我的 Notion 裡有一個置頂檔案，叫做「值得每年重讀一遍的文章」，我會在每年的 12 月 31 日，安靜地把它們全部重讀一遍。

之前，這裡面收錄了 6 篇文章，今天，又添加了第 7 篇：來自 Y Combinator 創始人 Paul Graham 這兩天剛發表的《What To Do^[1] (做點什麼好呢？)》

我也迫不及待的想分享這一篇給大家。它回答了兩個關鍵問題：

人活著最根本的價值在哪裡？答案是：創造真正美好的新東西。
創造為何如此重要？是因為它體現了人類最核心的特質：深度思考的能力和探索未知的勇氣。

但在放出全文翻譯之前，我想先寫點最近的個人感受。

前不久，因為 Manus 釋出後全網熱議，出現了很多批評的聲音。讓我再次想起自己一直放在個人網站^[2]的一句話，來自多抓魚創始人貓助：

批評時總顯得聰明，就像建造時總顯得笨拙。

這句話與 Paul Graham 在文章中的觀點不謀而合。

我的朋友 indigo 也在他的公眾號中向大家推薦了這篇文章，他同時寫道：

”一個真正充實的人生，既需要遵守傳統的道德義務（比如善良與責任感），更要有意識地追求創造與突破。只有這樣，人類的精神才不會停滯，個體也才可能真正活出自己的潛能與意義。人應該做的最根本的事情，就是去做一個有創造力的人，去創造那些尚不存在但卻美好、深刻且富有意義的新東西。“

昨晚我們和 StressWatch^[3] 的創始人 Patrick 錄完播客，一群人走在上海街頭，Patrick 和我聊起「運氣」的話題，我再次想起下面這張圖：

這張圖在試著回答這個問題：「如何才能擁有好運氣呢？」

它給出的答案是：運氣是存在面積的；你一生中擁有多少運氣，就等於你創造了多少價值，乘以你告訴了多少人。

是的。

多做事，然後要讓儘可能多的人知道你做的這些事。

Paul Graham 的文章我每篇必讀，因為它們總能同時提供信念感和方法論。一本《駭客與畫家》^[4]幾乎被我翻爛了，在我創業初期，這些文章給了我很多啟發。

隨著 PG 年齡和智慧的增長，他開始探討人生意義和工作價值這類話題。雖然世上關於這些主題的文章數不勝數，但 PG 的寫作獨樹一幟——他既犀利又溫柔，既富有洞察又充滿共情。

接下來，我會分享這篇文章的中英文對照版。

我嘗試在 Claude 3.7 的幫助下進行了人肉翻譯潤色。但我保留了英文版，因為我發現無論是我自己、還是靠 Claude 3.7，都難以完全準確地翻譯這篇文章。只有閱讀英文原文，才能最準確地理解這篇文章。

《做點什麼好呢？》

What To Do

What should one do? That may seem a strange question, but it's not meaningless or unanswerable. It's the sort of question kids ask before they learn not to ask big questions. I only came across it myself in the process of investigating something else. But once I did, I thought I should at least try to answer it.

一個人應該做點什麼好呢？

這可能聽起來是個奇怪的問題，但它並非毫無意義或無法回答。

孩子們常常會問這樣的大問題，直到他們被大人教育“不要再問這種宏大敘事的問題了”。

我最近在研究其他東西時，偶遇了這個問題。既然遇到了，我想我應該試著回答一下它吧。

So what should one do? One should help people, and take care of the world. Those two are obvious. But is there anything else? When I ask that, the answer that pops up is Make good new things.

那麼，一個人，應該，做什麼呢？

首先：幫助他人，愛護世界。這兩點毋庸置疑。

但除此之外呢？當我思考這個問題時，浮現在腦海中的答案是：

創造美好的新東西。

I can't prove that one should do this, any more than I can prove that one should help people or take care of the world. We're talking about first principles here. But I can explain why this principle makes sense. The most impressive thing humans can do is to think. It may be the most impressive thing that can be done. And the best kind of thinking, or more precisely the best proof that one has thought well, is to make good new things.

我無法證明為什麼一個人應該做這個，就像我也無法證明為什麼一個人應該幫助他人或愛護世界。這些都是基本原則。

但我可以解釋為什麼這個原則有意義——

人類最令人印象深刻的能力就是：「思考」。這可能是世界上最了不起的事情。

然而，「最好的思考」，或者說證明人類的思考的最佳方式，就是去創造美好的「新東西(new things)」。

I mean new things in a very general sense. Newton's physics was a good new thing. Indeed, the first version of this principle was to have good new ideas. But that didn't seem general enough: it didn't include making art or music, for example, except insofar as they embody new ideas. And while they may embody new ideas, that's not all they embody, unless you stretch the word "idea" so uselessly thin that it includes everything that goes through your nervous system.

