在遠處看，它的邊緣看起來平滑，但一旦你學到足夠多的知識接近它，你會發現它們充滿了缺口。

The next step is to notice them. This takes some skill, because your brain wants to ignore such gaps in order to make a simpler model of the world. Many discoveries have come from asking questions about things that everyone else took for granted. [2]

下一步就是要注意這些缺口。這需要一些技巧，因為你的大腦希望忽略這些缺口，以便構建一個更簡單的世界模型。許多發現來自於對大家都視為理所當然的事情提出疑問。[2]

If the answers seem strange, so much the better. Great work often has a tincture of strangeness. You see this from painting to math. It would be affected to try to manufacture it, but if it appears, embrace it.

如果答案看起來奇特，那就更好了。偉大的作品常常帶有一種奇異的色彩。從繪畫到數學，你都能看到這一點。試圖人為製造這種奇異性是矯揉造作的，但如果它自然出現，就擁抱它。

Boldly chase outlier ideas, even if other people aren't interested in them — in fact, especially if they aren't. If you're excited about some possibility that everyone else ignores, and you have enough expertise to say precisely what they're all overlooking, that's as good a bet as you'll find. [3]

大膽地追求那些離群的想法，即使其他人對它們不感興趣——事實上，特別是他們不感興趣的時候。如果你對大家都忽視的某種可能性充滿了興趣，而且你有足夠的專業知識來精確地指出他們都忽視了什麼，那就是你能找到的最好的賭注。[3]

Four steps: choose a field, learn enough to get to the frontier, notice gaps, explore promising ones. This is how practically everyone who's done great work has done it, from painters to physicists.

四個步驟：選擇一個領域，學習足夠多的知識以達到前沿，注意到缺口，探索有前景的。這就是幾乎所有做出偉大工作的人都是如何做到的，無論是畫家還是物理學家。

Steps two and four will require hard work. It may not be possible to prove that you have to work hard to do great things, but the empirical evidence is on the scale of the evidence for mortality. That's why it's essential to work on something you're deeply interested in. Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could.

第二步和第四步需要努力工作。雖然可能無法證明你必須努力才能做出偉大的事情，但經驗證據幾乎可以和死亡的必然性相提並論。這就是為什麼你必須從事自己深感興趣的事情。興趣會驅使你比單純的勤奮工作更努力。

The three most powerful motives are curiosity, delight, and the desire to do something impressive. Sometimes they converge, and that combination is the most powerful of all.

最強大的三個動機是好奇心、快樂和渴望做出令人印象深刻的事情。有時，它們會匯聚在一起，這種結合是最強大的。

The big prize is to discover a new fractal bud. You notice a crack in the surface of knowledge, pry it open, and there's a whole world inside.

最大的獎勵就是發現一個新的分形花蕾。你注意到知識表面的一個裂縫，撬開它，裡面有一個全新的世界。

Let's talk a little more about the complicated business of figuring out what to work on. The main reason it's hard is that you can't tell what most kinds of work are like except by doing them. Which means the four steps overlap: you may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are at it. And in the meantime you're not doing, and thus not learning about, most other kinds of work. So in the worst case you choose late based on very incomplete information. [4]

我們來再深入討論一下如何確定工作目標這個複雜的問題。主要的困難在於，你無法透過別的方式瞭解大部分工作的真實性質，只能透過實際做才能知道。這意味著四個步驟是重疊的：你可能需要在某件事上花費數年才能知道你是否喜歡它或者你在這上面是否有天賦。而與此同時，你沒有在做，也就沒有在學習大多數其他型別的工作。所以，在最壞的情況下，你會在資訊非常不完整的情況下晚些時候做出選擇。[4]

The nature of ambition exacerbates this problem. Ambition comes in two forms, one that precedes interest in the subject and one that grows out of it. Most people who do great work have a mix, and the more you have of the former, the harder it will be to decide what to do.

雄心的性質使得這個問題更加複雜。雄心有兩種形式，一種是在對某個主題產生興趣之前就有的，另一種則是從對主題的興趣中產生的。做出偉大工作的大多數人都有這兩種形式的混合，你對前一種的擁有越多，決定做什麼就越難。

The educational systems in most countries pretend it's easy. They expect you to commit to a field long before you could know what it's really like. And as a result an ambitious person on an optimal trajectory will often read to the system as an instance of breakage.

大多數國家的教育系統假裝這很簡單。他們期望你在長期以前就承諾一個領域，而那時你根本無法知道它的真實面貌。因此，一個在最優路徑上的有野心的人在系統中往往會被視為一種破損的例子。

It would be better if they at least admitted it — if they admitted that the system not only can't do much to help you figure out what to work on, but is designed on the assumption that you'll somehow magically guess as a teenager. They don't tell you, but I will: when it comes to figuring out what to work on, you're on your own. Some people get lucky and do guess correctly, but the rest will find themselves scrambling diagonally across tracks laid down on the assumption that everyone does.

如果他們至少承認這一點會更好——如果他們承認系統不僅無法幫助你弄清楚要做什麼，而且還是在假設你會在十幾歲的時候神奇地猜出來的前提下設計的。他們沒有告訴你，但我會：當涉及到弄清楚要做什麼時，你只能靠自己。有些人運氣好，猜對了，但其他人會發現他們在一條預設的軌道上橫衝直撞。

What should you do if you're young and ambitious but don't know what to work on? What you should not do is drift along passively, assuming the problem will solve itself. You need to take action. But there is no systematic procedure you can follow. When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved. They discover what to work on as a result of a chance meeting, or by reading a book they happen to pick up. So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions. [5]

如果你年輕且有雄心壯志，但不知道要做什麼，你該怎麼辦呢？你絕對不能被動地漂流，假設問題會自己解決。你需要採取行動。但沒有系統化的步驟可以遵循。當你閱讀做出偉大工作的人的傳記時，你會發現運氣的角色是如此的重要。他們因為偶然的相遇，或者因為讀到一本他們偶然拿起的書，而發現自己的工作目標。所以你需要把自己變成運氣的大靶子，而做到這一點的方法就是保持好奇。嘗試很多事情，認識很多人，讀很多書，問很多問題。[5]

When in doubt, optimize for interestingness. Fields change as you learn more about them. What mathematicians do, for example, is very different from what you do in high school math classes. So you need to give different types of work a chance to show you what they're like. But a field should become increasingly interesting as you learn more about it. If it doesn't, it's probably not for you.

當你感到疑惑時，優先選擇那些有趣的事情。當你對某個領域的瞭解增多時，你對這個領域的看法會發生變化。例如，數學家做的事情與你在高中數學課上做的事情大相徑庭。所以你需要給不同型別的工作一個展示自己性質的機會。但是，隨著你對某個領域瞭解得越多，它應該變得越來越有趣。如果沒有，那可能就不適合你。

Don't worry if you find you're interested in different things than other people. The stranger your tastes in interestingness, the better. Strange tastes are often strong ones, and a strong taste for work means you'll be productive. And you're more likely to find new things if you're looking where few have looked before.

如果你發現你對與其他人不同的事物感興趣，也不要擔心。你的興趣越奇特，就越好。奇特的興趣往往是強烈的興趣，對工作的強烈興趣意味著你會有高效的產出。而且，如果你在少有人關注的地方尋找，你更可能找到新的東西。

One sign that you're suited for some kind of work is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious or frightening.

你適合某種工作的一個標誌是，你甚至喜歡那些其他人覺得乏味或令人恐懼的部分。

But fields aren't people; you don't owe them any loyalty. If in the course of working on one thing you discover another that's more exciting, don't be afraid to switch.

但領域不是人；你不欠它們任何忠誠。如果在做一件事的過程中，你發現了另一件更讓你興奮的事，不要害怕切換。

If you're making something for people, make sure it's something they actually want. The best way to do this is to make something you yourself want. Write the story you want to read; build the tool you want to use. Since your friends probably have similar interests, this will also get you your initial audience.

如果你是為人們創造東西，確保那是他們真正想要的東西。做到這一點的最好方法是創造你自己想要的東西。寫你想讀的故事；構建你想用的工具。因為你的朋友們可能有類似的興趣，這也將幫助你獲得你的初始受眾。

This should follow from the excitingness rule. Obviously the most exciting story to write will be the one you want to read. The reason I mention this case explicitly is that so many people get it wrong. Instead of making what they want, they try to make what some imaginary, more sophisticated audience wants. And once you go down that route, you're lost. [6]

這應該是從尋找刺激性規則中自然得出的。顯然，最讓人興奮的故事將是你想讀的故事。我明確提到這個例子的原因是，很多人都搞錯了。他們試圖創造一些他們想象中的、更加複雜的受眾想要的東西，而不是他們自己想要的。一旦你走上這條路，你就迷失了。[6]

There are a lot of forces that will lead you astray when you're trying to figure out what to work on. Pretentiousness, fashion, fear, money, politics, other people's wishes, eminent frauds. But if you stick to what you find genuinely interesting, you'll be proof against all of them. If you're interested, you're not astray.

在你試圖弄清楚要做什麼時，有很多因素會讓你偏離軌道。矯揉造作、時尚、恐懼、金錢、政治、他人的期望、名聲大噪的騙子。但是，如果你堅持做你真正感興趣的事情，你就能抵抗所有這些。如果你有興趣，你就不會迷失。

Following your interests may sound like a rather passive strategy, but in practice it usually means following them past all sorts of obstacles. You usually have to risk rejection and failure. So it does take a good deal of boldness.

追隨你的興趣可能聽起來像是一種相當被動的策略，但實際上，它通常意味著你要跨越各種障礙去追求你的興趣。你通常需要冒著被拒絕和失敗的風險。所以，這確實需要相當大的勇氣。

But while you need boldness, you don't usually need much planning. In most cases the recipe for doing great work is simply: work hard on excitingly ambitious projects, and something good will come of it. Instead of making a plan and then executing it, you just try to preserve certain invariants.

但是，雖然你需要勇氣，但你通常不需要太多的計劃。在大多數情況下，做出偉大工作的秘訣就是：在令人興奮的雄心壯志的專案上努力工作，然後會有好的結果。你只需要保持一些不變的事物，而不是制定一個計劃然後去執行它。

The trouble with planning is that it only works for achievements you can describe in advance. You can win a gold medal or get rich by deciding to as a child and then tenaciously pursuing that goal, but you can't discover natural selection that way.

計劃的問題在於，它只適用於你事先可以描述的成就。你可以決定從小就去贏得金牌或變得富有，然後堅持不懈地追求這個目標，但你不能用這種方式去發現自然選擇。

I think for most people who want to do great work, the right strategy is not to plan too much. At each stage do whatever seems most interesting and gives you the best options for the future. I call this approach "staying upwind." This is how most people who've done great work seem to have done it.

我認為，對於大多數想要做出偉大工作的人來說，正確的策略是不要計劃得太多。在每個階段，做最有趣的事情，併為未來提供最好的選擇。我稱這種方法為"逆風前行"。這就是大多數做出偉大工作的人似乎是如何做到的。

Even when you've found something exciting to work on, working on it is not always straightforward. There will be times when some new idea makes you leap out of bed in the morning and get straight to work. But there will also be plenty of times when things aren't like that.

即使你找到了令人興奮的工作，但要進行這項工作並不總是那麼直接。有時候，新的想法會讓你早上從床上跳起來，直接開始工作。但也有很多時候，情況並非如此。

You don't just put out your sail and get blown forward by inspiration. There are headwinds and currents and hidden shoals. So there's a technique to working, just as there is to sailing.

你不能只是張開帆，被靈感帶動前進。你會遇到逆風、海流、隱藏的暗礁。因此，工作就像航海一樣，有其技巧。

For example, while you must work hard, it's possible to work too hard, and if you do that you'll find you get diminishing returns: fatigue will make you stupid, and eventually even damage your health. The point at which work yields diminishing returns depends on the type. Some of the hardest types you might only be able to do for four or five hours a day.

例如，儘管你必須努力工作，但過度工作也是可能的。如果你這樣做，你會發現收效越來越小：疲勞會讓你變得愚蠢，最終甚至可能損害你的健康。工作帶來的收益遞減的點取決於工作型別。對於一些最困難的型別，你可能每天只能做四五個小時。

Ideally those hours will be contiguous. To the extent you can, try to arrange your life so you have big blocks of time to work in. You'll shy away from hard tasks if you know you might be interrupted.

理想情況下，這些小時應該是連續的。儘量安排你的生活，讓你有大塊的時間去工作。如果你知道你可能被打斷，你會避開困難的任務。

It will probably be harder to start working than to keep working. You'll often have to trick yourself to get over that initial threshold. Don't worry about this; it's the nature of work, not a flaw in your character. Work has a sort of activation energy, both per day and per project. And since this threshold is fake in the sense that it's higher than the energy required to keep going, it's ok to tell yourself a lie of corresponding magnitude to get over it.

