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ted演講稿

　　演講稿的寫法比較靈活，可以根據會議的內容、一件事事后的感想、需要等情況而有所區別。在社會發展不斷提速的今天，演講稿對我們的作用越來越大，寫起演講稿來就毫無頭緒？以下是小編幫大家整理的ted演講稿，希望能夠幫助到大家。

ted演講稿

　　ted演講稿篇1

　　I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to theP.O. bo_ at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has neverbelieved in email, in Facebook, in te_ting or cell phones in general. And sowhile other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by themailbo_ to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was alittle frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking forsome sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.

　　And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completelysucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think ofat the time. I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written mefor strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens ofthem. I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N.,everywhere. I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary,and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for ahand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked. Overnight, myinbo_ morphed into this harbor of heartbreak -- a single mother in Sacramento, agirl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barelyeven knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them areason to wait by the mailbo_.

　　Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips tothe mailbo_, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like neverbefore to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most ofall, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled withthe scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangersnot because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, butbecause they have found one another by way of letter-writing.

　　But, you know, the thing that always gets me about these letters is thatmost of them have been written by people that have never known themselves lovedon a piece of paper. They could not tell you about the ink of their own loveletters. They're the ones from my generation, the ones of us that have grown upinto a world where everything is paperless, and where some of our bestconversations have happened upon a screen. We have learned to diary our painonto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in 140 characters or less.

　　But what if it's not about efficiency this time? I was on the subwayyesterday with this mail crate, which is a conversation starter, let me tellyou. If you ever need one, just carry one of these. (Laughter) And a man juststared at me, and he was like, "Well, why don't you use the Internet?" And Ithought, "Well, sir, I am not a strategist, nor am I specialist. I am merely astoryteller." And so I could tell you about a woman whose husband has just comehome from Afghanistan, and she is having a hard time unearthing this thingcalled conversation, and so she tucks love letters throughout the house as a wayto say, "Come back to me. Find me when you can." Or a girl who decides that sheis going to leave love letters around her campus in Dubuque, Iowa, only to findher efforts ripple-effected the ne_t day when she walks out onto the quad andfinds love letters hanging from the trees, tucked in the bushes and the benches.Or the man who decides that he is going to take his life, uses Facebook as a wayto say goodbye to friends and family. Well, tonight he sleeps safely with astack of letters just like this one tucked beneath his pillow, scripted bystrangers who were there for him when.

　　These are the kinds of stories that convinced me that letter-writing willnever again need to flip back her hair and talk about efficiency, because she isan art form now, all the parts of her, the signing, the scripting, the mailing,the doodles in the margins. The mere fact that somebody would even just sitdown, pull out a piece of paper and think about someone the whole way through,with an intention that is so much harder to unearth when the browser is up andthe iPhone is pinging and we've got si_ conversations rolling in at once, thatis an art form that does not fall down to the Goliath of "get faster," no matterhow many social networks we might join. We still clutch close these letters toour chest, to the words that speak louder than loud, when we turn pages intopalettes to say the things that we have needed to say, the words that we haveneeded to write, to sisters and brothers and even to strangers, for far toolong. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)

　　ted演講稿篇2

　　昨晚聽了一期TED的演講，演講題目就是《長大后你想成為什么樣的人》。剛開始看到這個演講題目的時候，我內心跳出來的答案是“我想成為一個很富有的人”。哈哈，當然我現在已經是成人后了，要說自己在5歲的時候想要變成什么樣的人，我現在已經很難記起，不過很肯定的是一定不是現在這副模樣的自己。

　　正如演講者所說的那樣，在孩童時期，大人們總喜歡這樣逗弄自己，去追問你長大以后要做什么?為什么想成為那樣的人?有的人也許會說想成為醫生，因為可以幫人治病;有的人也許會說想成為漫畫家，因為可以畫出自己喜歡的漫畫;有的人也許會想成為律師，因為被TVB里面律師帥帥的樣子吸引。理由千奇百怪，理想也多種多樣。但是現在的你在做什么呢?是否成為了當初所希望成為的人。也許你變成了醫界里最會畫畫的醫生;也許你成為了最會唱歌的律師;也許你成為了畫漫畫的`哲學家。這時候你會發現原來你擁有的潛能不止一種。

