原标题：别让他人的负面评价定义你

Safwat Saleem是一位艺术家，他从小就有口吃，说话结结巴巴的。但是作为一名独立的动画师，他决定为自己的角色配音，赋予其生命力。当他上传作品之后，面对评论者的嘲笑和讽刺，他崩溃了。一起来看看下面这个有趣的TED演讲，了解一下Safwat Saleem是如何找回自己的声音和自信的。

中英全文（来自TED官网）

I used to have this recurring dream where I'd walk into a roomful of people, and I'd try not to make eye contact with anyone. Until someone notices me, and I just panic. And the person walks up to me, and says, "Hi, my name is So-and-so. And what is your name?" And I'm just quiet, unable to respond. After some awkward silence, he goes, "Have you forgotten your name?" And I'm still quiet. And then, slowly, all the other people in the room begin to turn toward me and ask, almost in unison,

我以前常常做一个梦，梦到我走进一个满是人的房间，我小心翼翼地避开每个人的眼神。直到有个人注意到我，我就慌了。然后，这个人向我走来，说：“你好，我的名字叫某某某，你叫什么?”我就一句话都说不出了。尴尬的沉默后，他继续问道，“你忘了自己的名字吗？”我还是一句话都说不出。然后，慢慢地，屋子里的所有人都转过身，看着我。几乎是齐声问我：

(Voice-over, several voices) "Have you forgotten your name?" As the chant gets louder, I want to respond, but I don't.

（画外音，各种声音）“你是忘了自己的名字吗？”声音越来越大，我很想回答，但是答不出口。

I'm a visual artist. Some of my work is humorous, and some is a bit funny but in a sad way. And one thing that I really enjoy doing is making these little animations where I get to do the voice-over for all kinds of characters. I've been a bear.

我是个视觉艺术家。我的工作有时候很幽默，有时候却是黑色幽默。我很喜欢一件事，就是做这些小动画，我很喜欢给各种角色配音。我为熊配过音

(Video) Bear (Safwat Saleem's voice): Hi.

（视频）熊（萨配音）：你好。

Safwat Saleem: I've been a whale.

萨：我为鲸鱼配过音。

(Video) Whale (SS's voice): Hi.

（视频）鲸鱼（萨配音）：你好。

SS: I've been a greeting card.

萨：我还为贺卡配过音。

(Video) Greeting card (SS's voice): Hi.

（视频）贺卡（萨配音）你好。

SS: And my personal favorite is Frankenstein's monster.

萨：而我个人最喜欢的是科学怪人。

(Video) Frankenstein's monster (SS's voice): (Grunts)

（视频）科学怪人（萨配音）：咕噜

SS: I just had to grunt a lot for that one.

萨：这一个，我只需要发出咕噜咕噜的声音。

A few years ago, I made this educational video about the history of video games. And for that one, I got to do the voice of Space Invader.

几年前，我做过一个教育片，是关于电子游戏史的。在那部片子里，我为太空侵略者配音。

(Video) Space Invader (SS's voice): Hi.

（视频）太空侵略者（萨配音）：你好。

SS: A dream come true, really,

萨：我的梦想实现了，真的。

(Laughter) And when that video was posted online, I just sat there on the computer, hitting "refresh," excited to see the response. The first comment comes in.

（笑声）当视频在网络上发布以后，我就坐在电脑面前不停地敲“刷新”键，很期待观众的反应。第一个评论是这样说的：

(Video) Comment: Great job. SS: Yes! I hit "refresh."

（视频）评论：干得不错。萨：太好了！我接着敲“刷新”键，

(Video) Comment: Excellent video. I look forward to the next one.

（视频）评论：很棒的视频，期待你的下一部作品。

SS: This was just the first of a two-part video. I was going to work on the second one next. I hit "refresh."

萨：目前发布的只是上半部，我正在准备着制作下半部。我再敲“刷新”键

(Video) Comment: Where is part TWO? WHEREEEEE? I need it NOWWWWW!: P

（视频）评论：下半部在哪哪哪哪？我现在就想看啊啊啊！

SS: People other than my mom were saying nice things about me, on the Internet! It felt like I had finally arrived. I hit "refresh."

