I was in New York during Hurricane Sandy, and this little white dog called Maui was staying with me. Half the city was dark because of a power cut, and I was living on the dark side. 

当飓风桑迪来袭时，我正在纽约 和一只名叫毛伊的小白狗 待在一起 由于停电，半个城市处于黑暗中 我当时就在黑暗(停电)的这一边

Now, Maui was terrified of the dark, so I had to carry him up the stairs, actually down the stairs first, for his walk, and then bring him back up. I was also hauling gallons of bottles of water up to the seventh floor every day. 

毛伊非常怕黑 我只好把它抱上楼 实际上是先带下楼去遛 再把它抱回来 我每天还要将数加仑的瓶装水 艰难地拖到七楼

And through all of this, I had to hold a torch between my teeth. The stores nearby were out of flashlights and batteries and bread. For a shower, I walked 40 blocks to a branch of my gym.

而且同时 我还得牙咬着手电照明。 附近商店里的手电筒，电池 和面包早已售罄 为了洗个澡，我得走40个路口 到一个健身中心去。

But these were not the major preoccupations of my day. It was just as critical for me to be the first person in at a cafe nearby with extension cords and chargers to juice my multiple devices. I started to prospect under the benches of bakeries and the entrances of pastry shops for plug points. I wasn't the only one. 

但这些并不是我一天中最重要的任务 对我来说同样重要的还有能否第一个 带上充电线到附近的一家咖啡馆 给我的多个设备充电。 我开始寻找面包店长椅下 和糕点店入口处的那些插座 我并不是唯一一个

Even in the rain, people stood between Madison and 5th Avenue under their umbrellas charging their cell phones from outlets on the street. Nature had just reminded us that it was stronger than all our technology, and yet here we were, obsessed about being wired. 

即使下着雨，也有人打着雨伞站在 麦迪逊和第五大道之间的街边插座旁 等着自己的手机充电 大自然提醒着我们 它比所有的技术来的强大 但我们仍然沉迷于上网。

I think there's nothing like a crisis to tell you what's really important and what's not, and Sandy made me realize that our devices and their connectivity matter to us right up there with food and shelter. 

我认为没有什么能够比一场危机 更能告诉你事物的轻重缓急 飓风桑迪使我认识到我们的电子设备 及其通讯功能对我的重要程度 就如食物和住所一般 

The self as we once knew it no longer exists, and I think that an abstract, digital universe has become a part of our identity, and I want to talk to you about what I think that means. 

我们所熟知的一部分自己已经不复存在 而一个抽象的数字的世界 已经成为了我们身份的一部分 我想谈谈这意味着什么

I'm a novelist, and I'm interested in the self because the self and fiction have a lot in common. They're both stories, interpretations. You and I can experience things without a story. We might run up the stairs too quickly and we might get breathless. 

我是一个小说家，我对关于“自我”的话题感兴趣 因为“自我”和小说有很多共同点 他们都属于一种故事和诠释 你和我可以不通过故事体验事情 我们可能爬楼梯爬得太快 我们可能呼吸困难

But the larger sense that we have of our lives, the slightly more abstract one, is indirect. Our story of our life is based on direct experience, but it's embellished. A novel needs scene after scene to build, and the story of our life needs an arc as well. It needs months and years. Discrete moments from our lives are its chapters. 

但我们越是深入地感受我们的生活 就越是感受到其抽象和不直接 我们关于生活的故事都来自于经历 但是修饰过的 小说需要一个接一个的场景来完成 我们生活的故事同样需要一道时间跨度 需要数月甚至数年的 独立生活场景来组成一个个章节

But the story is not about these chapters. It's the whole book. It's not only about the heartbreak and the happiness, the victories and the disappointments, but it's because how because of these, and sometimes, more importantly, in spite of these, we find our place in the world and we change it and we change ourselves. 

但故事并不是仅仅是这些章节 而是整整一本书 不仅仅是伤心和愉悦 也不仅仅是胜利和失望 而是所有的前因后果 有时候，也许更加重要的是，尽管有此种种 我们寻找自己在世界中的位置 然后改变这个位置，改变自我

Our story, therefore, needs two dimensions of time: a long arc of time that is our lifespan, and the timeframe of direct experience that is the moment. Now the self that experiences directly can only exist in the moment, but the one that narrates needs several moments, a whole sequence of them, and that's why our full sense of self needs both immersive experience and the flow of time. 