　　演講者將之稱為多相潛能者。按照字面意思我們也不難理解，擁有超過至少一種潛在能量的人。你身邊一定有著這樣的人，她可以在多個領域都做的很好，她有著廣泛的興趣，她可能上個星期還在刻著橡皮章，下個星期又開始抱著吉他彈唱。和她在一起的時候你會發現驚喜總是無處不在。因為你不知道下一秒她又會拿出什么來讓你目瞪口呆。

　　我很贊成在一個領域把專業做到精的人，但是我也相信一個團隊里面是需要有多相潛能者來調和的。他們可以充分調動自己的積極性，讓工作變得有趣、生動。最重要的是如果你和她是朋友，那么你的生活可能就會從此與無趣無緣，她們總能帶來新奇的事物，教你有趣的東西，因為對于她們自己而言，只有不斷地去追求新鮮感，才會讓自己感到滿足。

　　聯想到我朋友近期發生的一件事。她喜歡上了一個男孩子，但是這個男孩子對她忽冷忽熱，她現在也患得患失。我這位朋友就是在工作這一領域有著絕對的可靠性然而在生活上可能并沒有那么有趣的人。所以我只是跟她說首先把你自己變成一個有趣的人，這樣還會擔心沒有人聯系你嗎?而且一旦你開始去嘗試學習新事物，可能你都無暇去顧及自身的情感問題，因為你已經被征服一個又一個陌生領域的快感所淹沒。

　　ted演講稿篇3

　　i'd like to share with you a discovery that i made a few months ago whilewriting an article for italian wired. i always keep my thesaurus handy wheneveri'm writing anything, but i'd already finished editing the piece, and i realizedthat i had never once in my life looked up the word "disabled" to see what i'dfind.

　　let me read you the entry. "disabled, adjective: crippled, helpless,useless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down,worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile,decrepit, laid-up, done-up, done-for, done-in cracked-up, counted-out; see alsohurt, useless and weak. antonyms, healthy, strong, capable." i was reading thislist out loud to a friend and at first was laughing, it was so ludicrous, buti'd just gotten past "mangled," and my voice broke, and i had to stop andcollect myself from the emotional shock and impact that the assault from thesewords unleashed.

　　you know, of course, this is my raggedy old thesaurus so i'm thinking thismust be an ancient print date, right? but, in fact, the print date was the early1980s, when i would have been starting primary school and forming anunderstanding of myself outside the family unit and as related to the other kidsand the world around me. and, needless to say, thank god i wasn't using athesaurus back then. i mean, from this entry, it would seem that i was born intoa world that perceived someone like me to have nothing positive whatsoever goingfor them, when in fact, today i'm celebrated for the opportunities andadventures my life has procured.

　　so, i immediately went to look up the __ online edition, e_pecting to finda revision worth noting. here's the updated version of this entry.unfortunately, it's not much better. i find the last two words under "nearantonyms," particularly unsettling: "whole" and "wholesome."

　　so, it's not just about the words. it's what we believe about people whenwe name them with these words. it's about the values behind the words, and howwe construct those values. our language affects our thinking and how we view theworld and how we view other people. in fact, many ancient societies, includingthe greeks and the romans, believed that to utter a curse verbally was sopowerful, because to say the thing out loud brought it into e_istence. so, whatreality do we want to call into e_istence: a person who is limited, or a personwho's empowered? by casually doing something as simple as naming a person, achild, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power. wouldn't wewant to open doors for them instead?

　　one such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the a.i.dupont institute in wilmington, delaware. his name was dr. pizzutillo, anitalian american, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most americansto pronounce, so he went by dr. p. and dr. p always wore really colorful bowties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.

　　i loved almost everything about my time spent at this hospital, with thee_ception of my physical therapy sessions. i had to do what seemed likeinnumerable repetitions of e_ercises with these thick, elastic bands --different colors, you know -- to help build up my leg muscles, and i hated thesebands more than anything -- i hated them, had names for them. i hated them. and,you know, i was already bargaining, as a five year-old child, with dr. p to tryto get out of doing these e_ercises, unsuccessfully, of course. and, one day, hecame in to my session -- e_haustive and unforgiving, these sessions -- and hesaid to me, "wow. aimee, you are such a strong and powerful little girl, i thinkyou're going to break one of those bands. when you do break it, i'm going togive you a hundred bucks."