開始工作往往比保持工作更困難。你常常需要用一些小伎倆來克服那個初始的門檻。別為此擔憂；這是工作的性質，而非你性格中的缺陷。工作有一種啟用能量，每天都有，每個專案也都有。既然這個門檻是虛假的，因為它高於維持工作所需的能量，那麼用相應大小的謊言來使自己克服它也是可以的。

It's usually a mistake to lie to yourself if you want to do great work, but this is one of the rare cases where it isn't. When I'm reluctant to start work in the morning, I often trick myself by saying "I'll just read over what I've got so far." Five minutes later I've found something that seems mistaken or incomplete, and I'm off.

如果你想做出偉大的工作，通常對自己說謊是一個錯誤，但這是罕見的例外之一。當我早上不願開始工作時，我常常透過告訴自己"我只是看一下我到目前為止做了什麼"來騙自己。五分鐘後，我發現了一些看似錯誤或不完整的東西，然後我就開始行動了。

Similar techniques work for starting new projects. It's ok to lie to yourself about how much work a project will entail, for example. Lots of great things began with someone saying "How hard could it be?"

類似的技巧適用於開始新專案。你可以對自己說謊，低估一個專案需要多少工作，例如。很多偉大的事情都是從某人說"這有多難呢?"開始的。

This is one case where the young have an advantage. They're more optimistic, and even though one of the sources of their optimism is ignorance, in this case ignorance can sometimes beat knowledge.

這是年輕人有優勢的一種情況。他們更樂觀，儘管他們樂觀的一種來源是無知，但在這種情況下，無知有時可以勝過知識。

Try to finish what you start, though, even if it turns out to be more work than you expected. Finishing things is not just an exercise in tidiness or self-discipline. In many projects a lot of the best work happens in what was meant to be the final stage.

儘管如此，你應該儘量完成你開始的事情，即使它比你預期的工作要多。完成事情不僅僅是一個整潔或自律的練習。在許多專案中，最好的工作往往發生在原本應該是最後階段的地方。

Another permissible lie is to exaggerate the importance of what you're working on, at least in your own mind. If that helps you discover something new, it may turn out not to have been a lie after all. [7]

另一個可以允許的謊言是，在你的心中誇大你正在做的事情的重要性。如果這能幫助你發現新事物，那麼最後它可能並不是一個謊言。[7]

Since there are two senses of starting work — per day and per project — there are also two forms of procrastination. Per-project procrastination is far the more dangerous. You put off starting that ambitious project from year to year because the time isn't quite right. When you're procrastinating in units of years, you can get a lot not done. [8]

既然開始工作有兩種意義——每天的和每個專案的——那麼拖延也有兩種形式。專案間的拖延遠比日常的更危險。你年復一年地推遲開始那個雄心勃勃的專案，因為時間還不夠成熟。當你以年為單位拖延時，你可以什麼都不做。

One reason per-project procrastination is so dangerous is that it usually camouflages itself as work. You're not just sitting around doing nothing; you're working industriously on something else. So per-project procrastination doesn't set off the alarms that per-day procrastination does. You're too busy to notice it.

專案間拖延如此危險的一個原因是，它通常把自己偽裝成工作。你不是坐著什麼都不做，而是在別的事情上努力工作。所以專案間的拖延並不會像每天的拖延那樣引發警報。你太忙了，沒有注意到它。

The way to beat it is to stop occasionally and ask yourself: Am I working on what I most want to work on?" When you're young it's ok if the answer is sometimes no, but this gets increasingly dangerous as you get older. [9]

打敗它的方法是偶爾停下來問自己：“我正在做我最想做的事情嗎？”當你年輕的時候，答案有時候是“不”，這還可以接受，但隨著你年紀越來越大，這越來越危險。

Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem. You can't think of this time as a cost, or it will seem too high. You have to find the work sufficiently engaging as it's happening.

優秀的工作通常需要在問題上投入對大多數人來說看似不合理的大量時間。你不能將這段時間視為成本，否則會覺得代價太高。你必須找到在工作過程中足夠吸引你的東西。

There may be some jobs where you have to work diligently for years at things you hate before you get to the good part, but this is not how great work happens. Great work happens by focusing consistently on something you're genuinely interested in. When you pause to take stock, you're surprised how far you've come.

也許有些工作需要你在你討厭的事情上勤奮工作數年，然後才能得到好的結果，但這不是優秀工作的產生方式。優秀的工作源於你對真正感興趣的事情的持續專注。當你暫停下來審視，你會驚訝地發現你已經走了很遠。

The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.

我們之所以感到驚訝，是因為我們低估了工作的累積效應。每天寫一頁書似乎不算什麼，但如果你每天都這麼做，你一年就可以寫一本書。這就是關鍵：持之以恆。做偉大事情的人並不是每天都有很多成果。他們每天都有所作為，而不是無所作為。

If you do work that compounds, you'll get exponential growth. Most people who do this do it unconsciously, but it's worth stopping to think about. Learning, for example, is an instance of this phenomenon: the more you learn about something, the easier it is to learn more. Growing an audience is another: the more fans you have, the more new fans they'll bring you.

如果你做的工作能夠累積，你就會得到指數級的增長。大多數做到這一點的人都是無意識的，但這值得我們停下來思考。例如，學習就是這個現象的一個例子：你對某事瞭解得越多，學習更多的東西就越容易。吸引觀眾也是如此：你擁有的粉絲越多，他們帶來的新粉絲就越多。

The trouble with exponential growth is that the curve feels flat in the beginning. It isn't; it's still a wonderful exponential curve. But we can't grasp that intuitively, so we underrate exponential growth in its early stages.

指數增長的問題在於，曲線在開始時感覺很平。實際上並非如此，它仍然是一個美妙的指數曲線。但我們無法直觀地把握這一點，所以我們在指數增長的早期階段低估了它。

Something that grows exponentially can become so valuable that it's worth making an extraordinary effort to get it started. But since we underrate exponential growth early on, this too is mostly done unconsciously: people push through the initial, unrewarding phase of learning something new because they know from experience that learning new things always takes an initial push, or they grow their audience one fan at a time because they have nothing better to do. If people consciously realized they could invest in exponential growth, many more would do it.

指數增長的事物可能變得非常有價值，因此值得我們付出巨大的努力去啟動它。但由於我們在早期階段低估了指數增長，所以大多數人也是無意識地去做這些事：人們在學習新事物的初期，會堅持不懈，因為他們從經驗中知道，學習新事物總是需要一次初次的努力，或者他們一個一個地增加粉絲，因為他們沒有更好的事情去做。如果人們有意識地認識到他們可以投資於指數增長，那麼會有更多的人去做這件事。

Work doesn't just happen when you're trying to. There's a kind of undirected thinking you do when walking or taking a shower or lying in bed that can be very powerful. By letting your mind wander a little, you'll often solve problems you were unable to solve by frontal attack.

工作並非只在你刻意去做的時候才會發生。當你走路、洗澡或躺在床上時，你會進行一種無目的的思考，這種思考可能會非常有力。透過讓你的思緒稍微飄散一下，你常常能解決那些你正面攻擊無法解決的問題。

You have to be working hard in the normal way to benefit from this phenomenon, though. You can't just walk around daydreaming. The daydreaming has to be interleaved with deliberate work that feeds it questions. [10]

然而，要想從這種現象中受益，你必須以正常的方式努力工作。你不能只是四處漫步白日做夢。這種白日做夢必須與餵給它問題的有意識的工作交錯進行。[10]

Everyone knows to avoid distractions at work, but it's also important to avoid them in the other half of the cycle. When you let your mind wander, it wanders to whatever you care about most at that moment. So avoid the kind of distraction that pushes your work out of the top spot, or you'll waste this valuable type of thinking on the distraction instead. (Exception: Don't avoid love.)

大家都知道要在工作中避免干擾，但在思考週期的另一半中避免干擾也同樣重要。當你讓你的思緒漫遊時，它會漫遊到你在那一刻最關心的事情上。所以，要避免那種能把你的工作擠出重點的干擾，否則你就會把這種有價值的思考浪費在干擾上。（例外：別避開愛情。）

Consciously cultivate your taste in the work done in your field. Until you know which is the best and what makes it so, you don't know what you're aiming for.

你應該有意識地培養你對你所在領域的工作的品味。在你知道哪一種是最好的，以及是什麼讓它成為最好之前，你不知道你在追求什麼。

And that is what you're aiming for, because if you don't try to be the best, you won't even be good. This observation has been made by so many people in so many different fields that it might be worth thinking about why it's true. It could be because ambition is a phenomenon where almost all the error is in one direction — where almost all the shells that miss the target miss by falling short. Or it could be because ambition to be the best is a qualitatively different thing from ambition to be good. Or maybe being good is simply too vague a standard. Probably all three are true. [11]

而這就是你要追求的，因為如果你不試圖做到最好，你甚至無法做到好。這個觀察已經被很多人在很多不同的領域提出過，也許我們應該思考一下為什麼這是真的。可能是因為野心是一個現象，其中幾乎所有的錯誤都在一個方向上——幾乎所有沒有擊中目標的炮彈都是因為偏短。或者可能是因為想要做到最好的野心與想要做好的野心在質上是兩種不同的事情。或者可能是因為做得好只是一個過於模糊的標準。可能這三者都是正確的。[11]

Fortunately there's a kind of economy of scale here. Though it might seem like you'd be taking on a heavy burden by trying to be the best, in practice you often end up net ahead. It's exciting, and also strangely liberating. It simplifies things. In some ways it's easier to try to be the best than to try merely to be good.

幸運的是，這裡存在一種規模經濟。雖然試圖做到最好可能看起來像是承擔了沉重的負擔，但實際上你通常會最終得益。這是令人興奮的，也是一種奇妙的解放。它簡化了事情。在某些方面，試圖做到最好比只是試圖做好更容易。

One way to aim high is to try to make something that people will care about in a hundred years. Not because their opinions matter more than your contemporaries', but because something that still seems good in a hundred years is more likely to be genuinely good.

有一種設定高目標的方法是試圖做出一些人們在一百年後仍會關心的東西。不是因為他們的觀點比你的同齡人更重要，而是因為一百年後仍然看起來不錯的東西更有可能真的很好。

Don't try to work in a distinctive style. Just try to do the best job you can; you won't be able to help doing it in a distinctive way.

不要試圖以獨特的風格工作。只需要盡你所能做到最好；你將無法避免以獨特的方式做事。

Style is doing things in a distinctive way without trying to. Trying to is affectation.

風格是在不刻意嘗試的情況下以獨特的方式做事。刻意嘗試就是矯飾。

Affectation is in effect to pretend that someone other than you is doing the work. You adopt an impressive but fake persona, and while you're pleased with the impressiveness, the fakeness is what shows in the work. [12]

矯飾實際上就是假裝做這項工作的人不是你。你採用了一個令人印象深刻但假冒的人格，而你對這種印象深刻的感覺感到滿意，但是假冒的部分是在工作中顯現出來的。[12]

The temptation to be someone else is greatest for the young. They often feel like nobodies. But you never need to worry about that problem, because it's self-solving if you work on sufficiently ambitious projects. If you succeed at an ambitious project, you're not a nobody; you're the person who did it. So just do the work and your identity will take care of itself.

年輕人最容易有成為別人的誘惑。他們常常覺得自己是無名小卒。但你永遠不需要擔心這個問題，因為如果你致力於足夠雄心勃勃的專案，這個問題會自我解決。如果你在一個雄心勃勃的專案中取得了成功，你就不再是無名小卒；你就是完成了這件事的人。所以，只需去做這項工作，你的身份就會自然而然地顯現出來。

"Avoid affectation" is a useful rule so far as it goes, but how would you express this idea positively? How would you say what to be, instead of what not to be? The best answer is earnest. If you're earnest you avoid not just affectation but a whole set of similar vices.

“避免矯飾”是一個有用的規則，但它只能指出你不應該成為什麼，那麼如何以積極的方式表達這個想法呢？如何告訴你應該成為什麼？最好的答案是：真誠。如果你是真誠的，你不僅會避免矯飾，還會避免一系列類似的缺點。

The core of being earnest is being intellectually honest. We're taught as children to be honest as an unselfish virtue — as a kind of sacrifice. But in fact it's a source of power too. To see new ideas, you need an exceptionally sharp eye for the truth. You're trying to see more truth than others have seen so far. And how can you have a sharp eye for the truth if you're intellectually dishonest?

