You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

学院里的福利，WIN 7 Professional的正版序列号。好像是院里自己掏银子买的，学CS(Computer Science)的发个邮件就能要到。这意思是说咱毕业以后会为MS家族做出啥贡献么。。。还是说学费要的那么贵，良心发现，开始搞派送活动了么。。。

 

不过咱也终于可以摆脱VISTA这个垃圾系统了。。。

 

 

今天晚上的Bible study是有关信仰的，很多陈年旧事就又涌现在脑中。

 

在上帝面前，我曾经是一个异常叛逆的孩子，总是一副消极避世的样子，甚至咒骂着天父所给自己带来的那些挫折和痛苦。另一方面，自己却浑然不知天父对于自己的保佑。当我不停的愤怒和诅咒自己的命运时，自己的遇到的沉重挫折背后总会有人对我伸出援手。当我的母亲在医院生命垂危的时候，是上帝将她的生命延续，并给我带来了生活的希望和对于人生全新的理解。正像罗马书里所讲的：

 

“我们既然因信称义，就着我们的主耶稣基督与神和好；我们也凭着信，借着他可以进入现在所站的这恩典中，并且以盼望的享神的荣耀为荣。不但这样，我们更以患难为荣；知道患难产生忍耐，忍耐产生毅力，毅力产生希望；希望是不会令人蒙羞的，因为神借着所赐给我们的圣灵，把他的爱浇灌在我们的心里。”（罗马书 5：1-4 ）

 

患难使人坚强成熟，挫折让人心生希望。这种坚实的成熟和不熄的希望使人充满力量和内心平和，并且让人能够更好的与天父建立联系，通过知晓他的意愿，驱使自身的力量去完成所被赋予的使命。

 

婚姻其实就像人类与上帝，我们的创造者，之间的关系。圣经博大精深，但是却被一条主线所牵引，那就是上帝的承诺，人类对承诺的信实，和最后他对承诺的兑现。所以婚姻是上帝所赋予人类神圣的契约关系，就像在创世纪里所写到的，上帝创造了男人和女人，并且让他们在一起。

 

当我意识到自己是如此的软弱和罪孽深重时，天父的爱使我与耶稣基督相识，忏悔和拒绝自己的原罪，背负着十字架所带来的患难，最后追随主耶稣基督，让圣灵转化和改变自己。因为天父的爱，才使我能拥有这样的心路历程，并且能够让他的爱来唤醒一直沉睡在我心中的爱，并且能让我通过这种内心深处的爱来真正的去关心和帮助他人，为世人造福，来荣耀天父。正是这种爱才能使我真正的知晓和平，获得智慧，坚持真理，善待他人和拥抱天父。

 

我一直相信人类只有唤醒并运用上帝根植于每个人心中的爱，才可能获得真正会拯救他人的力量。这个世界已经充满了太多伤害和毁灭他人的力量了。我们要知道，伤害他人其实就是在伤害自己，对于别人的苦难置若罔闻，甚至落井下石其实就是在给自己未来的棺材钉钉子。

 

爱往往意味着同情，理解，接受和妥协的行为。美苏冷战时期，古巴导弹危机，核子战争一触即发，人类悬绕在被核武力量毁灭的边缘，赫鲁晓夫曾经对美国人意味深长的说：“我们双方不应该继续拔河，因为你们在绳子上打了战争的结，双方拉的越用力，结就会越来越紧，最后就必须要切断那个结。。。随之而来的后果如何，恐怕就不需要让我来解释给你们听了。”试想如果当时美国人不能够同情他们的敌人，并且站在敌人的角度去理解，接受和妥协，恐怕所有人类现在就已经灭亡了。最终，美苏之间对于对方的爱拯救了人类，而不是更加的仇恨对方。

 

人们说，婚姻是爱情的坟墓。我从来不把这句话真的当回事，因为这里所谓的爱情更多是私欲，甚至是肉欲的遮羞布。说这种话的人要么是找借口，要么是纯粹不加思考的跟风。真爱其实是一种男女双方对于承诺的信任，相信对方能够对自己真心相待，并且自己能够对对方全心全意。婚姻从来不是真爱的坟墓，而是对于是否是真爱的考验。假的是进了坟墓，真的却享有了永生，并且能不断的给人带来幸福和快乐。

每种文明在不同的时期都具备一种时代的精神,就好像古埃及文明创造出了一整套的信仰系统,那些关于神,人与自然的神话和传说构成了他们生活的基石.几千年后来今天,当我们再回看历史的时候,甚至可以说古埃及人是活在一种巨大的幻想之中,尽管人们或许看到了不一样的东西,但是几乎每个人都在做着同一种的梦.可以说古埃及文明的时代精神大部分是建立在"谎言"之上的,尽管她是如此的巨大,长久和令人着迷.其实你不难形容一个动用国家级的资源来运转的宣传机器的力量,甚至你也不难想象一旦这个机器开动起来所能达到的影响.