　　now, of course, this was a simple ploy on dr. p's part to get me to do thee_ercises i didn't want to do before the prospect of being the richestfive-year-old in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me wasreshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising e_perience for me.and i have to wonder today to what e_tent his vision and his declaration of meas a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as aninherently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.

　　this is an e_ample of how adults in positions of power can ignite the powerof a child. but, in the previous instances of those thesaurus entries, ourlanguage isn't allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want,the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. our languagehasn't caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have beenbrought about by technology. certainly, from a medical standpoint, my legs,laser surgery for vision impairment, titanium knees and hip replacements foraging bodies that are allowing people to more fully engage with their abilities,and move beyond the limits that nature has imposed on them -- not to mentionsocial networking platforms allow people to self-identify, to claim their owndescriptions of themselves, so they can go align with global groups of their ownchoosing. so, perhaps technology is revealing more clearly to us now what hasalways been a truth: that everyone has something rare and powerful to offer oursociety, and that the human ability to adapt is our greatest asset.

　　the human ability to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people havecontinually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and i'm going tomake an admission: this phrase never sat right with me, and i always felt uneasytrying to answer people's questions about it, and i think i'm starting to figureout why. implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea thatsuccess, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenginge_perience unscathed or unmarked by the e_perience, as if my successes in lifehave come about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumedpitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as mydisability. but, in fact, we are changed. we are marked, of course, by achallenge, whether physically, emotionally or both. and i'm going to suggestthat this is a good thing. adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to getaround in order to resume living our life. it's part of our life. and i tend tothink of it like my shadow. sometimes i see a lot of it, sometimes there's verylittle, but it's always with me. and, certainly, i'm not trying to diminish theimpact, the weight, of a person's struggle.

　　there is adversity and challenge in life, and it's all very real andrelative to every single person, but the question isn't whether or not you'regoing to meet adversity, but how you're going to meet it. so, our responsibilityis not simply shielding those we care for from adversity, but preparing them tomeet it well. and we do a disservice to our kids when we make them feel thatthey're not equipped to adapt. there's an important difference and distinctionbetween the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjectivesocietal opinion of whether or not i'm disabled. and, truthfully, the only realand consistent disability i've had to confront is the world ever thinking that icould be described by those definitions.

　　in our desire to protect those we care about by giving them the cold, hardtruth about their medical prognosis, or, indeed, a prognosis on the e_pectedquality of their life, we have to make sure that we don't put the first brick ina wall that will actually disable someone. perhaps the e_isting model of onlylooking at what is broken in you and how do we fi_ it, serves to be moredisabling to the individual than the pathology itself.

　　by not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging theirpotency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle theymight have. we are effectively grading someone's worth to our community. so weneed to see through the pathology and into the range of human capability. and,most importantly, there's a partnership between those perceived deficiencies andour greatest creative ability. so it's not about devaluing, or negating, thesemore trying times as something we want to avoid or sweep under the rug, butinstead to find those opportunities wrapped in the adversity. so maybe the ideai want to put out there is not so much overcoming adversity as it is openingourselves up to it, embracing it, grappling with it, to use a wrestling term,maybe even dancing with it. and, perhaps, if we see adversity as natural,consistent and useful, we're less burdened by the presence of it.

　　this year we celebrate the 200th birthday of charles darwin, and it was 150years ago, when writing about evolution, that darwin illustrated, i think, atruth about the human character. to paraphrase: it's not the strongest of thespecies that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives; it is theone that is most adaptable to change. conflict is the genesis of creation. fromdarwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability tosurvive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit throughconflict into transformation. so, again, transformation, adaptation, is ourgreatest human skill. and, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we'remade of. maybe that's what adversity gives us: a sense of self, a sense of ourown power. so, we can give ourselves a gift. we can re-imagine adversity assomething more than just tough times. maybe we can see it as change. adversityis just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.

　　i think the greatest adversity that we've created for ourselves is thisidea of normalcy. now, who's normal? there's no normal. there's common, there'stypical. there's no normal, and would you want to meet that poor, beige personif they e_isted? (laughter) i don't think so. if we can change this paradigmfrom one of achieving normalcy to one of possibility -- or potency, to be even alittle bit more dangerous -- we can release the power of so many more children,and invite them to engage their rare and valuable abilities with thecommunity.