真誠的核心是思想上的誠實。我們在孩提時代就被教導要誠實，這被視為一種無私的美德——一種犧牲。但實際上，誠實也是一種力量的源泉。要看到新的想法，你需要對真理有極其敏銳的觀察力。你正在嘗試看到別人至今尚未看到的更多真理。如果你在思想上不誠實，怎麼可能對真理有敏銳的觀察力呢？

One way to avoid intellectual dishonesty is to maintain a slight positive pressure in the opposite direction. Be aggressively willing to admit that you're mistaken. Once you've admitted you were mistaken about something, you're free. Till then you have to carry it. [13]

避免思想上的不誠實的一種方法是保持微弱的正向壓力。要大膽地承認你的錯誤。一旦你承認了你的錯誤，你就得到了自由。否則你必須承擔它。

Another more subtle component of earnestness is informality. Informality is much more important than its grammatically negative name implies. It's not merely the absence of something. It means focusing on what matters instead of what doesn't.

真誠的另一個更微妙的組成部分是非正式。非正式比其語法上的負面含義要重要得多。它並不僅僅是缺乏某種東西。它意味著專注於重要的事物，而非無關緊要的事物。

What formality and affectation have in common is that as well as doing the work, you're trying to seem a certain way as you're doing it. But any energy that goes into how you seem comes out of being good. That's one reason nerds have an advantage in doing great work: they expend little effort on seeming anything. In fact that's basically the definition of a nerd.

正式與矯飾有共同之處：你不僅要做工作，而且還要在做工作的同時表現出一定的樣子。但是，投入到你的表現中的任何能量都會減少你的優秀。這就是書呆子在做偉大工作時有優勢的一個原因：他們幾乎不用努力去表現任何東西。實際上，這就是書呆子的基本定義。

Nerds have a kind of innocent boldness that's exactly what you need in doing great work. It's not learned; it's preserved from childhood. So hold onto it. Be the one who puts things out there rather than the one who sits back and offers sophisticated-sounding criticisms of them. "It's easy to criticize" is true in the most literal sense, and the route to great work is never easy.

書呆子有一種天真的大膽，這正是你在做偉大工作時所需要的。這不是後天學來的；它是從童年時代保留下來的。所以要抓住它。成為那個將事物推向前進的人，而不是坐在後面，對它們提出看似深思熟慮的批評的人。“批評很容易”在最直接的意義上是真的，而走向偉大工作的道路從來都不容易。

There may be some jobs where it's an advantage to be cynical and pessimistic, but if you want to do great work it's an advantage to be optimistic, even though that means you'll risk looking like a fool sometimes. There's an old tradition of doing the opposite. The Old Testament says it's better to keep quiet lest you look like a fool. But that's advice for seeming smart. If you actually want to discover new things, it's better to take the risk of telling people your ideas.

可能有一些工作，做事態度冷漠、悲觀會有優勢，但是如果你想做偉大的工作，樂觀的態度會是一個優勢，即使這意味著有時你會顯得像個傻瓜。有一種古老的傳統恰恰相反。舊約聖經說，保持沉默比讓自己看起來像個傻瓜要好。但那只是看起來聰明的建議。如果你真的想發現新事物，最好冒險告訴人們你的想法。

Some people are naturally earnest, and with others it takes a conscious effort. Either kind of earnestness will suffice. But I doubt it would be possible to do great work without being earnest. It's so hard to do even if you are. You don't have enough margin for error to accommodate the distortions introduced by being affected, intellectually dishonest, orthodox, fashionable, or cool. [14]

有些人天生就是真誠的，而其他人則需要刻意努力。這兩種型別的真誠都足夠了。但我懷疑如果不真誠的話，可能無法做出偉大的工作。即使你真誠，做出偉大的工作也是如此艱難。你沒有足夠的容錯率來容忍因為矯飾、思想上的不誠實、傳統、時尚或酷帶來的扭曲。[14]

Great work is consistent not only with who did it, but with itself. It's usually all of a piece. So if you face a decision in the middle of working on something, ask which choice is more consistent.

偉大的作品不僅與其作者相一致，而且與自身一致。通常，它們是一體的。因此，如果你在工作過程中面臨決策，那就詢問哪個選擇更具有一致性。

You may have to throw things away and redo them. You won't necessarily have to, but you have to be willing to. And that can take some effort; when there's something you need to redo, status quo bias and laziness will combine to keep you in denial about it. To beat this ask: If I'd already made the change, would I want to revert to what I have now?

你可能需要丟掉一些東西，然後重新做。你不一定非得這樣做，但你必須願意這樣做。這可能需要一些努力；當有些東西需要你重做時，現狀偏見和懶惰將聯手使你對此處於否認狀態。要克服這一點，問自己：如果我已經做出了改變，我是否會想恢復到現在的狀態？

Have the confidence to cut. Don't keep something that doesn't fit just because you're proud of it, or because it cost you a lot of effort.

要有信心去刪減。不要因為你為此感到自豪，或者因為它花費了你大量的努力，就保留不合適的東西。

Indeed, in some kinds of work it's good to strip whatever you're doing to its essence. The result will be more concentrated; you'll understand it better; and you won't be able to lie to yourself about whether there's anything real there.

實際上，在某些型別的工作中，最好將你正在做的事情剝離到其本質。結果會更加集中；你會更好地理解它；並且你無法欺騙自己關於是否真的有實質內容。

Mathematical elegance may sound like a mere metaphor, drawn from the arts. That's what I thought when I first heard the term "elegant" applied to a proof. But now I suspect it's conceptually prior — that the main ingredient in artistic elegance is mathematical elegance. At any rate it's a useful standard well beyond math.

數學之美可能聽起來像是一個純粹的比喻，源自藝術。當我第一次聽到"優雅"這個詞被用來形容一個證明時，我就是這麼想的。但現在我懷疑這是概念上的優先——在藝術的優雅中，主要的成分是數學的優雅。無論如何，這是一個超越數學的有用的標準。

Elegance can be a long-term bet, though. Laborious solutions will often have more prestige in the short term. They cost a lot of effort and they're hard to understand, both of which impress people, at least temporarily.

但優雅可能是一個長期的賭注。繁瑣的解決方案往往在短期內具有更高的聲望。它們花費大量的努力，而且難以理解，這兩點都會讓人印象深刻，至少是暫時的。

Whereas some of the very best work will seem like it took comparatively little effort, because it was in a sense already there. It didn't have to be built, just seen. It's a very good sign when it's hard to say whether you're creating something or discovering it.

相反，一些最好的工作看起來好像花費了相對較少的努力，因為在某種意義上，它們已經存在了。它們不需要被構建，只需要被看見。當你很難判斷自己是在創造某樣東西還是在發現它時，這是一個非常好的跡象。

When you're doing work that could be seen as either creation or discovery, err on the side of discovery. Try thinking of yourself as a mere conduit through which the ideas take their natural shape.

當你在做可以被視為創造或發現的工作時，更偏向於發現。試著把自己想象成一個管道，讓想法自然地形成。

(Strangely enough, one exception is the problem of choosing a problem to work on. This is usually seen as search, but in the best case it's more like creating something. In the best case you create the field in the process of exploring it.)

（奇怪的是，選擇要解決的問題的過程是一個例外。這通常被視為搜尋，但在最好的情況下，它更像是創造。在最好的情況下，你在探索過程中創造了這個領域。）

Similarly, if you're trying to build a powerful tool, make it gratuitously unrestrictive. A powerful tool almost by definition will be used in ways you didn't expect, so err on the side of eliminating restrictions, even if you don't know what the benefit will be.

同樣，如果你正在試圖構建一個強大的工具，使其無所不能。幾乎可以定義，一個強大的工具將會以你沒預期到的方式被使用，所以更傾向於消除限制，即使你不知道這會帶來什麼好處。

Great work will often be tool-like in the sense of being something others build on. So it's a good sign if you're creating ideas that others could use, or exposing questions that others could answer. The best ideas have implications in many different areas.

偉大的工作往往在某種意義上像工具，即其他人可以在其基礎上構建。因此，如果你正在創造其他人可以使用的想法，或是提出其他人可以回答的問題，那就是一個好的跡象。最好的想法在許多不同的領域都有影響。

If you express your ideas in the most general form, they'll be truer than you intended.

如果你以最通用的形式表達你的想法，它們會比你預期的更真實。

True by itself is not enough, of course. Great ideas have to be true and new. And it takes a certain amount of ability to see new ideas even once you've learned enough to get to one of the frontiers of knowledge.

當然，僅僅真實是不夠的。偉大的想法必須是真實的，也必須是新的。即使你已經學到足夠的知識，站在知識的前沿，看到新的想法也需要一定的能力。

In English we give this ability names like originality, creativity, and imagination. And it seems reasonable to give it a separate name, because it does seem to some extent a separate skill. It's possible to have a great deal of ability in other respects — to have a great deal of what's often called "technical ability" — and yet not have much of this.

在英文中，我們給這種能力取了如原創性、創造力和想象力等名字。給它一個獨立的名字似乎是合理的，因為在某種程度上，它確實是一個獨立的技能。一個人可能在其他方面有很大的能力——具有很大的"技術能力"——然而在這個方面並沒有多少。

I've never liked the term "creative process." It seems misleading. Originality isn't a process, but a habit of mind. Original thinkers throw off new ideas about whatever they focus on, like an angle grinder throwing off sparks. They can't help it.

我一直不喜歡"創造過程"這個詞，它似乎有些誤導。原創性不是一個過程，而是一種思維習慣。原創的思考者會對他們關注的任何事物產生新的想法，就像角磨機丟擲火花一樣。他們無法控制。

If the thing they're focused on is something they don't understand very well, these new ideas might not be good. One of the most original thinkers I know decided to focus on dating after he got divorced. He knew roughly as much about dating as the average 15 year old, and the results were spectacularly colorful. But to see originality separated from expertise like that made its nature all the more clear.

如果他們關注的事物是他們不太瞭解的，那麼這些新的想法可能並不好。我認識的最具原創性的思考者之一在離婚後決定專注於約會。他對約會的瞭解大致與普通15歲的青少年一樣，結果可謂是五彩斑斕。但是看到原創性與專業知識如此明顯的分離，使其本質更為明顯。

I don't know if it's possible to cultivate originality, but there are definitely ways to make the most of however much you have. For example, you're much more likely to have original ideas when you're working on something. Original ideas don't come from trying to have original ideas. They come from trying to build or understand something slightly too difficult. [15]

我不知道是否可以培養原創性，但肯定有方法可以最大限度地利用你所具有的原創性。例如，當你在做某件事時，你更有可能產生原創的想法。原創的想法不是來自於試圖產生原創的想法。它們來自於試圖建造或理解一些稍微困難的事物。

Talking or writing about the things you're interested in is a good way to generate new ideas. When you try to put ideas into words, a missing idea creates a sort of vacuum that draws it out of you. Indeed, there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing.

談論或寫作你感興趣的事物是產生新想法的好方法。當你試圖將想法轉化為語言時，缺失的想法會建立一種吸引你的真空。實際上，有一種思考只能透過寫作來完成。

Changing your context can help. If you visit a new place, you'll often find you have new ideas there. The journey itself often dislodges them. But you may not have to go far to get this benefit. Sometimes it's enough just to go for a walk. [16]

改變你的環境可以有所幫助。如果你訪問一個新的地方，你通常會發現你在那裡有新的想法。旅程本身往往會激發出這些想法。但你可能不需要走得太遠就可以獲得這種好處。有時，只是散步就足夠了。

It also helps to travel in topic space. You'll have more new ideas if you explore lots of different topics, partly because it gives the angle grinder more surface area to work on, and partly because analogies are an especially fruitful source of new ideas.

在話題空間中旅行也有幫助。如果你探索了許多不同的話題，你會有更多的新想法，部分原因是它為角磨機提供了更多的工作面積，部分原因是類比是產生新想法的一個特別豐富的源泉。

Don't divide your attention evenly between many topics though, or you'll spread yourself too thin. You want to distribute it according to something more like a power law. [17] Be professionally curious about a few topics and idly curious about many more.

不過，不要在許多話題之間均勻分配你的注意力，否則你會把自己分散得太薄。你應該根據類似於冪律的原則來分配注意力。 [17] 對少數幾個話題保持專業的好奇心，對更多的話題保持隨意的好奇心。

Curiosity and originality are closely related. Curiosity feeds originality by giving it new things to work on. But the relationship is closer than that. Curiosity is itself a kind of originality; it's roughly to questions what originality is to answers. And since questions at their best are a big component of answers, curiosity at its best is a creative force.