 

然则,所谓新中国的人过去的六十年难道不是生活在一个接一个的"谎言"之中么?从共产主义到资本主义,国家的宣传机器都在声嘶力竭的向这个社会的人民许诺着繁荣与幸福,或许现代的人民并不比几千年的古埃及人民难骗多少,而区别是在于古埃及统治者面对的是一群未到过教育的人民,而现代的统治者面对的是一群未受到过真正教育的人民.试想当愚化披上权威的外衣掌握并行使着大众教育的权力时,"皇帝新衣"的闹剧便粉末上演了.

 

如果说共产主义是一个令人感叹的笑话,那资本主义就是一个让人恶心的笑话了.货币系统下新的奴隶社会产生了,中央银行无中生有制造出的钱币给几乎所有人套上了项圈,金钱由银行流出,最后又回到银行,大部分人一辈子恐怕无法意识到自己其实都在为银行工作,被那些隐藏在人类社会背后的少数人所掌控和盘剥.而另一方面,这个世界上几乎所有能想的出的名目都已经,正在和即将被标价出售.然后堂而皇之的将这些被私有化的事物定义为财富.资本主义对于利益的贪婪使人类社会走向腐败,企业为了利润不惜盘剥民众,污染环境,甚至制造战争,而个人为了金钱不惜欺骗和伤害他人,甚至犯下各种罪行.

 

当知道现代资本主义这个人们所创造出来的庞大机器正在摧毁着我们的家园,摧毁着整个人类和其他生物的生态系统时,或许就没人能笑得出来了...

 

"哈哈,你正在慢性自杀.", "哈哈,你不仅在自杀,还在杀自己的孩子和将来的后代." 这可真是大自然对人类的嘲讽. 如果说毒奶粉只是冰山一角的话,你该期望你没能看到整个冰山,一旦你意识到了这些,恐怕会恨不得把自己所有过去吃过的东西都给吐出来.我不认为这是在宣扬某种阴谋论,资本主义就是建立在人们对资本的信仰之上的,一个只对于资本的力量,而不是人类的幸福为根本追求的系统,又怎么可能给人类美好的未来呢?

 

"当爱的力量超越了对力量的爱,世界便会知晓和平."

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

 

晚上和几个同学讨论起了这个问题，记得以前好像上小学自然课就开始教进化论，当年不论是教材，还是老师都很有想象力，图文并茂啥的。最后还少不了一个特别形象的的故事，就是讲啊：那个无机物经过奇妙的过程变成了有机物，有机物又不知怎么地又成为了单细胞，然后单细胞发展成了多细胞，依此类推便神奇的进化成了生命。其实现在想想觉得挺囧的，因为这种进化方式有太多不能解释的地方了，脑补了过程，忽略了细节，就好像变魔术，通过制造幻觉，造成某种假象。

 

进化论，或者说宏观进化论的观点源自达尔文的博士毕业论文，他在自己那著名的《物种起源》的最开始就很清楚的声言进化论是一种假说，想首先假设一个观点，然后去进行严谨的科学例证，可惜他生前并未完成例证过程，更令人遗憾的是，其实至今对进化论的科学例证也并未完成，反而甚至出现了不少抵触进化论的考古发现。

 

上面有关进化论的故事其实反映出了一种现象，让我来形容的话，就是科学主义，或者说科学教的体现。那么什么是科学主义？

 

科學主義也稱唯科學主義，英文是scientism。指一種在根據不足的情況下強行運用科學，或者僅僅以科學的名義推行某種觀念，它本身違背了科學精神，是反科學的。現代社會條件下，科學主義是一種類似宗教的東西，承擔宗教類似的功能。（维基百科：http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6%E4%B8%BB%E4%B9%89）

 

科学主义是很要不得的，因为这是一种对科学的误解和扭曲，很大的妨碍了人们对科学的正确认识，而科学主义在中国有时反倒成为了主流，演变成了一幕幕令人啼笑皆非的喜剧和悲剧。比如最近引起网络热议的“教授”论证出来的网瘾疾病，包括与之配套的电击疗法，实在让我等网民不寒而栗。

 

科学是形而下学，通过非常严谨的科学方法来揭示某些自然的规律，而解释权其实是由哲学来担负的。说的白话一些，就好像咱们发现了一个事儿，这个事儿是咱们都很确信自己活在这个世界上，但是咱们从哪儿来，活着为了什么，死了以后会怎样等等就难以判断了。科学的应用范围其实是很有限的，并不是万金油，只能解释相对整个人类文明而言非常狭小的区间。

 

其实我过去就是一个相当沉迷的科学主义者，并且是极度的怀疑论者，我曾经偏执的相信这个世界并不存在任何唯心的事物，凡是人的所思所想所感，归根结底都是彻底的虚无，秉持着非常彻底的唯物主义观点。

 

不过后来我发现这套思维系统与现实的世界相差十万八千里，总而言之就是解释的太过简单和单纯，与其是试图去认识世界，更像是对于自身的高度异化，或者说物化。而现在我的观念是，术业要有专攻，信也由心而生。

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

 

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."