　　anthropologists tell us that the one thing we as humans have alwaysrequired of our community members is to be of use, to be able to contribute.there's evidence that neanderthals, 60,000 years ago, carried their elderly andthose with serious physical injury, and perhaps it's because the life e_perienceof survival of these people proved of value to the community. they didn't viewthese people as broken and useless; they were seen as rare and valuable.

　　a few years ago, i was in a food market in the town where i grew up in thatred zone in northeastern pennsylvania, and i was standing over a bushel oftomatoes. it was summertime: i had shorts on. i hear this guy, his voice behindme say, "well, if it isn't aimee mullins." and i turn around, and it's thisolder man. i have no idea who he is.

　　and i said, "i'm sorry, sir, have we met? i don't remember meetingyou."

　　he said, "well, you wouldn't remember meeting me. i mean, when we met i wasdelivering you from your mother's womb." (laughter) oh, that guy. and, but ofcourse, actually, it did click.

　　this man was dr. kean, a man that i had only known about through mymother's stories of that day, because, of course, typical fashion, i arrivedlate for my birthday by two weeks. and so my mother's prenatal physician hadgone on vacation, so the man who delivered me was a complete stranger to myparents. and, because i was born without the fibula bones, and had feet turnedin, and a few toes in this foot and a few toes in that, he had to be the bearer-- this stranger had to be the bearer of bad news.

　　he said to me, "i had to give this prognosis to your parents that you wouldnever walk, and you would never have the kind of mobility that other kids haveor any kind of life of independence, and you've been making liar out of me eversince." (laughter) (applause)

　　the e_traordinary thing is that he said he had saved newspaper clippingsthroughout my whole childhood, whether winning a second grade spelling bee,marching with the girl scouts, you know, the halloween parade, winning mycollege scholarship, or any of my sports victories, and he was using it, andintegrating it into teaching resident students, med students from hahnemannmedical school and hershey medical school. and he called this part of the coursethe _ factor, the potential of the human will. no prognosis can account for howpowerful this could be as a determinant in the quality of someone's life. anddr. kean went on to tell me, he said, "in my e_perience, unless repeatedly toldotherwise, and even if given a modicum of support, if left to their own devices,a child will achieve."

　　see, dr. kean made that shift in thinking. he understood that there's adifference between the medical condition and what someone might do with it. andthere's been a shift in my thinking over time, in that, if you had asked me at15 years old, if i would have traded prosthetics for flesh-and-bone legs, iwouldn't have hesitated for a second. i aspired to that kind of normalcy backthen. but if you ask me today, i'm not so sure. and it's because of thee_periences i've had with them, not in spite of the e_periences i've had withthem. and perhaps this shift in me has happened because i've been e_posed tomore people who have opened doors for me than those who have put lids and castshadows on me.

　　see, all you really need is one person to show you the epiphany of your ownpower, and you're off. if you can hand somebody the key to their own power --the human spirit is so receptive -- if you can do that and open a door forsomeone at a crucial moment, you are educating them in the best sense. you'reteaching them to open doors for themselves. in fact, the e_act meaning of theword "educate" comes from the root word "educe." it means "to bring forth whatis within, to bring out potential." so again, which potential do we want tobring out?

　　there was a case study done in 1960s britain, when they were moving fromgrammar schools to comprehensive schools. it's called the streaming trials. wecall it "tracking" here in the states. it's separating students from a, b, c, dand so on. and the "a students" get the tougher curriculum, the best teachers,etc. well, they took, over a three-month period, d-level students, gave thema's, told them they were "a's," told them they were bright, and at the end ofthis three-month period, they were performing at a-level.

　　and, of course, the heartbreaking, flip side of this study, is that theytook the "a students" and told them they were "d's." and that's what happened atthe end of that three-month period. those who were still around in school,besides the people who had dropped out. a crucial part of this case study wasthat the teachers were duped too. the teachers didn't know a switch had beenmade. they were simply told, "these are the 'a-students,' these are the'd-students.'" and that's how they went about teaching them and treatingthem.