好奇心和原創性密切相關。好奇心透過提供新的事物來餵養原創性。但是這種關係比這更緊密。好奇心本身就是一種原創性；它大致上是對問題的提問，正如原創性是對答案的回答。而且，由於在最好的情況下，問題是答案的一個大組成部分，所以在最好的情況下，好奇心是一種創造力。

Having new ideas is a strange game, because it usually consists of seeing things that were right under your nose. Once you've seen a new idea, it tends to seem obvious. Why did no one think of this before?

擁有新想法是一種奇怪的遊戲，因為它通常包含了看到那些就在你鼻子下面的事物。一旦你看到一個新的想法，它往往會顯得很明顯。為什麼以前沒有人想到這個呢？

When an idea seems simultaneously novel and obvious, it's probably a good one.

當一個想法同時顯得新奇而又明顯，那麼它可能是一個好的想法。

Seeing something obvious sounds easy. And yet empirically having new ideas is hard. What's the source of this apparent contradiction? It's that seeing the new idea usually requires you to change the way you look at the world. We see the world through models that both help and constrain us. When you fix a broken model, new ideas become obvious. But noticing and fixing a broken model is hard. That's how new ideas can be both obvious and yet hard to discover: they're easy to see after you do something hard.

看到明顯的事物聽起來很容易。然而從經驗上來看，有新的想法是困難的。這種明顯的矛盾源於什麼呢？那就是看到新的想法通常需要你改變看世界的方式。我們透過模型來看世界，這些模型既幫助我們，也限制我們。當你修正一個錯誤的模型時，新的想法變得明顯。但是注意並修正一個錯誤的模型是困難的。這就是新想法既明顯又難以發現的原因：在你做了一些困難的事情後，它們很容易被看到。

One way to discover broken models is to be stricter than other people. Broken models of the world leave a trail of clues where they bash against reality. Most people don't want to see these clues. It would be an understatement to say that they're attached to their current model; it's what they think in; so they'll tend to ignore the trail of clues left by its breakage, however conspicuous it may seem in retrospect.

發現錯誤模型的一種方式是比其他人更嚴格。對世界的錯誤模型在與現實衝突的地方會留下一串線索。大多數人不想看到這些線索。說他們依戀他們現有的模型是輕描淡寫；那是他們的思考方式；所以他們傾向於忽略其破損留下的線索，無論它在回顧中看起來多麼明顯。

To find new ideas you have to seize on signs of breakage instead of looking away. That's what Einstein did. He was able to see the wild implications of Maxwell's equations not so much because he was looking for new ideas as because he was stricter.

要找到新的想法，你必須抓住破損的跡象，而不是把視線轉向其他地方。這就是愛因斯坦所做的。他之所以能夠看到麥克斯韋方程的狂野含義，並不是因為他在尋找新的想法，而是因為他更嚴格。

The other thing you need is a willingness to break rules. Paradoxical as it sounds, if you want to fix your model of the world, it helps to be the sort of person who's comfortable breaking rules. From the point of view of the old model, which everyone including you initially shares, the new model usually breaks at least implicit rules.

你需要的另一件事是願意打破規則。這聽起來矛盾，但如果你想修正你對世界的模型，那麼成為一個樂於打破規則的人會有所幫助。從舊模型的角度來看，新模型通常至少會打破一些暗含的規則。

Few understand the degree of rule-breaking required, because new ideas seem much more conservative once they succeed. They seem perfectly reasonable once you're using the new model of the world they brought with them. But they didn't at the time; it took the greater part of a century for the heliocentric model to be generally accepted, even among astronomers, because it felt so wrong.

一旦新想法成功，它們看起來就會更保守，所以很少有人瞭解到真正需要打破規則的程度。一旦你開始使用它們帶來的新的世界模型，這些新想法看起來完全合理。但在那時候，它們並不是這樣的；即使在天文學家中，地心說也花了大部分的世紀才被普遍接受，因為它感覺錯了。

Indeed, if you think about it, a good new idea has to seem bad to most people, or someone would have already explored it. So what you're looking for is ideas that seem crazy, but the right kind of crazy. How do you recognize these? You can't with certainty. Often ideas that seem bad are bad. But ideas that are the right kind of crazy tend to be exciting; they're rich in implications; whereas ideas that are merely bad tend to be depressing.

實際上，如果你仔細想想，一個好的新想法必須對大多數人來說看起來是壞的，否則有人已經探索過了。所以你在尋找的是那些看起來瘋狂，但又是正確型別的瘋狂的想法。你怎麼才能識別這些呢？你不能肯定。通常看起來不好的想法就是不好的。但那些正確型別的瘋狂的想法往往會讓人興奮；它們富含暗示；而僅僅是壞的想法往往會讓人沮喪。

There are two ways to be comfortable breaking rules: to enjoy breaking them, and to be indifferent to them. I call these two cases being aggressively and passively independent-minded.

舒適地打破規則有兩種方式：享受打破它們，和對它們無所謂。我把這兩種情況稱為積極獨立思考和被動獨立思考。

The aggressively independent-minded are the naughty ones. Rules don't merely fail to stop them; breaking rules gives them additional energy. For this sort of person, delight at the sheer audacity of a project sometimes supplies enough activation energy to get it started.

積極獨立思考的人是淘氣的。規則不僅不能阻止他們；打破規則給他們額外的能量。對於這種人來說，對一個專案的純粹大膽的驚喜有時候足以提供足夠的啟用能量來啟動它。

The other way to break rules is not to care about them, or perhaps even to know they exist. This is why novices and outsiders often make new discoveries; their ignorance of a field's assumptions acts as a source of temporary passive independent-mindedness. Aspies also seem to have a kind of immunity to conventional beliefs. Several I know say that this helps them to have new ideas.

對規則的另一種打破方式是不關心它們，甚至可能不知道它們存在。這就是為什麼新手和局外人經常能做出新的發現；他們對一個領域的假設的無知暫時充當了一種被動的獨立思維的源泉。亞斯伯格綜合症患者似乎也對傳統信念有一種免疫力。我認識的幾個人說，這幫助他們有新的想法。

Strictness plus rule-breaking sounds like a strange combination. In popular culture they're opposed. But popular culture has a broken model in this respect. It implicitly assumes that issues are trivial ones, and in trivial matters strictness and rule-breaking are opposed. But in questions that really matter, only rule-breakers can be truly strict.

嚴格加上打破規則聽起來像是一個奇怪的組合。在流行文化中，它們是對立的。但是在這方面，流行文化有一個破碎的模型。它隱含地假設問題是微不足道的，而在微不足道的事情上，嚴格和打破規則是對立的。但在真正重要的問題上，只有打破規則的人才能真正嚴格。

An overlooked idea often doesn't lose till the semifinals. You do see it, subconsciously, but then another part of your subconscious shoots it down because it would be too weird, too risky, too much work, too controversial. This suggests an exciting possibility: if you could turn off such filters, you could see more new ideas.

一個被忽視的想法通常不會在半決賽中輸掉。你確實在潛意識中看到它，但然後你潛意識中的另一部分將其拒之門外，因為它可能太怪異、太冒險、需要太多的工作，或者太具有爭議性。這暗示了一個令人興奮的可能性：如果你能關閉這樣的過濾器，你就能看到更多的新想法。

One way to do that is to ask what would be good ideas for someone else to explore. Then your subconscious won't shoot them down to protect you.

做到這一點的一種方法是問一問什麼樣的想法對其他人來說是好的。然後你的潛意識就不會拒絕它們來保護你。

You could also discover overlooked ideas by working in the other direction: by starting from what's obscuring them. Every cherished but mistaken principle is surrounded by a dead zone of valuable ideas that are unexplored because they contradict it.

你還可以透過從相反的方向出發來發現被忽視的想法：從掩蓋它們的事物開始。每一個被珍視但錯誤的原則都被一片未被探索的有價值的想法所包圍，因為它們與之相矛盾。

Religions are collections of cherished but mistaken principles. So anything that can be described either literally or metaphorically as a religion will have valuable unexplored ideas in its shadow. Copernicus and Darwin both made discoveries of this type. [18]

宗教就是一些被珍視但錯誤的原則的集合。所以，任何可以字面上或比喻地被描述為宗教的事物都會在它的陰影下有未被探索的有價值的想法。哥白尼和達爾文都做出了這種型別的發現。

What are people in your field religious about, in the sense of being too attached to some principle that might not be as self-evident as they think? What becomes possible if you discard it?

在你所在領域的人們對什麼東西過於依賴，以至於他們可能對某些可能並不像他們認為的那樣不言自明的原則過於依賴？如果你放棄它，會有什麼可能性出現呢？

People show much more originality in solving problems than in deciding which problems to solve. Even the smartest can be surprisingly conservative when deciding what to work on. People who'd never dream of being fashionable in any other way get sucked into working on fashionable problems.

人們在解決問題時表現出的原創性遠大於在決定解決哪些問題時。即使是最聰明的人在決定從事什麼工作時也會出奇地保守。那些在其他任何方式上都不會夢想成為時尚的人會被吸引去解決時髦的問題。

One reason people are more conservative when choosing problems than solutions is that problems are bigger bets. A problem could occupy you for years, while exploring a solution might only take days. But even so I think most people are too conservative. They're not merely responding to risk, but to fashion as well. Unfashionable problems are undervalued.

人們在選擇問題時比解決問題時更保守的一個原因是，問題是更大的賭注。一個問題可能會佔據你好幾年的時間，而探索一個解決方案可能只需要幾天。但即便如此，我認為大多數人還是過於保守。他們不僅僅是在回應風險，也在回應時尚。不時尚的問題被低估了。

One of the most interesting kinds of unfashionable problem is the problem that people think has been fully explored, but hasn't. Great work often takes something that already exists and shows its latent potential. Durer and Watt both did this. So if you're interested in a field that others think is tapped out, don't let their skepticism deter you. People are often wrong about this.

最有趣的不時尚問題之一是人們認為已經被充分探索，但實際上並未如此的問題。偉大的工作經常是取出已經存在的東西，展示其潛在的潛力。杜勒和瓦特都做過這樣的事。所以，如果你對別人認為已經被探索透了的領域感興趣，不要讓他們的懷疑阻止你。人們對這個問題經常是錯誤的。

Working on an unfashionable problem can be very pleasing. There's no hype or hurry. Opportunists and critics are both occupied elsewhere. The existing work often has an old-school solidity. And there's a satisfying sense of economy in cultivating ideas that would otherwise be wasted.

從事不時尚的問題可以帶來極大的滿足感。沒有炒作，沒有急促。機會主義者和批評者都在其他地方忙碌。現有的工作往往有一種老派的堅實感。並且，在培養那些否則會被浪費的想法中，有一種滿足的經濟感。

But the most common type of overlooked problem is not explicitly unfashionable in the sense of being out of fashion. It just doesn't seem to matter as much as it actually does. How do you find these? By being self-indulgent — by letting your curiosity have its way, and tuning out, at least temporarily, the little voice in your head that says you should only be working on "important" problems.

但是，最常見的被忽視的問題並不是明確地不時尚，就像它們已經過時了那樣。它只是似乎沒有實際上那麼重要。你如何發現這些呢？就是透過自我放縱——讓你的好奇心自由馳騁，至少暫時地遮蔽掉你頭腦中那個說你應該只工作在“重要”問題上的小聲音。

You do need to work on important problems, but almost everyone is too conservative about what counts as one. And if there's an important but overlooked problem in your neighborhood, it's probably already on your subconscious radar screen. So try asking yourself: if you were going to take a break from "serious" work to work on something just because it would be really interesting, what would you do? The answer is probably more important than it seems.

你確實需要處理重要的問題，但幾乎每個人在判斷什麼算作重要問題時都過於保守。而且，如果在你身邊有一個重要但被忽視的問題，它可能已經在你的潛意識的雷達螢幕上了。所以試著問問自己：如果你要從“嚴肅”的工作中休息一下，只是因為某件事真的很有趣，你會做什麼？答案可能比它看起來的更重要。

Originality in choosing problems seems to matter even more than originality in solving them. That's what distinguishes the people who discover whole new fields. So what might seem to be merely the initial step — deciding what to work on — is in a sense the key to the whole game.

在選擇問題時的獨創性似乎比在解決問題時的獨創性更重要。這就是區別那些發現全新領域的人的東西。所以，看起來只是最初的一步——決定要做什麼——在某種意義上是整個遊戲的關鍵。

Few grasp this. One of the biggest misconceptions about new ideas is about the ratio of question to answer in their composition. People think big ideas are answers, but often the real insight was in the question.