萨：除了我妈以外，所有人都在夸我。这可是在网络上啊！我感觉像获得了最终的胜利一样。我继续敲“刷新”键，

(Video) Comment: His voice is annoying. No offense.

（视频）评论：他的声音真不好听，别介意啊。

SS: OK, no offense taken. Refresh.

萨：好好好，不介意，刷新。

(Video) Comment: Could you remake this without peanut butter in your mouth?

(视频）评论：能再做一个没有含着花生酱录的版本吗？

SS: OK, at least the feedback is somewhat constructive. Hit "refresh."

萨：这个反馈勉强算是有点用。接着刷新。

(Video) Comment: Please don't use this narrator again u can barely understand him.

（视频）评论：别再用这个人配音了，根本听不懂他在说什么。

SS: Refresh.

萨：刷新。

(Video) Comment: Couldn't follow because of the Indian accent.

（视频）评论：这印度口音让人根本听不清。

SS: OK, OK, OK, two things. Number one, I don't have an Indian accent, I have a Pakistani accent, OK? And number two, I clearly have a Pakistani accent.

萨：好吧好吧，我就说两件事，第一，我没有印度口音，我是巴基斯坦口音好吗？第二，我明显是巴基斯坦口音嘛。

But comments like that kept coming in, so I figured I should just ignore them and start working on the second part of the video. I recorded my audio, but every time I sat down to edit, I just could not do it. Every single time, it would take me back to my childhood, when I had a much harder time speaking.

像这样的评论越来越多，我决定无视他们，开始制作视频的下半部。我录下了音频，但每次我想剪辑的时候，我就是做不下去。每一次，这都让我想起我小时候，那时我说话更糟糕。

I've stuttered for as long as I can remember. I was the kid in class who would never raise his hand when he had a question -- or knew the answer. Every time the phone rang, I would run to the bathroom so I would not have to answer it. If it was for me, my parents would say I'm not around. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom. And I hated introducing myself, especially in groups. I'd always stutter on my name, and there was usually someone who'd go, "Have you forgotten your name?" And then everybody would laugh. That joke never got old.

我说话一直都结结巴巴的。我就是班里那种从不举手提问也从不回答问题的学生。每一次电话铃声响起，我就会跑到厕所，这样就可以不用接电话了。如果电话是找我的，我爸妈就会说我不在家。我总是躲在厕所里。我最讨厌自我介绍，尤其是面对很多的人的时候。我连自己的名字都说不顺，这时总会有人问，“你连自己的名字都不记得了吗？”然后所有人都笑了。这个笑话一直伴随着我。

I spent my childhood feeling that if I spoke, it would become obvious that there was something wrong with me, that I was not normal. So I mostly stayed quiet. And so you see, eventually for me to even be able to use my voice in my work was a huge step for me. Every time I record audio, I fumble my way through saying each sentence many, many times, and then I go back in and pick the ones where I think I suck the least.

小时候我总觉得，只要我一说话，别人就会觉得我有问题，觉得我不正常。于是我总是很安静。所以你看，把我自己的声音用到我的作品里，于我而言，已经是非常大的进步了。每当我录音的时候，我总是笨手笨脚的，一句话要说好多好多遍。然后当我剪辑的时候，我就会挑一个我觉得最不糟糕的。

(Voice-over) SS: Audio editing is like Photoshop for your voice. I can slow it down, speed it up, make it deeper, add an echo. And if I stutter along the way, and if I stutter along the way, I just go back in and fix it. It's magic.

（画外音）萨：音频剪辑就像给你的声音Photoshop一样。我给它减速、加速，让它变得深沉、加上回音。如果我说得不顺畅，如果我说得不顺畅，我就重新再修改一遍。这就像魔法一样。

SS: Using my highly edited voice in my work was a way for me to finally sound normal to myself. But after the comments on the video, it no longer made me feel normal. And so I stopped using my voice in my work. Since then, I've thought a lot about what it means to be normal. And I've come to understand that "normal" has a lot to do with expectations.