 

He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

(Mark 9:33-37)

So you think you can dance

 

 

 ---文：王小波     

 

     我的电脑还没联网，也想过要和Internet联上。据说，网上黄毒泛滥，还有些反动的东西在传播，这些说法把我吓住了。前些时候有人建议对网络加以限制，我很赞成。说实在的，哪能容许信息自由地传播。但假如我对这件事还有点了解，我要说：除了一剪子剪掉，没有什么限制的方法。那东西太快，太邪门了。现代社会信息爆炸，想要审查太困难，不如禁止方便。假如我做生意，或者搞科技，没有网络会有些困难。但我何必为商人、工程师们操心？在信息高速网上，海量的信息在流动。但是我，一个爬格子的，不知道它们也能行。所以，把Internet剪掉吧，省得我听了心烦。

　　Internet是传输信息的工具。还有处理信息的工具，就是各种个人电脑。你想想看，没有电脑，有网也接不上。再说，磁盘、光盘也足以贩黄。必须禁掉电脑，这才是治本。这回我可有点舍不得--大约十年前，我就买了一台个人电脑。到现在换到了第五台。花钱不说，还下了很多工夫，现在用的软件都是我自己写的。我用它写文章，做科学工作：算题，做统计--顺便说一句，用电脑来做统计是种幸福，没有电脑，统计工作是种巨大的痛苦。但是它不学好，贩起黄毒来了，这可是它自己作死，别人救不了它。看在十年老交情上，我为它说几句好话：早期的电脑是无害的。那种空调机似的庞然大物算起题来嘎嘎作响，没有能力演示黄毒。后来的486、586才是有罪的：这些机器硬件能力突飞猛进，既能干好事，也能干坏事，把它禁了吧??但现在要买过时的电脑，不一定能买到。为此，可以要求IBM给我们重开生产线，制造早期的PC机。洋鬼子听了瞪眼，说：你们是不是有毛病？回答应该是：我们没毛病，你才有毛病--但要防止他把我们的商务代表送进疯人院。当然，如果决定了禁掉一切电脑，我也能对付。我可以用纸笔写作，要算统计时就打算盘。不会打算盘的可以拣冰棍棍儿计数--满地拣棍儿是有点难看，但是--谢天谢地，我现在很少做统计了。

　　除了电脑，电影电视也在散布不良信息。在这方面，我的态度是坚定的：我赞成严加管理。首先，外国的影视作品与国情不符，应该通通禁掉。其次，国内的影视从业人员良莠不齐，做出的作品也多有不好的??我是写小说的，与影视无缘，只不过是挣点小钱。王朔、冯小刚，还有大批的影星们，学历都不如我，搞出的东西我也看不入眼，但他们可都发大财了。应该严格审查--话又说回来，把Internet上的通讯逐页看过才放行，这是办不到的；一百二十集的连续剧从头看到尾也不大容易。倒不如通通禁掉算了。"文化革命"十年，只看八个样板戏不也活过来了嘛。我可不像年轻人，声、光、电、影一样都少不了。我有本书看看就行了。说来说去，我把流行音乐漏掉了。这种乌七八糟的东西，应该首先禁掉。年轻人没有事，可以多搞些体育锻炼，既陶冶了性情，又锻炼了身体??

　　这样禁来禁去，总有一天禁到我身上。我的小说内容健康，但让我逐行说明每一句都是良好的信息，我也做不到。再说，到那时我已经吓傻了，哪有精神给自己辩护。电影电视都能禁，为什么不能禁小说？我们爱读书，还有不识字的人呢，他们准赞成禁书。好吧，我不写作了，到车站上去扛大包。我的身体很好，能当搬运工。别的作家未必扛得动大包??

　　我赞成对生活空间加以压缩，只要压不到我。但压来压去，结果却出乎我的想象。

　　海明威在《钟为谁鸣》里说过这个意思：所有的人是一个整体，别人的不幸就是你的不幸。所以，不要以为丧钟是为谁而鸣--它就是为你而鸣。但这个想法我觉得陌生，我就盼着别人倒霉。五十多年前，有个德国的新教牧师说：起初，他们抓共产党员，我不说话，因为我不是工会会员；后来，他们抓犹太人，我不说话，因为我是亚利安人；后来他们抓天主教徒，我不说话，因为我是新教徒??最后他们来抓我，已经没人能为我说话了。众所周知，这里不是纳粹德国，我也不是新教牧师。所以，这些话我也不想记住。

 

记得当年买他的磁带,回到家闷着狂听

还记得当年和同学一起看他的VCD,被震撼的不得了