我们的故事，因此，需要一个二维的时间轴： 一个是我们整个的生命 以及另一个就是直接经历的时间片段 便是某个时刻 现在直接经历的那个“自我” 只存在于某个时刻 但一个故事需要多个时刻组成 多个有序的时刻 这就是为何完整的“自我”认识 同时包括深入地体验 和时间的流逝

Now, the flow of time is embedded in everything, in the erosion of a grain of sand, in the budding of a little bud into a rose. Without it, we would have no music. Our own emotions and state of mind often encode time, regret or nostalgia about the past, hope or dread about the future. 

 时间的流逝镌刻于每一件事情中 无论是一粒沙尘的消逝 还是一朵玫瑰的缓缓绽放 没有时间的流逝，我们无法获得音乐 我们自己的情绪和意识 往往同时间紧密相连 无论是对过去的悔恨或怀念 或是对未来的希望和担心 

I think that technology has altered that flow of time. The overall time that we have for our narrative, our lifespan, has been increasing, but the smallest measure, the moment, has shrunk. It has shrunk because our instruments enable us in part to measure smaller and smaller units of time, and this in turn has given us a more granular understanding of the material world, and this granular understanding has generated reams of data that our brains can no longer comprehend and for which we need more and more complicated computers. 

我认为科技已经改变的时间的流逝 我们人生中用在叙事上的时间 增加了 但时间的片段和瞬间，却简短了 因为我们的设备让我们 能够度量越来越小的时间片段 这反过来又给了我们一个更细粒度的理解 物质世界 这种细粒度的理解 产生了大量的数据 我们的大脑不能处理了 这就导致我们需要越来越复杂的电脑。

All of this to say that the gap between what we can perceive and what we can measure is only going to widen. Science can do things with and in a picosecond, but you and I are never going to have the inner experience of a millionth of a millionth of a second. 

这一切就是说明 我们可以理解世界的和我们可以度量的世界之间的鸿沟 越来越大了。 科技可以实现在皮秒（百亿分之一秒）下完成工作， 可是你我却没有可能感受到 百万分之百万分之一秒。

You and I answer only to nature's rhythm and flow, to the sun, the moon and the seasons, and this is why we need that long arc of time with the past, the present and the future to see things for what they are, to separate signal from noise and the self from sensations. 

你我，只能感受到自然的变化节奏， 太阳，月亮，季节 这需要很长的时间跨度 包括过去，现在和未来 分清事物， 从噪声中剥离出信号 从感觉中辨析“自我”。 

We need time's arrow to understand cause and effect, not just in the material world, but in our own intentions and our motivations. What happens when that arrow goes awry? What happens when time warps? 

我们需要时间箭头的方向辨析因果， 不仅在物质世界里， 还在我们自己的内在世界。 时间箭头的方向出错了会如何？ 时间扭曲了会如何？

So many of us today have the sensation that time's arrow is pointing everywhere and nowhere at once. This is because time doesn't flow in the digital world in the same way that it does in the natural one. We all know that the Internet has shrunk space as well as time. 

我们现今有许多感觉 时间箭头指向了所有方向 同时又没有指向任何方向。 这是因为数字世界中时间 不会像在现实世界中一样流淌。 我们知道互联网拉近了空间 和时间。 

Far away over there is now here. News from India is a stream on my smartphone app whether I'm in New York or New Delhi. And that's not all. Your last job, your dinner reservations from last year, your former friends, lie on a flat plain with today's friends, because the Internet also archives, and it warps the past. 

遥远的地方就在身边。 来自印度的消息流入我的智能手机应用程序 不管我在纽约还是在新德里。 这还不是全部。 你上一份工作，你去年的订餐记录， 你以前的朋友，和现如今的朋友并排在一个屏幕上， 因为互联网会存档， 它扭曲了过去。 

With no distinction left between the past, the present and the future, and the here or there, we are left with this moment everywhere, this moment that I'll call the digital now. 

没法区分过去， 现在和未来，此处和彼处， 我们这一刻无处不在， 这一刻，我称之为“数字当下”

Just how can we prioritize in the landscape of the digital now? This digital now is not the present, because it's always a few seconds ahead, with Twitter streams that are already trending and news from other time zones. 