　　so, i think that the only true disability is a crushed spirit, a spiritthat's been crushed doesn't have hope, it doesn't see beauty, it no longer hasour natural, childlike curiosity and our innate ability to imagine. if instead,we can bolster a human spirit to keep hope, to see beauty in themselves andothers, to be curious and imaginative, then we are truly using our power well.when a spirit has those qualities, we are able to create new realities and newways of being.

　　i'd like to leave you with a poem by a fourteenth-century persian poetnamed hafiz that my friend, jacques dembois told me about, and the poem iscalled "the god who only knows four words": "every child has known god, not thegod of names, not the god of don'ts, but the god who only knows four words andkeeps repeating them, saying, 'come dance with me. come, dance with me. come,dance with me.'"

　　thank you. (applause)

　　ted演講稿篇4

　　放學回家，我把比大秤砣還重的書包放在沙發上，就開始寫作業，剛寫了五六個字，肚子就叫得比喇叭都要響。于是我就跑到廚房里，向媽媽討口飯吃。忽然想起了老師留的三句話，就趕緊對媽媽說了。

　　我說了第一句：“媽媽，您辛苦了!”剛說完，媽媽就回敬我一句：“你缺心眼呀，沒看見我正在做菜嗎?”看來這句話不好使，我再來說第二句話。于是我又說：“媽媽，您歇會兒吧!”可媽媽又說：“你是不是喝了迷魂湯了，沒看見我正在忙著呢嗎?我歇了，你吃什么，難道你還能吃草呀?”看來這句話還不行，我還得把第三句話給用上，我就對媽媽說：“那媽媽，我來幫您吧!”“你可得了吧，你做的菜比臭豆腐還難吃，趕快去寫作業吧!”

　　唉，說了這么多，媽媽連個笑臉都沒有，反而被澆了一盆涼水，要不是老師留了這三句話的.作業，我才不討這沒趣呢。媽媽肯定是忙壞了，才對我的關心漠然處之。媽媽的話也真夠打擊人的了，這樣的話以后還要不要再說呢?不知道。

　　這使我想起了聾青蛙的故事。那個故事發生在一個大土坑里。兩只青蛙掉進了深坑，怎么也跳不出來，其它的青蛙都勸它們，不要費力氣了，出不來的。其中一只倒地死去，可另一只青蛙是聾子，以為它們在鼓勵它，就一直跳，最后它終于跳了出來。

　　這讓我知道了語言的力量是多么神奇!不要吝嗇你的贊美之辭，感激之情，把它說出來，這個世界會更美麗。

　　ted演講稿篇5

　　我是個說書之人。在這里，我想和大家分享一些我本人的故事。一些關于所謂的“單一故事的危險性”的經歷。我成長在尼日利亞東部的一所大學校園里。我母親常說我從兩歲起就開始讀書。不過我認為“四歲起”比較接近事實。所以我從小就開始讀書，讀的是英國和美國的兒童書籍。

　　我也是從小就開始寫作，當我在七歲那年，開始強迫我可憐的母親閱讀我用鉛筆寫好的故事，外加上蠟筆描繪的插圖時，我所寫的故事正如我所讀的故事那般，我故事里的人物們都是白皮膚、藍眼睛的。常在雪中嬉戲，吃著蘋果。而且他們經常討論天氣，討論太陽出來時，一切都多么美好。我一直寫著這樣故事，雖然說我當時住在尼日利亞，并且從來沒有出過國。雖然說我們從來沒見過雪，雖然說我們實際上只能吃到芒果；雖然說我們從不討論天氣，因為根本沒這個必要。

　　我故事里的人物們也常喝姜汁啤酒，因為我所讀的那些英國書中的人物們常喝姜汁啤酒。雖然說我當時完全不知道姜汁啤酒是什么東西。時隔多年，我一直都懷揣著一個深切的渴望，想嘗嘗姜汁啤酒的味道。不過這要另當別論了。

　　這一切所表明的，正是在一個個的故事面前，我們是何等的脆弱，何等的易受影響，尤其當我們還是孩子的時候，因為我當時讀的所有書中只有外國人物，我因而堅信：書要想被稱為書，就必須有外國人在里面，就必須是關于我無法親身體驗的事情，而這一切都在我接觸了非洲書籍之后發生了改變。當時非洲書并不多，而且他們也不像國外書籍那樣好找。不過因為！和！之類的作家，我思維中對于文學的概念，產生了質的改變。我意識到像我這樣的人---有著巧克力般的膚色和永遠無法梳成馬尾辮的卷曲頭發的女孩們，也可以出現在文學作品中。