我所說的「新東西(new things)」含義很廣。牛頓的物理學就是一個很好的新東西。

最初我本來想說創造美好的「新想法(new ideas)」，但這個說法似乎太侷限了——它沒法包括藝術或音樂創作，除非我們把藝術和音樂也看作是一種 idea。但藝術和音樂不僅僅是 idea，它們承載的內容遠不止於此。

Even for ideas that one has consciously, though, I prefer the phrasing "make good new things." There are other ways to describe the best kind of thinking. To make discoveries, for example, or to understand something more deeply than others have. But how well do you understand something if you can't make a model of it, or write about it? Indeed, trying to express what you understand is not just a way to prove that you understand it, but a way to understand it better.

所以，我更喜歡用「創造美好的新東西(new things)」這個說法。

其實也有很多別的方式，可以展現什麼是「最好的思考」。例如，去發現新的東西，或者比別人更透徹地理解某些事情

但這些方式，都不如真的去「創造美好的新東西」。

如果你不把一個思考創造出來，使它成為某種「新東西」，那就說明你可能還沒真正理解它。

把思考創造出來，不僅能檢驗你的思考能力，還能讓思考更全面、更通透。

Another reason I like this phrasing is that it biases us toward creation. It causes us to prefer the kind of ideas that are naturally seen as making things rather than, say, making critical observations about things other people have made. Those are ideas too, and sometimes valuable ones, but it's easy to trick oneself into believing they're more valuable than they are. Criticism seems sophisticated, and making new things often seems awkward, especially at first; and yet it's precisely those first steps that are most rare and valuable.

我喜歡這個說法，是因為它鼓勵人們把重心放在創造上。

它讓我們更傾向於做出新東西，而不是去評判他人的作品。當然，評判也是一種想法，有時也很有價值。但評判別人時，我們很容易誤認為自己很了不起。

批評時總顯得聰明，而創造新東西往往顯得笨拙，尤其是在開始階段。

不過，正是這些看似笨拙的開始最為可貴，也最為難得。

Is newness essential? I think so. Obviously it's essential in science. If you copied a paper of someone else's and published it as your own, it would seem not merely unimpressive but dishonest. And it's similar in the arts. A copy of a good painting can be a pleasing thing, but it's not impressive in the way the original was. Which in turn implies it's not impressive to make the same thing over and over, however well; you're just copying yourself.

那麼，"新"真的很重要嗎？我認為是的。

在科研領域，這一點顯而易見。如果你抄襲別人的論文，不僅不會令人刮目相看，還會被視為不誠實的行為。

藝術領域也是如此。一幅畫作的複製品可能很美，但它永遠無法像原作那樣令人驚歎。

同樣的道理，不斷重複創作同樣的東西，不管做得多好，都不會讓人印象深刻，因為那只是在複製自己。

Note though that we're talking about a different kind of should with this principle. Taking care of people and the world are shoulds in the sense that they're one's duty, but making good new things is a should in the sense that this is how to live to one's full potential. Historically most rules about how to live have been a mix of both kinds of should, though usually with more of the former than the latter.

請注意：我們再談論兩種不同的"應該"：

"應該幫助他人和愛護世界"是人們需要去履行的責任，而"應該去創造美好的新東西"則是為了讓每個人都活出人生最大的潛能。

從前人們定下的生活準則中，通常都混合了這兩種"應該"，但前者往往更多一些。

For most of history the question "What should one do?" got much the same answer everywhere, whether you asked Cicero or Confucius. You should be wise, brave, honest, temperate, and just, uphold tradition, and serve the public interest. There was a long stretch where in some parts of the world the answer became "Serve God," but in practice it was still considered good to be wise, brave, honest, temperate, and just, uphold tradition, and serve the public interest. And indeed this recipe would have seemed right to most Victorians. But there's nothing in it about taking care of the world or making new things, and that's a bit worrying, because it seems like this question should be a timeless one. The answer shouldn't change much.

過去，無論你是向西塞羅還是孔子求教"人生應該做點什麼好呢?"，答案都大同小異：人應該智慧、勇敢、誠實、節制、正義，堅持傳統媒體，為公眾利益服務。

後來在一些地區，答案變成了"侍奉上帝"。但實際上，人們依然認為應該保持上述美德。

即使到了維多利亞時代，人們仍然認同這些價值觀。

然而，這些傳統答案中既沒有提到"愛護世界"，也沒有提到"創造新東西"。

這讓人困惑，因為這個問題應該是超越時代的，答案不應該隨時代改變太多。

I'm not too worried that the traditional answers don't mention taking care of the world. Obviously people only started to care about that once it became clear we could ruin it. But how can making good new things be important if the traditional answers don't mention it?

傳統答案沒有提到"愛護世界"很正常，畢竟人類是在認識自己可能毀滅地球之後，才開始關注環保。

但是，如果「創造美好的新東西」真的那麼重要，為什麼傳統答案中卻從未提及？

The traditional answers were answers to a slightly different question. They were answers to the question of how to be, rather than what to do. The audience didn't have a lot of choice about what to do. The audience up till recent centuries was the landowning class, which was also the political class. They weren't choosing between doing physics and writing novels. Their work was foreordained: manage their estates, participate in politics, fight when necessary. It was ok to do certain other kinds of work in one's spare time, but ideally one didn't have any. Cicero's De Officiis is one of the great classical answers to the question of how to live, and in it he explicitly says that he wouldn't even be writing it if he hadn't been excluded from public life by recent political upheavals.

