玛丽娜·基亘是耶鲁大学的一名学生，也是校报《耶鲁每日新闻》的主要写手。然而造化弄人，正当她带着爱与谦卑准备为这个世界带来一点改变时，一场车祸夺走了她年轻的生命。斯人已逝，唯有那些触人心弦的文字留了下来。这篇小短文是她在毕业那天Yale Daily News上发表的文章，献给当时所有的毕业生。如今读来，只觉得字字击在心头，发人深省；尤其是她反复强调的那句话：“我们不过从大学毕业而已。我们还这么年轻。我们不能，我们绝对不能丢了这份怀有一切可能的心，因为到头来，除了它，我们一无所有。”是的，除了这颗心，这个梦想，这份期许和热情，我们一无所有。
我们没合适的词来形容孤独的背面，但如果有，我要说，那就是我的今生所求。那是我在耶鲁找到的，我感激的，以及我害怕失去的——明早我们在毕业典礼之后醒来，要离开这片地方的时候。
We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow after Commencement and leave this place. 这感觉说不上是爱，也不是什么同志情怀；只是当你和其他人，许许多多的人一起相互依靠、同舟共济的感觉。和你在同一战线上的同学。你坐着等别人去付帐单。某个晚上凌晨四点却没人有睡觉的意思。那个听吉他声的夜晚。或是什么我们早已记不清的晚上。我们经历过，走过，看过，笑过，感同身受过。还有毕业典礼上满天飞舞的帽子。
It’s not quite love and its’ not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four A.M. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats. 耶鲁满是我们给自己围起来的小圈子。合唱团，运动队，宿舍，兄弟会，课外活动。因为它们我们才感觉到爱，还有极度的信赖，即使在那些最孤独的深夜，当我们孤身一人踉踉跄跄地走回宿舍，再打开电脑奋斗的时候——无依无靠，满身疲劳，却清醒无比。明年我们将失去这一切。我们不会再和自己的朋友住在同一栋楼。我们不再会有数不清的群发短信。
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers—partnerless, tired, awake. We don’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group texts. 这让我恐惧。相比找不到好工作、找不到安定的住所、孤独终身，我更害怕失去现在我们拥有的小世界。这份模糊不清、难以定义的孤独的背面。此时此刻我深切体会到的。
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse, I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now. 但让我们把这点弄清：人生最好的年华不在未来，而是当下——此刻我们的一部分，今后只会不断地重复，我们搬到纽约，搬出纽约接着后悔我们来过或没来过纽约。我三十岁时还想开派对。我老了之后还想精彩地活着。任何时候我们提起最好的年华，总离不开那几个老掉牙的前缀：“早知道就…”“如果我…”“要是我…”
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m thirty. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should have…,” “if I’d…,” “wish I’d…” 确实，有很多事我们都后悔没做：该读的那些书，那个住在隔壁的男孩。我们对自己相当苛刻，正是为此才这么容易让自己失望。偶尔睡过头。偶尔拖延。偶尔投机取巧。我不止一次回想去高中时的自己，不禁感叹：我怎么可能做成那些事？那么刻苦，我是怎么做到的？内心隐隐的不安全感和我们形影不离，也许会伴随着我们一生。
Of course, there are things we wish we’d done: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re out own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my high school self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us. 但你要明白，我们都不完美。没人在他们想醒来的时候起床。没人完成该做的阅读（除非是那些获奖的狂人....）我们对自己的要求那么高不可攀，也许一辈子都没法成为想象中完美的自己。但我们都会平安无事。
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their readings (except maybe the crazy people who win prizes….). We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay. 我们这么年轻。如此年轻。我们才二十二岁。我们有大把大把的时光。有时我会有这样的感觉，派对之后孤身一人躺下，或是选择放弃之后把书本打包走人时，我们都有这样的感觉——那就是太迟了。别人早已遥遥领先。比我们更有前途，更有潜力。在拯救世界这条路上比我们走得更远，他们在创造，在改进。现在再开始一个开始实在太迟，因为我们早该坚持下来，早该启程。
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective consciousness as we lie alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out—that it is somehow too late. The others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement. 我们初到耶鲁，还有一丝可能性。我们还拥有这股巨大而无法被定义的潜能——而如今它却在一点点消逝。一直以来我们无需在人生中做出选择，但突然之间我们必须这样做。有些人因此选择局限自己。有些人因此清楚地知道自己要做什么，也顺利地上路了：要去医学院，要去那家光鲜体面的公司工作，要去作研究。对你，我只有两句话相送：一是恭喜，二是——你没救了。
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy—and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it: already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck. 是的，对于绝大部分的我们，都被淹没在这“文理学院”的通识教育之下，对于自己要走的路、或是已经选择的路都有些迷茫。要是当初我学了生物…要是我大一时就走新闻这条路…要是我当初申请了这个或者那个…
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that… 但我们必须记住，我们还能做任何事。我们还能改变主意。我们可以重新再来。去读个博士，甚至是开始写作。那个认为一切都已经太迟了因此我们无能为力的想法简直是滑稽无比。可笑至极。我们不过从大学毕业而已。我们还这么年轻。我们不能，我们绝对不能丢了这份怀有一切可能的心，因为到头来，除了它，我们一无所有。
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating from college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have. 大一那年的冬天，一个星期五晚上，我接到几个朋友打来的电话，让我去Est Est Est和他们碰面。我睡得迷迷糊糊的，也没弄清是怎么回事，就往SSS（耶鲁的行政楼）走去，那大概是校园里最偏的楼了。一直走到了门口我才问自己，我的朋友怎么会在耶鲁的行政楼里开派对。当然，他们并没这么做。天很冷，我的卡正好能用，就进了SSS，顺便掏出手机。周围一片静谧，只有树枝折断发出的声响，透过沾满污点的玻璃窗，看不清飘落的雪花。我找了片地方坐下，然后抬起头。就在这个巨大的房间里，千百号人都坐在那儿。在这个深夜，虽然孤身一人，身处纽黑文风暴之中，这份安心与满足却是那样真实，无与伦比。
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at Est Est Est. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe. 我们没什么词来形容孤独的背面，但如果有，就是我在耶鲁的感觉。现在，此时此刻的感受。和所有的你们一起。被爱包围着，屏息凝神地倾听着，怀着这颗谦卑虔诚的心，还有些忐忑不安。但我们不该丢了这份感觉。
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that. 2012年，我们同在一起。让我们为这世界做出点什么。
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
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