2008年,加拿大一名朝九晚五的普通白领尼尔·帕斯理查(Neil Pasricha),在经受了婚姻破灭、好友跳楼的连串噩耗后,开始撰写博客 “1000awesomethings.com”。从创办一个默默无闻的网站到获得有互联网奥斯卡之称的威比奖(The Webby Awards)而声名显赫,他从没想到自己的博客会引起这么多人的注意——甚至一贴有几万人参加讨论,比如“如何享用食品袋里的最后一片薯片”。其博文更是获得了一众书商的青睐,于今年4月推出了《The Book of Awesome》一书。
“通过专注于生活中积极的一面,我在最低谷的时候迎来了人生的高峰。”
——尼尔·帕斯理查
美式发音 适合泛听
The Optimistic Part of Life 生活中的正能量
Neil: It’s just a really rough world right now. We’ve got the ice caps melting, unemployment’s rising, gas prices are rising again, we’ve got pirates in the ocean, wars overseas. It’s rough, and so 1000awesomethings.com is meant to be the two or three minutes in your day where you kinda get to forget how heavy the news is right now and talk about wearing underwear just out of the dryer. And talking about finding a $10 bill in your old jacket pocket. You know, how ’bout the bakery air, when you walk into a bakery and you get that warm front of, like,1)croissants in your face. Everybody’s got their own, but there’s a lot of things that we can talk about to help us forget how rough it is out there, and so we can just sort of celebrate the optimistic part of life.
尼尔:现今世界真是噩耗连连。我们看到冰山融化,失业率上升,油价再度上涨,海盗出没,海外战火不断。时世艰辛,因此1000awesomethings.com网就是让你在生活中留两三分钟时间忘却现时沉重的新闻,聊聊穿上刚从干衣机拿出来的内衣时的舒服,谈谈在旧外套的衣袋中摸到一张10美金钞票时的惊喜。又或是那烘焙的香气——当你走进一家面包店,那暖暖的如牛角包一般的香气扑面而来。每个人都有属于他自己的小快乐,但还是有许多话题能让我们可以忘记生活的艰难,使得我们可以赞颂生活中积极的一面。
My Inspiration in “Beer + Friend” “啤酒+朋友”的灵感
Interviewer: Do you draw your inspiration from anything other than everyday life?
Neil: You know, more than anything, the inspiration really is grabbing a beer and chicken wings with friends, and somebody deciding to go on a huge 2)rant at night and saying, “You know what’s awesome? When you like those little baby drumstick chicken wings and the guy you’re with likes those flat fat chicken wings, and you guys both like hot sauce, ’cause then you’ve met your perfect chicken wing partner.” And I remember that specific conversation happening, and, like, that was the next day’s blog post, so you could check in the 3)archives. The “perfect chicken wing partner,” you know, 4)spawned perfectly from that conversation. And more than anything it’s people going on 5)hilarious rants about something they find enjoyable, and instead of letting them die, all I do is just write them down.
采访者:你会不会从其他事物而非日常生活中吸取灵感?
尼尔:其实灵感最重要的来源是与朋友们在一起,抓起啤酒和鸡翅的欢乐时光。有人在一场滔滔夜侃中接话,说:“你知道什么是拉风吗?就是当你喜欢小鸡槌那头,而你的男友喜欢平厚的中翅部分,且你们两人都喜欢辣酱的时候。因为你遇到了你完美的鸡翅伴侣。”我记得所发生的那段谈话的具体内容,它就成了第二天的博文,不信你可以查查过往的记录。《完美的鸡翅伴侣》,就从那段对话中完美诞生了。最重要的是人们兴高采烈,口若悬河地谈论着他们的赏心乐事,我所做的只不过是把它们写下来,而不是让它们销声匿迹。
Significance of Every Post 每天一“博” 的意义
Interviewer: What’s the reaction been like? How have you found the reaction to the website from people who visit it?
Neil: It’s been completely 6)surreal and7)overwhelming, you know. It’s...essentially it’s the reaction and the positive reaction of it that’s kind of kept me really, really charged up about it, because whenever I have a tough week, where I’m staying up late and I’m just sort of like, “I don’t know how long I can do this,” 8)inevitably I get an e-mail from, you know, a preacher saying, “I use this in my 9)sermons every Sunday. Thank you.”
Interviewer: Wow!
Neil: And then I’ve got, you know, heavier e-mails, you know, often they’re people that have been 10)assaulted or 11)abused, people that, you know, suicidal teens, cancer patients, they’re very, very heavy and often very dark and they make me feel very lucky. But their message simply is, “you know, thank you because I’m having a lot of problems right now, and you’re reminding me that a lot of these awesome things are things I still get to experience. I still love the cold side of the pillow, so thanks for reminding me of that, such a great thing, and please don’t stop because I read it every day.”
采访者:反响如何?你有否收到过网页浏览者对你网站的反馈?
尼尔:简直像做梦一样,太令人惊讶了。其实从根本上来说,就是大家的反馈、正面的反馈让我继续保持对写此博文的热情的。因为每当我遇到工作很忙碌的一周,要熬夜加班时,我就会想:“我不知道我还能坚持写多久。”然而我总会收到来自一位牧师什么的电子邮件,说:“每个周日布道时,我都会引用你的文章。谢谢。”
采访者:哇!
尼尔:此外还有,一些更沉重些的电子邮件。那常常是来自遭受了侵犯或伤害的人、想自杀的青少年和癌症病人,都是非常、非常沉重,很阴暗的内容,那让我觉得自己很幸运。但他们的留言通常只是说:“谢谢你,因为我现在遇到许多问题,但你提醒我,我还能体验感受这么多美好的事情。我仍喜欢感受枕头凉快的那一面。谢谢你提醒了我那么棒的一件事,请不要停止写博客,因为我每天都看。”
Two Advices for Bloggers 给博主的两点忠告
Interviewer: What advice would you give to other aspiring bloggers out there, who are following in your footsteps?
Neil: Maybe it sounds like a 12)cliché, but I think you have to do what you love; you just 13)bluntly have to do it, and, you know, for me, I’ve never, sort of, forcibly tried to, you know, market the website or things like that. I think if you do what you love and you focus on it and you write every day, you will get better at it by doing it yourself. I think that’s the fir…you know, that’s sort of the biggest thing of all. And then the second thing I’d give in terms of advice is, do put some time disciplines on it. For me that was like every weekday twelve or one AM, counting down, and make it really obvious so that, if I failed and if I missed it, …
Interviewer: People will hold you to it.
Neil: … Yep. It’s really helpful in a way because it forces you to be there for it.
采访者:你有什么忠告给其他有理想的、以你为榜样的博主?
尼尔:这听起来也许有点陈词滥调,但我觉得你还是要做自己喜欢做的事。你一头扎进那里面,对于我来说,我从没强迫自己把网站推出市场什么的。我想如果你做着自己喜欢做的事,集中精力,每天都写,凭个人努力你就会越做越出色。我认为那是第一……那是最重要的一点。其次我给的建议则是,一定要有时间规律。像我则是每个工作日凌晨12点或1点,每天一帖地倒数着1000件乐事,使得这规律不言而喻,那么当我没有做到或漏了做……
采访者:人们会令你坚持下去。
尼尔:……是的。这在一定程度上非常有用,因为那会迫使你持之以恒。
翻译:立及夕