我们如何在“数字当下”中 区分优先级呢？ “数字当下”不是现在， 因为它总是超前几秒， 推特推送了来自 其它时区的新闻。

This isn't the now of a shooting pain in your foot or the second that you bite into a pastry or the three hours that you lose yourself in a great book. This now bears very little physical or psychological reference to our own state. Its focus, instead, is to distract us at every turn on the road. 

 “数字当下”不再是现在，有切肤之感、 或者品味糕点的时刻、 或者是三个小时流连于好书中间。 “数字当下”很少参照我们自身 生理或心理的状态。 “数字当下”使我们 在每个路口分心。

Every digital landmark is an invitation to leave what you are doing now to go somewhere else and do something else. Are you reading an interview by an author? Why not buy his book? Tweet it. Share it. Like it. 

每个数字路标都是一个岔路 会使我们到其它地方去 做其它事。 你在阅读作者的专访吗? 为什么不买他的书？推特上转发它，共享它。 顶它。

Find other books exactly like his. Find other people reading those books. Travel can be liberating, but when it is incessant, we become permanent exiles without repose. Choice is freedom, but not when it's constantly for its own sake. 

找类似的图书。 找那些正在阅读此类书的读者。 旅行（网上冲浪）是自由的， 但当它变得不停不歇， 我们就变成了永久的流亡者，没有些许喘息。 选择是自由的，但无时无刻的选择就 不是自由了。 

Not just is the digital now far from the present, but it's in direct competition with it, and this is because not just am I absent from it, but so are you. Not just are we absent from it, but so is everyone else. And therein lies its greatest convenience and horror. 

"数字当下"不仅远离现在， 而且它也在于现在竞争， 这不仅仅是因为我脱离了现在， 而且你们也是。 不仅是因为我们脱离了现在，每个其他人都是。 这就是最大的便利和恐怖所在

I can order foreign language books in the middle of the night, shop for Parisian macarons, and leave video messages that get picked up later. At all times, I can operate at a different rhythm and pace from you, while I sustain the illusion that I'm tapped into you in real time.

我可以在午夜订外文书， 买巴黎的法国小圆饼， 留视频信息，稍后接收。 在任何时候,我可以 以与你不同的节奏和速度操作， 当我还沉浸在这样 与你们实时互动的幻境中的时候。 

Sandy was a reminder of how such an illusion can shatter. There were those with power and water, and those without. There are those who went back to their lives, and those who are still displaced after so many months. 

桑迪飓风提醒了我们 幻境可以被粉碎。 居所分为有水有电的 和没有的。 有些人回到他们的生活， 经过许多个月 还有些人仍然无法上网。

For some reason, technology seems to perpetuate the illusion for those who have it that everyone does, and then, like an ironic slap in the face, it makes it true. For example, it's said that there are more people in India with access to cell phones than toilets. 

出于某种原因,技术似乎给我们一种 每个人都拥有一样条件的幻觉， 然后，一个讽刺的耳光， 它现出原形。 例如：据说在印度 有手机的人比有抽水马桶的人多。

Now if this rift, which is already so great in many parts of the world, between the lack of infrastructure and the spread of technology, isn't somehow bridged, there will be ruptures between the digital and the real. 

这样的鸿沟，已经如此巨大 在世界很多地方， 那里往往缺少基础设施， 但技术进步的脚步已经捷足先登。 但假如这两者之间的鸿沟不被连接的话， 将会带来巨大的断层。

For us as individuals who live in the digital now and spend most of our waking moments in it, the challenge is to live in two streams of time that are parallel and almost simultaneous. How does one live inside distraction? 

对于我们那些醒着的时间 生活在“数字当下”中的人， 挑战在于生活在 两个并行同时存在的时间流中。 一个人如何生活在分心中?

We might think that those younger than us, those who are born into this, will adapt more naturally. Possibly, but I remember my childhood. I remember my grandfather revising the capitals of the world with me. Buda and Pest were separated by the Danube, and Vienna had a Spanish riding school. 

我们也许会想年轻人会比我们好些， 他们出生于数字时代，会自然的适应。 也许，但是我记起了我的童年。 我记得我祖父告诉我 世界各地的首都。 布达和佩斯（布达佩斯）是被多瑙河分割开的， 维也纳有个西班牙马术学校。 

If I were a child today, I could easily learn this information with apps and hyperlinks, but it really wouldn't be the same, because much later, I went to Vienna, and I went to the Spanish riding school, and I could feel my grandfather right beside me. Night after night, he took me up on the terrace, on his shoulders, and pointed out Jupiter and Saturn and the Great Bear to me. 