萨：将经过大幅度修饰的声音用到我的视频里，才能让我觉得自己的声音正常了一些。不过自从看了那些评论，这也不能让我觉得正常了。于是我不再把自己的声音用到视频里。在那之后，我想了很多人们所谓的“正常”到底是什么？后来我开始理解了，所谓的“正常”与人们的期待值有关。

Let me give you an example. I came across this story about the Ancient Greek writer, Homer. Now, Homer mentions very few colors in his writing. And even when he does, he seems to get them quite a bit wrong. For example, the sea is described as wine red, people's faces are sometimes green and sheep are purple. But it's not just Homer. If you look at all of the ancient literature -- Ancient Chinese, Icelandic, Greek, Indian and even the original Hebrew Bible -- they all mention very few colors. And the most popular theory for why that might be the case is that cultures begin to recognize a color only once they have the ability to make that color. So basically, if you can make a color, only then can you see it. A color like red, which was fairly easy for many cultures to make -- they began to see that color fairly early on. But a color like blue, which was much harder to make -- many cultures didn't begin to learn how to make that color until much later. They didn't begin to see it until much later as well. So until then, even though a color might be all around them, they simply did not have the ability to see it. It was invisIble. It was not a part of their normal.

举个例子吧，我想到一个故事，是关于古希腊作家荷马的。在荷马的作品里只提到了非常少的几种颜色。即使在描写颜色的时候，荷马笔下的颜色也和现代人的常识不尽相同。比如说，荷马说海是酒红色的，人的脸有时是绿色的，而绵羊则是紫色的。这种现象不单单出现在荷马的作品里。在世界古典文学中——古代中国、冰岛、希腊、印度的文学甚至是在希伯来圣经中提到的颜色都很少。对这种现象最出名的解释是：一个文明首先要能生产出一种颜色，然后才能识别出这种颜色。简单的说，你只有先制造出一种颜色，才能“看见”这种颜色。像红色这种比较方便制造的颜色就能比较早的出现在各大文明的认知中。然而像蓝色这种不那么方便制作的颜色，很多文明都花了相当长的时间才最终制造出了蓝色。于是他们也花了相当长的时间来最终“看见”蓝色。在一个颜色被制造出来之前就算它随处可见，人们也对它视而不见。就好像这种颜色是隐形的一样。这种颜色不在人们“正常”的认知范畴里。

And that story has helped put my own experience into context. So when I first read the comments on the video, my initial reaction was to take it all very personally. But the people commenting did not know how self-conscious I am about my voice. They were mostly reacting to my accent, that it is not normal for a narrator to have an accent.

这个说法和我的自身经历很契合。当我第一次看到那些评论时，我的第一反应是那些评论都是针对我的。不过事实上那些评论者并不知道，我对自己的声音那么在意。他们的评论都是关于我的口音。他们认为一个带口音的配音者是不常见的、不正常的。

But what is normal, anyway? We know that reviewers will find more spelling errors in your writing if they think you're black. We know that professors are less likely to help female or minority students. And we know that resumes with white-sounding names get more callbacks than resumes with black-sounding names. Why is that? Because of our expectations of what is normal. We think it is normal when a black student has spelling errors. We think it is normal when a female or minority student does not succeed. And we think it is normal that a white employee is a better hire than a black employee. But studies also show that discrimination of this kind, in most cases, is simply favoritism, and it results more from wanting to help people that you can relate to than the desire to harm people that you can't relate to.