很少有人能理解這一點。關於新觀念的最大誤解之一是關於問題與答案在其組成中的比例。人們認為大的想法是答案，但往往真正的洞察力在於問題。

Part of the reason we underrate questions is the way they're used in schools. In schools they tend to exist only briefly before being answered, like unstable particles. But a really good question can be much more than that. A really good question is a partial discovery. How do new species arise? Is the force that makes objects fall to earth the same as the one that keeps planets in their orbits? By even asking such questions you were already in excitingly novel territory.

我們低估問題的部分原因是因為它們在學校中的使用方式。在學校裡，他們往往只存在一段很短的時間，然後就被回答了，就像不穩定的粒子一樣。但是一個真正好的問題可以更多的東西。一個真正好的問題是部分發現。新的物種是如何產生的？使物體下落到地球的力量是否和使行星保持在它們軌道上的力量相同？即使提出這樣的問題，你已經處於令人興奮的新領域。

Unanswered questions can be uncomfortable things to carry around with you. But the more you're carrying, the greater the chance of noticing a solution — or perhaps even more excitingly, noticing that two unanswered questions are the same.

未回答的問題可以是令人不安的事情。但是你揹負的問題越多，注意到解決方案的機會就越大——或者更令人興奮的是，注意到兩個未回答的問題是相同的。

Sometimes you carry a question for a long time. Great work often comes from returning to a question you first noticed years before — in your childhood, even — and couldn't stop thinking about. People talk a lot about the importance of keeping your youthful dreams alive, but it's just as important to keep your youthful questions alive. [19]

有時候你會攜帶一個問題很長時間。偉大的作品往往來自於迴歸到你在幾年前——甚至在你的童年時期——首次注意到的問題，並且不能停止思考。人們經常談論保持你年輕的夢想活著的重要性，但保持你年輕的問題活著同樣重要。[19]

This is one of the places where actual expertise differs most from the popular picture of it. In the popular picture, experts are certain. But actually the more puzzled you are, the better, so long as (a) the things you're puzzled about matter, and (b) no one else understands them either.

這是實際專業知識與其流行形象最大的不同之處。在流行的形象中，專家是確定的。但實際上，你越是困惑，越好，只要（a）你困惑的事情重要，並且（b）其他人也不理解它們。

Think about what's happening at the moment just before a new idea is discovered. Often someone with sufficient expertise is puzzled about something. Which means that originality consists partly of puzzlement — of confusion! You have to be comfortable enough with the world being full of puzzles that you're willing to see them, but not so comfortable that you don't want to solve them. [20]

想一想在新想法被發現的那一刻之前發生的事情。通常，具有足夠專業知識的人對某事感到困惑。這意味著原創性部分在於困惑——混淆！你必須對這個世界充滿謎團感到舒服，你願意去看到它們，但又不那麼舒服到你不想解決它們。

It's a great thing to be rich in unanswered questions. And this is one of those situations where the rich get richer, because the best way to acquire new questions is to try answering existing ones. Questions don't just lead to answers, but also to more questions.

擁有大量未回答的問題是一件偉大的事情。這是富人越富有的情況之一，因為獲取新問題的最好方式是試圖回答現有的問題。問題不僅導致答案，而且還導致更多的問題。

The best questions grow in the answering. You notice a thread protruding from the current paradigm and try pulling on it, and it just gets longer and longer. So don't require a question to be obviously big before you try answering it. You can rarely predict that. It's hard enough even to notice the thread, let alone to predict how much will unravel if you pull on it.

最好的問題在回答中成長。你注意到一個從當前正規化中突出的線索，嘗試拉動它，結果它變得越來越長。所以，在你嘗試回答一個問題之前，不需要它顯然很大。這很難預測。注意到這個線索就已經很難了，更不用說預測如果你拉它，會有多少東西被揭示出來。

It's better to be promiscuously curious — to pull a little bit on a lot of threads, and see what happens. Big things start small. The initial versions of big things were often just experiments, or side projects, or talks, which then grew into something bigger. So start lots of small things.

更好的做法是濫於好奇——對許多線索都稍微拉一拉，看看會發生什麼。大事物起始於小。大事物的初版通常只是實驗，或者副專案，或者談話，然後它們發展成為更大的東西。所以，開始很多小事情。

Being prolific is underrated. The more different things you try, the greater the chance of discovering something new. Understand, though, that trying lots of things will mean trying lots of things that don't work. You can't have a lot of good ideas without also having a lot of bad ones. [21]

多產是被低估的。你嘗試的東西越多，發現新事物的機會就越大。不過，要明白，嘗試很多事情意味著嘗試很多不起作用的事情。你不能只有很多好主意，而沒有很多壞主意。

Though it sounds more responsible to begin by studying everything that's been done before, you'll learn faster and have more fun by trying stuff. And you'll understand previous work better when you do look at it. So err on the side of starting. Which is easier when starting means starting small; those two ideas fit together like two puzzle pieces.

儘管從先研究所有已經完成的事情開始聽起來更負責任，但透過嘗試東西，你會學得更快，也會更有樂趣。當你看它的時候，你會更好地理解之前的工作。所以，寧可犯錯誤也要開始。當開始意味著從小事做起時，這更容易；這兩個想法就像兩個拼圖碎片一樣緊密相連。

How do you get from starting small to doing something great? By making successive versions. Great things are almost always made in successive versions. You start with something small and evolve it, and the final version is both cleverer and more ambitious than anything you could have planned.

如何從小開始走向偉大？透過製作連續的版本。偉大的事物幾乎總是透過連續的版本製作出來的。你從小事開始，然後發展它，最終的版本比你能計劃的任何東西都要聰明和有野心。

It's particularly useful to make successive versions when you're making something for people — to get an initial version in front of them quickly, and then evolve it based on their response.

在為人們製作東西時，製作連續版本尤其有用——快速將初始版本展示給他們，然後根據他們的反應進行調整。

Begin by trying the simplest thing that could possibly work. Surprisingly often, it does. If it doesn't, this will at least get you started.

從嘗試可能能夠成功的最簡單的事情開始。令人驚訝的是，它經常會奏效。如果沒有，這至少能讓你開始。

Don't try to cram too much new stuff into any one version. There are names for doing this with the first version (taking too long to ship) and the second (the second system effect), but these are both merely instances of a more general principle.

不要試圖在任何一個版本中塞入太多新的東西。對於第一個版本（花太長時間來發布）和第二個版本（第二系統效應）這樣做有專門的名稱，但這兩者都只是更一般原則的例項。

An early version of a new project will sometimes be dismissed as a toy. It's a good sign when people do this. That means it has everything a new idea needs except scale, and that tends to follow. [22]

新專案的早期版本有時會被貶為玩具。當人們這樣做時，這是個好兆頭。這意味著它具有新想法需要的一切，除了規模，而規模往往會隨之而來。[22]

The alternative to starting with something small and evolving it is to plan in advance what you're going to do. And planning does usually seem the more responsible choice. It sounds more organized to say "we're going to do x and then y and then z" than "we're going to try x and see what happens." And it is more organized; it just doesn't work as well.

與從小事開始並演變它的選擇不同的是，你提前計劃你要做什麼。規劃通常看起來是更負責任的選擇。說“我們打算做x，然後做y，然後做z”聽起來比“我們打算嘗試x，看看會發生什麼”更有條理。而且確實更有條理；只是它的效果不如預期。

Planning per se isn't good. It's sometimes necessary, but it's a necessary evil — a response to unforgiving conditions. It's something you have to do because you're working with inflexible media, or because you need to coordinate the efforts of a lot of people. If you keep projects small and use flexible media, you don't have to plan as much, and your designs can evolve instead.

規劃本身並不好。有時它是必要的，但它是一種必要的邪惡——對無情環境的回應。這是你必須做的事情，因為你正在使用不靈活的媒介，或者因為你需要協調很多人的努力。如果你保持專案的小型化並使用靈活的媒介，你就不必做太多規劃，你的設計可以隨之演變。

Take as much risk as you can afford. In an efficient market, risk is proportionate to reward, so don't look for certainty, but for a bet with high expected value. If you're not failing occasionally, you're probably being too conservative.

盡你所能承受的風險。在一個有效的市場中，風險與收益成正比，所以不要尋求確定性，而是尋求期望值高的賭注。如果你偶爾不失敗，你可能過於保守了。

Though conservatism is usually associated with the old, it's the young who tend to make this mistake. Inexperience makes them fear risk, but it's when you're young that you can afford the most.

雖然保守主義通常與老年人相關聯，但年輕人更傾向於犯這種錯誤。經驗不足使他們害怕風險，但正是當你年輕的時候，你能承受的風險最大。

Even a project that fails can be valuable. In the process of working on it, you'll have crossed territory few others have seen, and encountered questions few others have asked. And there's probably no better source of questions than the ones you encounter in trying to do something slightly too hard.

即使是失敗的專案也可能有價值。在進行專案的過程中，你將跨越少數人曾經見過的領域，遇到少數人曾經問過的問題。而在試圖做一些稍微困難的事情時遇到的問題，可能是提問的最好來源。

Use the advantages of youth when you have them, and the advantages of age once you have those. The advantages of youth are energy, time, optimism, and freedom. The advantages of age are knowledge, efficiency, money, and power. With effort you can acquire some of the latter when young and keep some of the former when old.

在你年輕時，利用年輕的優勢，當你年老時，利用年老的優勢。年輕的優勢是精力、時間、樂觀和自由。年老的優勢是知識、效率、金錢和權力。努力的話，你可以在年輕時獲得一些後者，在年老時保持一些前者。

The old also have the advantage of knowing which advantages they have. The young often have them without realizing it. The biggest is probably time. The young have no idea how rich they are in time. The best way to turn this time to advantage is to use it in slightly frivolous ways: to learn about something you don't need to know about, just out of curiosity, or to try building something just because it would be cool, or to become freakishly good at something.

老年人還有一個優勢，那就是知道他們有哪些優勢。年輕人往往有優勢但並不自知。其中最大的可能就是時間。年輕人根本不知道他們在時間上有多富有。將這種時間轉化為優勢的最好方法是用稍微輕浮的方式使用它：出於好奇去了解你不需要知道的東西，或者只是因為它會很酷而去嘗試製造某樣東西，或者在某事上變得極度擅長。

That "slightly" is an important qualification. Spend time lavishly when you're young, but don't simply waste it. There's a big difference between doing something you worry might be a waste of time and doing something you know for sure will be. The former is at least a bet, and possibly a better one than you think. [23]

這個"稍微"是一個重要的修飾詞。在你年輕時，大量地花費時間，但不要簡單地浪費它。做你擔心可能是浪費時間的事和做你確定一定是浪費時間的事之間有很大的差別。前者至少是一種賭注，可能比你想象的要好。[23]

The most subtle advantage of youth, or more precisely of inexperience, is that you're seeing everything with fresh eyes. When your brain embraces an idea for the first time, sometimes the two don't fit together perfectly. Usually the problem is with your brain, but occasionally it's with the idea. A piece of it sticks out awkwardly and jabs you when you think about it. People who are used to the idea have learned to ignore it, but you have the opportunity not to. [24]

年輕的最微妙的優勢，或者更確切地說是經驗不足的優勢，是你用全新的眼光看待一切。當你的大腦第一次接受一個想法時，有時兩者並不完全契合。通常問題出在你的大腦上，但偶爾也在想法上。想法的一部分突兀地伸出來，當你思考它時會刺痛你。習慣了這個想法的人已經學會忽視它，但你有機會不這樣做。[24]

So when you're learning about something for the first time, pay attention to things that seem wrong or missing. You'll be tempted to ignore them, since there's a 99% chance the problem is with you. And you may have to set aside your misgivings temporarily to keep progressing. But don't forget about them. When you've gotten further into the subject, come back and check if they're still there. If they're still viable in the light of your present knowledge, they probably represent an undiscovered idea.

所以，當你第一次學習某件事情時，要注意那些似乎錯誤或缺失的東西。你會忍不住忽視它們，因為有99%的機會問題出在你身上。你可能需要暫時擱置你的疑慮以便繼續前進。但別忘了它們。當你深入到這個主題中，回來檢查它們是否還在。如果在你現在的知識照耀下它們仍然存在，那麼它們可能代表著一個未被發現的想法。

One of the most valuable kinds of knowledge you get from experience is to know what you don't have to worry about. The young know all the things that could matter, but not their relative importance. So they worry equally about everything, when they should worry much more about a few things and hardly at all about the rest.