這是因為，在傳統的答案中，其實回答的是另一個問題：他們在回答"如何做人(how to be)"，而不是"做什麼事(what to do)"。

在過去的時代，人們其實沒有太多選擇。

直到最近幾個世紀前，能提出這類問題的都是地主階級，也就是政治階級。他們不需要在物理研究和寫小說之間做選擇，因為他們的工作早已註定：管理土地、參與政治、必要時參戰。

雖然他們可以在空閒時間做一些其他工作，但理想狀態下，他們根本不應該有空閒時間。

西塞羅的《論責任》是一部關於“如何生活(how to live)”的經典著作，他在書中明確表示，如果不是因為政治動盪讓他被排除在公共生活之外，他甚至不會寫這本書。

There were of course people doing what we would now call "original work," and they were often admired for it, but they weren't seen as models. Archimedes knew that he was the first to prove that a sphere has 2/3 the volume of the smallest enclosing cylinder and was very pleased about it. But you don't find ancient writers urging their readers to emulate him. They regarded him more as a prodigy than a model.

當然，在那個時代也有人在做原創性工作。雖然他們常常受人欽佩，但並不被視為榜樣。

阿基米德發現球體的體積是其外接圓柱體的 2/3，這讓他感到很自豪。但是，古代作家從不鼓勵讀者效仿他。

在他們眼中，阿基米德更像是一個天才，而不是一個可以模仿的榜樣。

Now many more of us can follow Archimedes's example and devote most of our attention to one kind of work. He turned out to be a model after all, along with a collection of other people that his contemporaries would have found it strange to treat as a distinct group, because the vein of people making new things ran at right angles to the social hierarchy.

現在，我們很多人都可以和阿基米德一樣，把大部分時間和精力都投入到一種工作中。

阿基米德最終成為了人們的榜樣，還有其他一些人也是如此。

在阿基米德的時代，人們會覺得把這些人當作一個特別的群體很奇怪，因為那些創造新東西的人與當時的社會等級制度是不相符的，他們憑藉創新能力而不是社會地位脫穎而出。

What kinds of new things count? I'd rather leave that question to the makers of them. It would be a risky business to try to define any kind of threshold, because new kinds of work are often despised at first. Raymond Chandler was writing literal pulp fiction, and he's now recognized as one of the best writers of the twentieth century. Indeed this pattern is so common that you can use it as a recipe: if you're excited about some kind of work that's not considered prestigious and you can explain what everyone else is overlooking about it, then this is not merely a kind of work that's ok to do, but one to seek out.

那麼，什麼樣的新東西才算有價值的創造呢？——這個問題最好留給創造者們自己判斷。

為它設定標準是很危險的，因為新東西在剛出現時往往不被重視。

比如雷蒙德·錢德勒，他最初只是在寫難登大雅之堂的通俗小說，如今卻被認為是20世紀最偉大的作家之一。

這種模式很常見，你甚至可以用它來找尋方向：

如果你熱愛一份不被重視的工作，而且你明白它的獨特價值，那就大膽去做吧！

The other reason I wouldn't want to define any thresholds is that we don't need them. The kind of people who make good new things don't need rules to keep them honest.

我們不需要設定標準的另一個原因是：

真正能創造好東西的人，不需要規則來約束自己。

So there's my guess at a set of principles to live by: take care of people and the world, and make good new things. Different people will do these to varying degrees. There will presumably be lots who focus entirely on taking care of people. There will be a few who focus mostly on making new things. But even if you're one of those, you should at least make sure that the new things you make don't net harm people or the world. And if you go a step further and try to make things that help them, you may find you're ahead on the trade. You'll be more constrained in what you can make, but you'll make it with more energy.

所以，我認為生活的原則可以概括為：關心他人和世界，創造美好的新東西。

每個人都有自己的專長和選擇。有人喜歡照顧他人，有人擅長創新。

如果你是創新者，記住一點：你創造的東西不能傷害他人和這個世界。

更好的是，你可以把創新的目標定位在幫助他人。這樣雖然會給創新帶來一些限制，但也會激發你更大的熱情。

On the other hand, if you make something amazing, you'll often be helping people or the world even if you didn't mean to. Newton was driven by curiosity and ambition, not by any practical effect his work might have, and yet the practical effect of his work has been enormous. And this seems the rule rather than the exception. So if you think you can make something amazing, you should probably just go ahead and do it.

有趣的是，當你專注於創造令人驚歎的事物時，往往會不經意間幫助到他人和這個世界。

就像牛頓一樣。他做研究純粹是出於好奇心和追求成就，但他的發現最終給人類帶來了巨大的改變。這種情況其實很普遍。

所以，如果你覺得自己能創造出厲害的東西，就放手去做吧！