如果我是当下的小孩子，我会很快知道这些信息 利用互联网， 但体验绝不会是相同的， 因为，多年后，去维也纳， 我去了那间西班牙马术学校， 我感觉我祖父就在我身边。 夜复一夜，他带我到阳台上， 在他的肩膀上，指点我木星 土星和大熊星座。

And even here, when I look at the Great Bear, I get back that feeling of being a child, hanging onto his head and trying to balance myself on his shoulder, and I can get back that feeling of being a child again. What I had with my grandfather was wrapped so often in information and knowledge and fact, but it was about so much more than information or knowledge or fact. 

即使在这里，当我看到大熊星座时， 我会回想起小时候， 在他头顶上，努力 在他肩膀上保持平衡， 我能再次回想到小时候。 我和我的祖父的过往 夹杂着信息和知识和事实， 但这些意味着更多 超越信息和知识和事实。

Time-warping technology challenges our deepest core, because we are able to archive the past and some of it becomes hard to forget, even as the current moment is increasingly unmemorable. We want to clutch, and we are left instead clutching at a series of static moments. They're like soap bubbles that disappear when we touch them. 

时间扭曲技术 挑战我们最深层的内核， 因为我们可以记录过去 有些东西变得难以忘却， 即使在当下 越来越不容易记住。 我们希望抓住关键时刻，取而代之我们希望抓住关键时刻的 变成了一串静止时刻。 它们象肥皂泡，我们一触即破。 

By archiving everything, we think that we can store it, but time is not data. It cannot be stored. You and I know exactly what it means like to be truly present in a moment. It might have happened while we were playing an instrument, or looking into the eyes of someone we've known for a very long time. 

通过存档，我们认为我们可以保存有一切， 但时间不是数据。 它不能被保存。 你和我知道这意味着什么 确实的在某一时刻。 它（记住的关键时刻）可能发生在 我们演奏乐器时， 或者注视一个我们熟知人的 眼睛时。 

At such moments, our selves are complete. The self that lives in the long narrative arc and the self that experiences the moment become one. The present encapsulates the past and a promise for the future. The present joins a flow of time from before and after. 

在这些时刻，我们自己是完整的。 “自我”生活在漫长的情节 “自我”体验的时刻， 成为自我。 当下包含过去， 是对未来的一个承诺。 当下汇聚流失的时间 从过去和之后。 

I first experienced these feelings with my grandmother. I wanted to learn to skip, and she found an old rope and she tucked up her sari and she jumped over it. I wanted to learn to cook, and she kept me in the kitchen, cutting, cubing and chopping for a whole month. 

我第一次体验到它是和我的祖母。 我想学会跳绳,她找出一条老绳 把纱丽扎起来 然后跳了过去。 我想学做菜，她就和我 在厨房里切了一个月的菜。

My grandmother taught me that things happen in the time they take, that time can't be fought, and because it will pass and it will move, we owe the present moment our full attention. Attention is time. 

我的祖母教会了我事情发生在 它们占用的时间上， 时间不可战胜， 因为时间是时不我待的， 我们拥有现在用我们的注意力 注意力、关心就是时间。

One of my yoga instructors once said that love is attention, and definitely from my grandmother, love and attention were one and the same thing. The digital world cannibalizes time, and in doing so, I want to suggest that what it threatens is the completeness of ourselves. It threatens the flow of love. 

我的一位瑜伽老师曾说过 爱就是关注， 确实从我祖母那里我学到 爱便等同于关注。 数字世界吞噬时间， 有鉴于此，我建议 数字世界 威胁的是我们自身的完整性。 它威胁到爱的流淌。

But we don't need to let it. We can choose otherwise. We've seen again and again just how creative technology can be, and in our lives and in our actions, we can choose those solutions and those innovations and those moments that restore the flow of time instead of fragmenting it. 

不过我们可以不让它发生。 我们可以选择。 我们已经看了许多遍 创新技术的能耐， 在我们的生活中和行为中， 我们可以选择这些创新 同时这些时刻我们可以记下时间流淌 而不是存储时间碎片。

We can slow down and we can tune in to the ebb and flow of time. We can choose to take time back. 

我们可以慢放，我们可以对焦 时间的流淌和潮汐 我们可以选择夺回”时间“ 

Thank you.

谢谢！

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