你從經驗中獲得的最有價值的一種知識就是知道你不必擔憂什麼。年輕人知道所有可能有關的事情，但不知道它們的相對重要性。所以他們對所有事情都同樣擔憂，但他們應該對幾件事更加擔憂，而對其他的幾乎不用擔心。

But what you don't know is only half the problem with inexperience. The other half is what you do know that ain't so. You arrive at adulthood with your head full of nonsense — bad habits you've acquired and false things you've been taught — and you won't be able to do great work till you clear away at least the nonsense in the way of whatever type of work you want to do.

但你不知道的只是經驗不足問題的一半。另一半是你所知道的錯誤的事情。你帶著滿頭的胡說八道走向成年——你已經養成的壞習慣和你被教導的錯誤的東西——直到你至少把阻礙你想做的任何型別的工作的胡說八道清理掉，你才能做出偉大的工作。

Much of the nonsense left in your head is left there by schools. We're so used to schools that we unconsciously treat going to school as identical with learning, but in fact schools have all sorts of strange qualities that warp our ideas about learning and thinking.

你頭腦中留下的很多胡說八道都是學校留下的。我們習慣於上學，以至於我們下意識地把上學和學習等同起來，但實際上學校有各種奇怪的特性，扭曲了我們對學習和思考的觀念。

For example, schools induce passivity. Since you were a small child, there was an authority at the front of the class telling all of you what you had to learn and then measuring whether you did. But neither classes nor tests are intrinsic to learning; they're just artifacts of the way schools are usually designed.

比如，學校會誘發被動性。自你還是個小孩，班級前方的權威就告訴你們所有人需要學習什麼，然後檢測你是否做到了。但課程和測試並非學習的本質；它們只是學校通常設計的產物。

The sooner you overcome this passivity, the better. If you're still in school, try thinking of your education as your project, and your teachers as working for you rather than vice versa. That may seem a stretch, but it's not merely some weird thought experiment. It's the truth, economically, and in the best case it's the truth intellectually as well. The best teachers don't want to be your bosses. They'd prefer it if you pushed ahead, using them as a source of advice, rather than being pulled by them through the material.

你越早克服這種被動性，就越好。如果你還在上學，試著把你的教育視為你的專案，把你的老師視為為你工作，而不是相反。這可能看起來有些牽強，但它不僅僅是某種奇特的思維實驗。在經濟上，這是事實，最好的情況下，在智力上也是事實。最好的老師不希望成為你的上司。他們更希望你能夠前進，把他們當作一種建議來源，而不是被他們拉著走過這個材料。

Schools also give you a misleading impression of what work is like. In school they tell you what the problems are, and they're almost always soluble using no more than you've been taught so far. In real life you have to figure out what the problems are, and you often don't know if they're soluble at all.

學校還會給你一個誤導性的工作印象。在學校裡，他們會告訴你問題在哪裡，而且這些問題幾乎總是可以用你到目前為止所學的知識解決。但在現實生活中，你必須找出問題在哪裡，而且你往往不知道它們是否可以解決。

But perhaps the worst thing schools do to you is train you to win by hacking the test. You can't do great work by doing that. You can't trick God. So stop looking for that kind of shortcut. The way to beat the system is to focus on problems and solutions that others have overlooked, not to skimp on the work itself.

但學校對你做的最糟糕的事情可能就是訓練你透過應試技巧贏得勝利。你不能透過這樣做來做出偉大的工作。你不能欺騙神。所以，停止尋找那種捷徑。打敗系統的方法是專注於其他人忽視的問題和解決方案，而不是在工作本身上偷工減料。

Don't think of yourself as dependent on some gatekeeper giving you a "big break." Even if this were true, the best way to get it would be to focus on doing good work rather than chasing influential people.

不要將自己視為依賴於某個看門人給你一個“大機會”。即使這是真的，獲得它的最好方法也是專注於做好工作，而不是追逐有影響力的人。

And don't take rejection by committees to heart. The qualities that impress admissions officers and prize committees are quite different from those required to do great work. The decisions of selection committees are only meaningful to the extent that they're part of a feedback loop, and very few are.

也不要把委員會的拒絕放在心上。給招生官員和獎項委員會留下深刻印象的品質與做出偉大工作所需的品質大相徑庭。選拔委員會的決定只有在它們是反饋迴圈的一部分時才有意義，而很少有委員會是這樣。

People new to a field will often copy existing work. There's nothing inherently bad about that. There's no better way to learn how something works than by trying to reproduce it. Nor does copying necessarily make your work unoriginal. Originality is the presence of new ideas, not the absence of old ones.

初涉某個領域的人往往會複製現有的工作。這本身並沒有什麼壞處。試圖重現它是瞭解某物如何運作的最好方式。也並不是說複製就一定使你的工作失去原創性。原創性在於新思想的存在，而不是舊思想的消除。

There's a good way to copy and a bad way. If you're going to copy something, do it openly instead of furtively, or worse still, unconsciously. This is what's meant by the famously misattributed phrase "Great artists steal." The really dangerous kind of copying, the kind that gives copying a bad name, is the kind that's done without realizing it, because you're nothing more than a train running on tracks laid down by someone else. But at the other extreme, copying can be a sign of superiority rather than subordination. [25]

有好的複製方式，也有壞的。如果你要複製某物，那就公開地複製，而不是偷偷摸摸地，更糟糕的是，無意識地複製。這就是那句名言“偉大的藝術家偷竊”所要表達的意思。真正危險的複製，給複製帶來壞名聲的那種，是那種你並未意識到的複製，因為你只不過是在別人鋪設的軌道上執行的列車。但在另一個極端，複製可能是優越性的標誌，而不是從屬關係。[25]

In many fields it's almost inevitable that your early work will be in some sense based on other people's. Projects rarely arise in a vacuum. They're usually a reaction to previous work. When you're first starting out, you don't have any previous work; if you're going to react to something, it has to be someone else's. Once you're established, you can react to your own. But while the former gets called derivative and the latter doesn't, structurally the two cases are more similar than they seem.

在許多領域，你的早期工作幾乎肯定會在某種程度上基於其他人的工作。專案很少會在真空中產生。它們通常是對以前工作的反應。當你剛開始時，你沒有任何以前的工作; 如果你要對某事做出反應，那就必須是別人的。一旦你成立，你可以對你自己的作品做出反應。但是，雖然前者被稱為衍生性的，而後者則沒有，但在結構上，這兩種情況比它們看起來更相似。

Oddly enough, the very novelty of the most novel ideas sometimes makes them seem at first to be more derivative than they are. New discoveries often have to be conceived initially as variations of existing things, even by their discoverers, because there isn't yet the conceptual vocabulary to express them.

奇怪的是，最新穎的想法的新穎性有時會使它們起初看起來比它們實際上更衍生。新的發現往往最初要被視為現有事物的變化，甚至對發現者來說也是如此，因為還沒有概念詞彙來表達它們。

There are definitely some dangers to copying, though. One is that you'll tend to copy old things — things that were in their day at the frontier of knowledge, but no longer are.

雖然複製有一些危險，其中一個是你會傾向於複製舊事物——那些在當時位於知識前沿，但現在不再是的事物。

And when you do copy something, don't copy every feature of it. Some will make you ridiculous if you do. Don't copy the manner of an eminent 50 year old professor if you're 18, for example, or the idiom of a Renaissance poem hundreds of years later.

當你要複製某物時，不要複製它的每一個特徵。如果你這麼做，有些特徵會讓你顯得可笑。比如，如果你只有18歲，就不要模仿一位傑出的50歲教授的方式，或者在幾百年後模仿文藝復興時期的詩歌的語言。

Some of the features of things you admire are flaws they succeeded despite. Indeed, the features that are easiest to imitate are the most likely to be the flaws.

你所欣賞的東西的一些特徵，可能就是他們成功的缺點。事實上，最容易模仿的特徵最有可能是缺點。

This is particularly true for behavior. Some talented people are jerks, and this sometimes makes it seem to the inexperienced that being a jerk is part of being talented. It isn't; being talented is merely how they get away with it.

這對於行為特別真實。有些有才華的人是混蛋，這有時會讓沒有經驗的人認為，成為混蛋是有才華的一部分。其實並不是這樣；有才華只是他們能夠得過且過的方式。

One of the most powerful kinds of copying is to copy something from one field into another. History is so full of chance discoveries of this type that it's probably worth giving chance a hand by deliberately learning about other kinds of work. You can take ideas from quite distant fields if you let them be metaphors.

最強大的複製方式之一就是從一個領域複製某物到另一個領域。歷史上充滿了這種型別的偶然發現，所以可能值得我們刻意去學習其他型別的工作，以便助運一臂之力。如果你讓這些觀點成為隱喻，你可以從相當遙遠的領域中獲得靈感。

Negative examples can be as inspiring as positive ones. In fact you can sometimes learn more from things done badly than from things done well; sometimes it only becomes clear what's needed when it's missing.

消極的例子可以像積極的例子一樣激發靈感。事實上，你有時候可以從做得不好的事情中學到比做得好的事情更多的東西；有時候，只有當某樣東西缺失的時候，我們才能清楚地看到需要什麼。

If a lot of the best people in your field are collected in one place, it's usually a good idea to visit for a while. It will increase your ambition, and also, by showing you that these people are human, increase your self-confidence. [26]

如果你所在領域的許多最優秀的人都集中在一個地方，通常去那裡待一段時間是個好主意。這樣做可以提高你的抱負，同時，透過讓你看到這些人也是普通人，可以增強你的自信。[26]

If you're earnest you'll probably get a warmer welcome than you might expect. Most people who are very good at something are happy to talk about it with anyone who's genuinely interested. If they're really good at their work, then they probably have a hobbyist's interest in it, and hobbyists always want to talk about their hobbies.

如果你是真誠的，你可能會得到比你預期的更熱情的歡迎。大多數在某件事情上非常出色的人都願意與真正感興趣的人談論這件事。如果他們真的擅長他們的工作，那麼他們可能對此有愛好者的興趣，而愛好者總是想要談論他們的愛好。

It may take some effort to find the people who are really good, though. Doing great work has such prestige that in some places, particularly universities, there's a polite fiction that everyone is engaged in it. And that is far from true. People within universities can't say so openly, but the quality of the work being done in different departments varies immensely. Some departments have people doing great work; others have in the past; others never have.

不過，找到那些真正優秀的人可能需要一些努力。做出偉大的工作具有如此的威望，以至於在某些地方，尤其是大學，有一種禮貌的虛構，那就是每個人都在從事這樣的工作。而這遠非事實。大學內的人不能公開說出這個事實，但是不同部門所做的工作質量差異巨大。有些部門有人在做偉大的工作；有些部門過去曾經有過；還有些部門從未有過。

Seek out the best colleagues. There are a lot of projects that can't be done alone, and even if you're working on one that can be, it's good to have other people to encourage you and to bounce ideas off.

尋找最好的同事。有許多專案是無法單獨完成的，即使你正在進行可以獨自完成的專案，有其他人鼓勵你並與你碰撞思想也是有益的。

Colleagues don't just affect your work, though; they also affect you. So work with people you want to become like, because you will.

然而，同事不僅影響你的工作，他們也會影響你自己。所以，和你希望變得像他們那樣的人一起工作，因為你會變得像他們一樣。

Quality is more important than quantity in colleagues. It's better to have one or two great ones than a building full of pretty good ones. In fact it's not merely better, but necessary, judging from history: the degree to which great work happens in clusters suggests that one's colleagues often make the difference between doing great work and not.

在同事的選擇上，質量比數量更重要。擁有一兩個優秀的同事要比擁有一棟樓滿是還不錯的同事要好。實際上，從歷史來看，這不僅僅是更好，而且是必要的：偉大工作在叢集中發生的程度表明，同事往往是決定你能否做出偉大工作的關鍵。

How do you know when you have sufficiently good colleagues? In my experience, when you do, you know. Which means if you're unsure, you probably don't. But it may be possible to give a more concrete answer than that. Here's an attempt: sufficiently good colleagues offer surprising insights. They can see and do things that you can't. So if you have a handful of colleagues good enough to keep you on your toes in this sense, you're probably over the threshold.

你怎麼知道你有足夠好的同事呢？根據我的經驗，當你有的時候，你就知道了。也就是說，如果你不確定，那麼你可能沒有。但可能可以給出比這更具體的答案。這裡是一個嘗試：足夠好的同事提供驚人的洞察力。他們能看到和做你不能做的事情。所以，如果你有一小撮足夠讓你在這個意義上保持警惕的優秀同事，那麼你可能已經達到了閾值。

Most of us can benefit from collaborating with colleagues, but some projects require people on a larger scale, and starting one of those is not for everyone. If you want to run a project like that, you'll have to become a manager, and managing well takes aptitude and interest like any other kind of work. If you don't have them, there is no middle path: you must either force yourself to learn management as a second language, or avoid such projects. [27]

我們大多數人都可以從與同事的合作中受益，但有些專案需要大規模的人力，啟動這樣的專案並不適合每個人。如果你想要執行這樣的專案，你就必須成為一名經理，而優秀的管理就像其他任何一種工作一樣需要才能和興趣。如果你沒有這些，就沒有中庸之道：你必須強迫自己將管理作為第二語言來學習，或者避免這樣的專案。[27]

Husband your morale. It's the basis of everything when you're working on ambitious projects. You have to nurture and protect it like a living organism.