不过话说回来，什么才算正常？评论家会在你的作品里挑出很多拼写错误，仅仅因为他以为你是个黑人。教授会不那么情愿去辅导女学生、或者少数族裔学生。一份有着看起来像是白人名字的简历，比起写着黑人名字的简历要有更高的通过率。为什么会这样？这都是因为我们对常识的刻板印象。常识告诉我们，黑人学生往往会有拼写错误。常识告诉我们，女学生和少数族裔学生往往在学术领域少有建树。常识告诉我们，一个白人员工往往要比黑人员工好。但是研究表明，像这一类的区别判断，通常只是偏见而无事实依据。而这种偏见让我们倾向于去帮助同类，而伤害异类。

And not relating to people starts at a very early age. Let me give you an example. One library that keeps track of characters in the children's book collection every year, found that in 2014, only about 11 percent of the books had a character of color. And just the year before, that number was about eight percent, even though half of American children today come from a minority background. Half.

人类在很小的时候就开始区分同类与异类。举个例子，有一个图书馆把每年出版的儿童故事书里面的角色都记录了下来。他们发现，在2014年只有11%的角色是有色人种。而这个数值在2013年只有8%。可事实上，有一半的美国儿童都是少数族裔。50%啊。

So there are two big issues here. Number one, children are told that they can be anything, they can do anything, and yet, most stories that children of color consume are about people who are not like them. Number two is that majority groups don't get to realize the great extent to which they are similar to minorities -- our everyday experiences, our hopes, our dreams, our fears and our mutual love for hummus. It's delicious!

这就导致了两个问题，第一，我们一方面告诉孩子们他们可以成为任何人，他们有能做任何事的潜力，然而另一方面少数族裔的孩子们，看到的故事却都是关于其他人的。第二，多数族裔的人没有意识到他们其实与少数族裔的人有很多相似之处——我们的日常生活，我们的期待，我们的梦想，我们的恐惧，都是相似的。甚至我们对鹰嘴豆泥的喜好也是一样的，真的很好吃嘛！

Just like the color blue for Ancient Greeks, minorities are not a part of what we consider normal, because normal is simply a construction of what we've been exposed to, and how visible it is around us.

就像蓝色之于古希腊人，少数族裔之于我们的社会而言也不在“正常”的范畴之内。因为我们对“正常”的界定形成于日常生活之中，取决于我们的见识，

And this is where things get a bit difficult. I can accept the preexisting notion of normal -- that normal is good, and anything outside of that very narrow definition of normal is bad. Or I can challenge that preexisting notion of normal with my work and with my voice and with my accent and by standing here onstage, even though I'm scared shitless and would rather be in the bathroom.

这就是症结所在。我可以选择认可所谓的“正常”所有在正常范畴内的都是好的，而在“正常”这个狭隘的定义之外一切都是不好的。我也可以选择挑战所谓的“正常”，就凭着我的作品，我的声音，还有我的口音，以及我现在的演讲。尽管我现在紧张得要死，恨不得马上躲进洗手间里。

(Video) Sheep (SS's voice): I'm now slowly starting to use my voice in my work again. And it feels good. It does not mean I won't have a breakdown the next time a couple dozen people say that I talk (Mumbling) like I have peanut butter in my mouth.

（视频）绵羊（萨配音）：现在我又逐渐开始用自己的声音给作品配音了。这感觉真好。这不是说我的声音完美无缺了，下一次还会有一堆人说我的声音（含糊不清地）好像含了花生酱在嘴里一样，

SS: It just means I now have a much better understanding of what's at stake, and how giving up is not an option.

萨：而是说我现在更加清楚什么是至关重要的，以及放弃并不是一种选择。

The Ancient Greeks didn't just wake up one day and realize that the sky was blue. It took centuries, even, for humans to realize what we had been ignoring for so long. And so we must continuously challenge our notion of normal, because doing so is going to allow us as a society to finally see the sky for what it is.

古希腊人不是一觉醒来就发现天空是蓝色的。人们花了很长的时间才渐渐注意到那些曾经被忽略了很久的事物。所以我们必须要经常挑战我们对“正常”的界定。因为这样做可以使整个社会最终看清天空的颜色。

(Video) Characters: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Frankenstein's monster: (Grunts)

（视频）角色：谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！科学怪人：（咕噜）

SS: Thank you.

萨：谢谢。