珍視你計程車氣。當你從事雄心勃勃的專案時，士氣是一切的基礎。你必須像照顧和保護生物一樣，照顧和保護你計程車氣。

Morale starts with your view of life. You're more likely to do great work if you're an optimist, and more likely to if you think of yourself as lucky than if you think of yourself as a victim.

士氣始於你對生活的看法。如果你是樂觀主義者，你更有可能做出偉大的工作，如果你認為自己是幸運的人，而不是把自己當作受害者，你也更有可能做出偉大的工作。

Indeed, work can to some extent protect you from your problems. If you choose work that's pure, its very difficulties will serve as a refuge from the difficulties of everyday life. If this is escapism, it's a very productive form of it, and one that has been used by some of the greatest minds in history.

事實上，工作在某種程度上可以保護你免受你的問題的困擾。如果你選擇的工作是純粹的，那麼工作本身的困難就會成為你避開日常生活困難的避難所。如果這是逃避，那它是一種非常有生產力的逃避形式，歷史上一些最偉大的思想家都曾使用過。

Morale compounds via work: high morale helps you do good work, which increases your morale and helps you do even better work. But this cycle also operates in the other direction: if you're not doing good work, that can demoralize you and make it even harder to. Since it matters so much for this cycle to be running in the right direction, it can be a good idea to switch to easier work when you're stuck, just so you start to get something done.

士氣透過工作得到加強：高士氣幫助你做出好的工作，這又提高了你計程車氣，幫助你做出更好的工作。但這個迴圈也會在反方向運作：如果你沒有做出好的工作，那可能會使你士氣低落，讓工作變得更難。由於這個迴圈在正確的方向上運作是非常重要的，所以當你遇到困難時，轉向更容易的工作可能是個好主意，只是為了讓你開始完成一些事情。

One of the biggest mistakes ambitious people make is to allow setbacks to destroy their morale all at once, like a balloon bursting. You can inoculate yourself against this by explicitly considering setbacks a part of your process. Solving hard problems always involves some backtracking.

雄心勃勃的人犯的最大錯誤之一是允許挫折一次性摧毀他們計程車氣，就像氣球突然破裂一樣。你可以透過明確地將挫折視為你的工作過程的一部分，來預防這種情況。解決困難問題總是需要一些回溯。

Doing great work is a depth-first search whose root node is the desire to. So "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" isn't quite right. It should be: If at first you don't succeed, either try again, or backtrack and then try again.

做出偉大工作是一種深度優先搜尋，其根節點是慾望。所以，“初試不成，再接再厲”並不完全正確。它應該是：如果初次未能成功，要麼再試一次，要麼回溯然後再試一次。

"Never give up" is also not quite right. Obviously there are times when it's the right choice to eject. A more precise version would be: Never let setbacks panic you into backtracking more than you need to. Corollary: Never abandon the root node.

“永不放棄”也並不完全正確。顯然，有時候選擇放棄是正確的選擇。更精確的版本應該是：永遠不要讓挫折讓你過度恐慌地回溯。推論：永遠不要放棄根節點。

It's not necessarily a bad sign if work is a struggle, any more than it's a bad sign to be out of breath while running. It depends how fast you're running. So learn to distinguish good pain from bad. Good pain is a sign of effort; bad pain is a sign of damage.

如果工作是一場掙扎，那並不一定是個壞兆頭，就像跑步時氣喘吁吁並不一定是個壞兆頭。這取決於你跑得有多快。所以學會區分好的痛苦和壞的痛苦。好的痛苦是努力的標誌；壞的痛苦是傷害的標誌。

An audience is a critical component of morale. If you're a scholar, your audience may be your peers; in the arts, it may be an audience in the traditional sense. Either way it doesn't need to be big. The value of an audience doesn't grow anything like linearly with its size. Which is bad news if you're famous, but good news if you're just starting out, because it means a small but dedicated audience can be enough to sustain you. If a handful of people genuinely love what you're doing, that's enough.

觀眾是士氣的關鍵組成部分。如果你是學者，你的觀眾可能是你的同行；在藝術領域，它可能是傳統意義上的觀眾。無論哪種方式，你的觀眾都不需要大量。觀眾的價值並不像其規模那樣線性增長。這對於名人來說可能是壞訊息，但對於剛起步的人來說，這是個好訊息，因為這意味著一個小而忠誠的觀眾足以支援你。如果有少數人真心喜歡你所做的事，那就足夠了。

To the extent you can, avoid letting intermediaries come between you and your audience. In some types of work this is inevitable, but it's so liberating to escape it that you might be better off switching to an adjacent type if that will let you go direct. [28]

儘可能避免讓中介人插手你與你的觀眾之間的交流。在某些型別的工作中，這是無法避免的，但逃離這種束縛是如此的解放，以至於你可能更願意轉向相鄰的型別，如果那能讓你直接接觸觀眾。[28]

The people you spend time with will also have a big effect on your morale. You'll find there are some who increase your energy and others who decrease it, and the effect someone has is not always what you'd expect. Seek out the people who increase your energy and avoid those who decrease it. Though of course if there's someone you need to take care of, that takes precedence.

你花時間相處的人也會對你計程車氣產生重大影響。你會發現有些人能增加你的精力，有些人會降低你的精力，而某個人的影響並不總是你所預期的。尋找那些能增加你精力的人，避開那些降低你精力的人。當然，如果有人需要你照顧，那就優先考慮。

Don't marry someone who doesn't understand that you need to work, or sees your work as competition for your attention. If you're ambitious, you need to work; it's almost like a medical condition; so someone who won't let you work either doesn't understand you, or does and doesn't care.

不要嫁給不理解你需要工作，或者把你的工作視為爭奪你注意力的競爭對手的人。如果你有雄心壯志，你就需要工作；這幾乎就像是一種醫學條件；所以，不讓你工作的人要麼就是不理解你，要麼就是理解你卻不在乎。

Ultimately morale is physical. You think with your body, so it's important to take care of it. That means exercising regularly, eating and sleeping well, and avoiding the more dangerous kinds of drugs. Running and walking are particularly good forms of exercise because they're good for thinking. [29]

士氣最終是物理性的。你用身體思考，所以照顧好它很重要。這意味著要定期鍛鍊，保證良好的飲食和睡眠，避免更危險的種類的藥物。跑步和散步是特別好的鍛鍊方式，因為它們有助於思考。[29]

People who do great work are not necessarily happier than everyone else, but they're happier than they'd be if they didn't. In fact, if you're smart and ambitious, it's dangerous not to be productive. People who are smart and ambitious but don't achieve much tend to become bitter.

做出偉大工作的人並不一定比其他人更快樂，但他們比不工作時更快樂。事實上，如果你聰明且有雄心壯志，不產出成果是危險的。那些聰明且有雄心壯志但沒有實現多少的人，往往會變得痛苦。

It's ok to want to impress other people, but choose the right people. The opinion of people you respect is signal. Fame, which is the opinion of a much larger group you might or might not respect, just adds noise.

向別人炫耀是可以的，但你需要選擇正確的人。你尊重的人的意見是訊號。而名聲，這是一個更大的群體的意見，你可能尊重也可能不尊重，只會增加噪音。

The prestige of a type of work is at best a trailing indicator and sometimes completely mistaken. If you do anything well enough, you'll make it prestigious. So the question to ask about a type of work is not how much prestige it has, but how well it could be done.

一種工作的聲望最多隻是一個滯後的指標，有時甚至完全錯誤。如果你做任何事情都做得足夠好，你就會使它具有聲望。所以，關於一種工作的問題不是它有多少聲望，而是它能做得多好。

Competition can be an effective motivator, but don't let it choose the problem for you; don't let yourself get drawn into chasing something just because others are. In fact, don't let competitors make you do anything much more specific than work harder.

競爭可以是有效的激勵手段，但不要讓它為你選擇問題；不要讓自己因為別人在追求而被拉進去。實際上，不要讓競爭對手讓你做任何具體的事情，除了更努力地工作。

Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what's worth paying attention to.

好奇心是最好的指導。你的好奇心永不會撒謊，它比你更瞭解什麼值得關注。

Notice how often that word has come up. If you asked an oracle the secret to doing great work and the oracle replied with a single word, my bet would be on "curiosity."

注意這個詞出現的頻率。如果你問一個神諭做出偉大工作的秘訣，神諭用一個詞回答，我會押注在“好奇心”。

That doesn't translate directly to advice. It's not enough just to be curious, and you can't command curiosity anyway. But you can nurture it and let it drive you.

這並不能直接轉化為建議。僅僅擁有好奇心是不夠的，你也不能命令好奇心。但你可以培養它，讓它驅動你。

Curiosity is the key to all four steps in doing great work: it will choose the field for you, get you to the frontier, cause you to notice the gaps in it, and drive you to explore them. The whole process is a kind of dance with curiosity.

好奇心是做出偉大工作的四個步驟中的關鍵：它會為你選擇領域，帶你到前沿，讓你注意到其中的空白，並驅使你去探索它們。整個過程都是與好奇心的一種舞蹈。

Believe it or not, I tried to make this essay as short as I could. But its length at least means it acts as a filter. If you made it this far, you must be interested in doing great work. And if so you're already further along than you might realize, because the set of people willing to want to is small.

信不信由你，我盡力讓這篇文章儘可能短。但至少，它的長度起到了一種篩選作用。如果你能堅持到這裡，那就說明你對做出偉大的工作很感興趣。如果是這樣，那麼你可能已經比你意識到的要走得更遠了，因為願意去做的人群其實並不大。

The factors in doing great work are factors in the literal, mathematical sense, and they are: ability, interest, effort, and luck. Luck by definition you can't do anything about, so we can ignore that. And we can assume effort, if you do in fact want to do great work. So the problem boils down to ability and interest. Can you find a kind of work where your ability and interest will combine to yield an explosion of new ideas?

做出偉大工作的因素在字面上、數學意義上都是因素，它們包括：能力、興趣、努力和運氣。運氣你無法控制，所以我們可以忽略。如果你確實想要做出偉大的工作，我們可以假設你會付出努力。所以問題就歸結為能力和興趣。你能否找到一種工作，其中你的能力和興趣可以結合起來產生新思想的爆炸？

Here there are grounds for optimism. There are so many different ways to do great work, and even more that are still undiscovered. Out of all those different types of work, the one you're most suited for is probably a pretty close match. Probably a comically close match. It's just a question of finding it, and how far into it your ability and interest can take you. And you can only answer that by trying.

在這裡，我們有理由保持樂觀。有許多不同的方式可以做出偉大的工作，而且還有更多的方式尚待發現。在所有這些不同型別的工作中，你最適合的那一種可能是相當接近的。可能是讓人啼笑皆非的接近。問題只是在於找到它，以及你的能力和興趣能讓你在這個領域走多遠。這個問題只能透過嘗試來回答。

Many more people could try to do great work than do. What holds them back is a combination of modesty and fear. It seems presumptuous to try to be Newton or Shakespeare. It also seems hard; surely if you tried something like that, you'd fail. Presumably the calculation is rarely explicit. Few people consciously decide not to try to do great work. But that's what's going on subconsciously; they shy away from the question.

實際上，有更多的人可以嘗試做出偉大的工作。阻止他們的是一種謙虛和恐懼的混合體。試圖成為牛頓或莎士比亞似乎過於狂妄。這也似乎很難；如果你試圖做這樣的事情，你肯定會失敗。這種計算很少是明確的。很少有人會有意識地決定不去嘗試做偉大的工作。但這就是他們在潛意識中的想法；他們對這個問題避而不談。

So I'm going to pull a sneaky trick on you. Do you want to do great work, or not? Now you have to decide consciously. Sorry about that. I wouldn't have done it to a general audience. But we already know you're interested.

所以，我打算用一個小把戲來對付你。你想做出偉大的工作，還是不想呢？現在你必須有意識地決定。對不起，我不會對一般的聽眾這麼做。但我們已經知道你是有興趣的。

Don't worry about being presumptuous. You don't have to tell anyone. And if it's too hard and you fail, so what? Lots of people have worse problems than that. In fact you'll be lucky if it's the worst problem you have.

不用擔心自己過於狂妄。你不必告訴任何人。而且，如果事情太難，你失敗了，那又怎樣呢？許多人面臨的問題比這更糟糕。事實上，如果這是你面臨的最糟糕的問題，你將是幸運的。

Yes, you'll have to work hard. But again, lots of people have to work hard. And if you're working on something you find very interesting, which you necessarily will if you're on the right path, the work will probably feel less burdensome than a lot of your peers'.

是的，你必須努力工作。但再次說明，有很多人必須努力工作。如果你正在做一件你覺得非常有趣的事情，如果你走在正確的道路上，那麼工作可能會比許多同伴感覺到的負擔要輕一些。

The discoveries are out there, waiting to be made. Why not by you?

發現就在那裡，等待被髮掘。為什麼不是你呢？

Notes

[1] I don't think you could give a precise definition of what counts as great work. Doing great work means doing something important so well that you expand people's ideas of what's possible. But there's no threshold for importance. It's a matter of degree, and often hard to judge at the time anyway. So I'd rather people focused on developing their interests rather than worrying about whether they're important or not. Just try to do something amazing, and leave it to future generations to say if you succeeded.

[1] 我認為，你無法精確地定義什麼算是偉大的工作。做出偉大的工作意味著做某件重要的事情，並做得如此出色以至於擴大了人們對可能性的認識。但重要性並沒有一個門檻。它是程度的問題，而且往往很難在當時就做出判斷。所以，我寧願人們專注於發展他們的興趣，而不是擔心它們是否重要。只需盡力去做出令人驚豔的事情，讓未來的一代來判斷你是否成功。

[2] A lot of standup comedy is based on noticing anomalies in everyday life. "Did you ever notice...?" New ideas come from doing this about nontrivial things. Which may help explain why people's reaction to a new idea is often the first half of laughing: Ha!

[2] 許多的喜劇都基於觀察日常生活中的反常現象。“你有沒有注意到……？”新的想法來源於對非瑣碎事物的這樣的觀察。這也許能解釋為什麼人們對新想法的反應往往是笑的前半部分：哈！

[3] That second qualifier is critical. If you're excited about something most authorities discount, but you can't give a more precise explanation than "they don't get it," then you're starting to drift into the territory of cranks.

[3] 這第二個修飾語至關重要。如果你對大多數權威人士都忽視的東西感到興奮，但你不能給出比“他們不懂”更精確的解釋，那麼你開始向偏執狂的領域漂移了。

[4] Finding something to work on is not simply a matter of finding a match between the current version of you and a list of known problems. You'll often have to coevolve with the problem. That's why it can sometimes be so hard to figure out what to work on. The search space is huge. It's the cartesian product of all possible types of work, both known and yet to be discovered, and all possible future versions of you.

There's no way you could search this whole space, so you have to rely on heuristics to generate promising paths through it and hope the best matches will be clustered. Which they will not always be; different types of work have been collected together as much by accidents of history as by the intrinsic similarities between them.

[4] 找到工作並不僅僅是找到當前版本的你和已知問題之間的匹配。你往往需要與問題共同發展。這就是為什麼有時候很難確定應該做什麼工作。搜尋空間巨大。它是所有可能型別的工作（已知和尚待發現的）和所有可能的未來版本的你的笛卡爾積。

你無法搜尋整個空間，所以你必須依賴啟發式來生成穿越它的有希望的路徑，並希望最佳匹配會聚集在一起。雖然並非總是這樣；不同型別的工作被集合在一起，與其說是因為它們之間的內在相似性，不如說是歷史的偶然。

[5] There are many reasons curious people are more likely to do great work, but one of the more subtle is that, by casting a wide net, they're more likely to find the right thing to work on in the first place.

[5] 好奇的人更可能做出偉大的工作有很多原因，但其中一個較為微妙的原因是，透過廣泛的搜尋，他們更可能首先找到正確的工作。

[6] It can also be dangerous to make things for an audience you feel is less sophisticated than you, if that causes you to talk down to them. You can make a lot of money doing that, if you do it in a sufficiently cynical way, but it's not the route to great work. Not that anyone using this m.o. would care.

[6] 對於你認為比自己水平低的觀眾製作東西也可能是危險的，如果這導致你對他們居高臨下。如果你以足夠冷酷的方式做這件事，你可以賺很多錢，但這不是走向偉大工作的路徑。不過，使用這種方法的人可能並不關心。

[7] This idea I learned from Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology, which I recommend to anyone ambitious to do great work, in any field.

[7] 這個觀點我從哈代的《一個數學家的辯白》中學到的，我推薦給任何有志於在任何領域做出偉大工作的人。

[8] Just as we overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do over several years, we overestimate the damage done by procrastinating for a day and underestimate the damage done by procrastinating for several years.

[8] 正如我們高估了我們一天內可以做的事情，低估了我們幾年內可以做的事情，我們也高估了拖延一天造成的損害，低估了拖延幾年造成的損害。

[9] You can't usually get paid for doing exactly what you want, especially early on. There are two options: get paid for doing work close to what you want and hope to push it closer, or get paid for doing something else entirely and do your own projects on the side. Both can work, but both have drawbacks: in the first approach your work is compromised by default, and in the second you have to fight to get time to do it.

[9] 你通常不能得到為做你想做的事情的報酬，特別是在早期。有兩個選擇：透過做接近你想做的工作得到報酬，並希望能推動它更接近，或者透過做完全不同的事情得到報酬，並在旁邊做你自己的專案。這兩種方法都可以，但都有缺點：在第一種方法中，你的工作預設是被妥協的，而在第二種方法中，你必須奮鬥以找到時間去做。

[10] If you set your life up right, it will deliver the focus-relax cycle automatically. The perfect setup is an office you work in and that you walk to and from.

[10] 如果你正確地設定了你的生活，它將自動提供焦點-放鬆的迴圈。最完美的設定是你工作的辦公室，你可以步行往返。

[11] There may be some very unworldly people who do great work without consciously trying to. If you want to expand this rule to cover that case, it becomes: Don't try to be anything except the best.

[11] 可能有一些非常超脫世俗的人在並未刻意嘗試的情況下做出了偉大的工作。如果你想將這個規則擴充套件到覆蓋那種情況，它變為：除了最好的，不要試圖成為任何其他的。

[12] This gets more complicated in work like acting, where the goal is to adopt a fake persona. But even here it's possible to be affected. Perhaps the rule in such fields should be to avoid unintentional affectation.

[12] 在像演戲這樣的工作中，目標是採用一個假的人格，這會更復雜。但即使在這裡，也有可能受到影響。也許在這樣的領域，規則應該是避免無意的做作。

[13] It's safe to have beliefs that you treat as unquestionable if and only if they're also unfalsifiable. For example, it's safe to have the principle that everyone should be treated equally under the law, because a sentence with a "should" in it isn't really a statement about the world and is therefore hard to disprove. And if there's no evidence that could disprove one of your principles, there can't be any facts you'd need to ignore in order to preserve it.

[13] 只有當你的信念是無法被證偽的，你才可以把它們當作毋庸置疑的。例如，你可以堅持法律下每個人應該被平等對待的原則，因為帶有“應該”字樣的句子並不是真正關於世界的陳述，因此很難被證偽。如果沒有任何證據可以證偽你的一項原則，那麼就不會有任何你需要忽視的事實來保護它。

[14] Affectation is easier to cure than intellectual dishonesty. Affectation is often a shortcoming of the young that burns off in time, while intellectual dishonesty is more of a character flaw.

[14] 做作比知識上的不誠實更容易治癒。做作往往是年輕人的短暫缺點，隨著時間的推移會消退，而知識上的不誠實更像是一個性格上的瑕疵。

[15] Obviously you don't have to be working at the exact moment you have the idea, but you'll probably have been working fairly recently.

[15] 很明顯，你並不需要在剛有想法的那一刻就開始工作，但你可能已經近期內工作過。

[16] Some say psychoactive drugs have a similar effect. I'm skeptical, but also almost totally ignorant of their effects.

[16] 有些人說精神活性藥物有類似的效果。我持懷疑態度，但同時我對它們的影響幾乎一無所知。

[17] For example you might give the nth most important topic (m-1)/m^n of your attention, for some m > 1. You couldn't allocate your attention so precisely, of course, but this at least gives an idea of a reasonable distribution.

[17] 例如，你可能會將第n個最重要的主題給予(m-1)/m^n的關注，對於某個m>1。當然，你不能如此精確地分配你的注意力，但這至少提供了一個合理分佈的想法。

[18] The principles defining a religion have to be mistaken. Otherwise anyone might adopt them, and there would be nothing to distinguish the adherents of the religion from everyone else.

[18] 定義一個宗教的原則必須是錯誤的。否則，任何人都可能接受它們，那就沒有什麼可以區分這個宗教的信徒和其他所有人的。

[19] It might be a good exercise to try writing down a list of questions you wondered about in your youth. You might find you're now in a position to do something about some of them.

[19] 嘗試寫下一個列表，列出你在年輕時曾經想過的問題，可能會是一個好的練習。你可能會發現你現在有能力對其中的一些問題做些什麼。

[20] The connection between originality and uncertainty causes a strange phenomenon: because the conventional-minded are more certain than the independent-minded, this tends to give them the upper hand in disputes, even though they're generally stupider. The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

[20] 原創性和不確定性之間的聯絡導致了一個奇怪的現象：因為傳統思維的人比獨立思維的人更加確定，這使他們在爭論中往往佔上風，儘管他們通常更加愚蠢。 最好的人全無信念，最糟糕的人 充滿了激情的強度。

[21] Derived from Linus Pauling's "If you want to have good ideas, you must have many ideas."

[21] 源自Linus Pauling的“如果你想有好的想法，你必須有許多想法”。

[22] Attacking a project as a "toy" is similar to attacking a statement as "inappropriate." It means that no more substantial criticism can be made to stick.

[22] 把一個專案當作“玩具”來攻擊類似於把一個陳述當作“不恰當”來攻擊。這意味著不能再有更實質的批評。

[23] One way to tell whether you're wasting time is to ask if you're producing or consuming. Writing computer games is less likely to be a waste of time than playing them, and playing games where you create something is less likely to be a waste of time than playing games where you don't.

[23] 判斷你是否在浪費時間的一個方法是問你是在生產還是在消費。寫電腦遊戲比玩電腦遊戲更不可能是浪費時間，玩你可以創造某物的遊戲比玩你不能創造任何東西的遊戲更不可能是浪費時間。

[24] Another related advantage is that if you haven't said anything publicly yet, you won't be biased toward evidence that supports your earlier conclusions. With sufficient integrity you could achieve eternal youth in this respect, but few manage to. For most people, having previously published opinions has an effect similar to ideology, just in quantity 1.

[24] 另一個相關的優點是，如果你還沒有公開發表任何觀點，你就不會偏向於支援你之前的結論的證據。如果你足夠正直，你可以在這方面永葆青春，但很少有人能做到。對於大多數人來說，之前公開發表的觀點有類似於意識形態的影響，只不過數量是1。

[25] In the early 1630s Daniel Mytens made a painting of Henrietta Maria handing a laurel wreath to Charles I. Van Dyck then painted his own version to show how much better he was.

[25] 1630年代初，Daniel Mytens畫了一幅畫，畫的是Henrietta Maria把月桂花環交給Charles I。然後Van Dyck畫了他自己的版本，以顯示他多麼優秀。

[26] I'm being deliberately vague about what a place is. As of this writing, being in the same physical place has advantages that are hard to duplicate, but that could change.

[26] 我對什麼是一個地方故意保持模糊。就我寫這篇文章時，身處同一物理空間有一些很難複製的優勢，但這可能會改變。

[27] This is false when the work the other people have to do is very constrained, as with SETI@home or Bitcoin. It may be possible to expand the area in which it's false by defining similarly restricted protocols with more freedom of action in the nodes.

[27] 當其他人需要做的工作非常受限制時，這是錯誤的，比如SETI@home或比特幣。透過定義具有更多自由行動的節點的類似限制性的協議，可能可以擴大這個錯誤的區域。

[28] Corollary: Building something that enables people to go around intermediaries and engage directly with their audience is probably a good idea.

[28] 推論：建造一些東西，使人們可以繞過中介，直接與他們的受眾打交道，可能是個好主意。

[29] It may be helpful always to walk or run the same route, because that frees attention for thinking. It feels that way to me, and there is some historical evidence for it.

[29] 一直走或跑同樣的路線可能會有幫助，因為這會釋放出注意力進行思考。對我來說感覺就是這樣，而且有一些歷史證據支援這一點。