　　我開始撰寫我所熟知的事物，但這并不是說我不喜愛那些美國和英國書籍，恰恰相反，那些書籍激發了我的想象力，為我開啟了新的世界。但隨之而來的后果就是，我不知道原來像我這樣的人，也是可以存在于文學作品中的，而與非洲作家的`結緣，則是將我從對于書籍的單一故事中拯救了出來。

　　我來自一個傳統的尼日利亞中產家庭，我的父親是一名教授，我的母親是一名大學管理員。因此我們和很多其他家庭一樣，都會從附近的村莊中雇傭一些幫手來打理家事。在我八歲那一年，我們家招來了一位新的男仆。他的名字叫做FIDE.我父親只告訴我們說，他是來自一個非常窮苦的家庭，我母親會時不時的將山芋、大米，還有我們穿舊的衣服送到他的家里。每當我剩下晚飯的時候，我的母親就會說：吃凈你的食物！難道你不知道嗎？像FIDE家這樣的人可是一無所有。因此我對他們家人充滿了憐憫。

　　后來的一個星期六，我們去FIDE的村莊拜訪，他的母親向我們展示了一個精美別致的草籃----用FIDE的哥哥用染過色的酒椰葉編制的。我當時完全被震驚了。我從來沒有想過FIDE的家人居然有親手制造東西的才能。在那之前，我對FIDE家唯一的了解就是他們是何等的窮困，正因為如此，他們在我腦中的印象只是一個字------“窮”。他們的貧窮是我賜予他們的單一故事。

　　多年以后，在我離開尼日利亞前往美國讀大學的時候，我又想到了這件事。我那時19歲，我的美國室友當時完全對我感到十分驚訝了。他問我是從哪里學的講一口如此流利的英語，而當我告知她尼日利亞剛巧是以英語作為官方語言的時候，她的臉上則是寫滿了茫然。她問我是否可以給她聽聽她所謂的“部落音樂”，可想而知，當我拿出瑪麗亞凱莉的磁帶時，她是何等的失望，她斷定我不知道如何使用電爐。

　　我猛然意識到“在他見到我之前，她就已經對我充滿了憐憫之心。她對我這個非洲人的預設心態是一種充滿施恩與好意的憐憫之情。我那位室友的腦中有一個關于非洲的單一故事。一個充滿了災難的單一故事。在這個單一的故事中，非洲人是完全沒有可能在任何方面和她有所相似的；沒有可能接收到比憐憫更復雜的感情；沒有可能以一個平等的人類的身份與她溝通。

　　我不得不強調，在我前往美國之前，我從來沒有有意識的把自己當做個非洲人。但在美國的時候，每當人們提到”非洲“時，大家都會轉向我，雖然我對之類的地方一無所知。但我漸漸的開始接受這個新的身份，現在很多時候我都是把自己當做一個非洲人來看待。不過當人們把非洲當做一個國家來討論的時候，我還是覺得挺反感的。最近的一次例子就發生在兩天前，我從拉各斯搭乘航班，旅程原本相當愉快，直到廣播里開始介紹在”印度、非洲以及其他國家”所進行的慈善事業。

　　當我以一名非洲人的身份在美國讀過幾年之后，我開始理解我那位室友當時對我的反應。如果我不是在尼日利亞長大，如果我對非洲的一切認識都是來自于大眾流行的影像，我相信我眼中的非洲也同樣是充滿了美麗的地貌、美麗的動物，以及一群難以理解的人們進行著毫無意義的戰爭、死于艾滋和貧窮、無法為自己辯護，并且等待著一位慈悲的、白種的外國人的救贖，我看待非洲的方式將會和我兒時看待FIDE一家的方式是一樣的。

　　我認為關于非洲的這個單一故事從根本上來自于西方的文學。這是來自倫敦商人John Locke的一段話。他在1561年的時候，曾游歷非洲西部，并且為他的航行做了翻很有趣的記錄。他先是把黑色的非洲人稱為“沒有房子的野獸”，隨后又寫道：“他們也是一群無頭腦的人，他們的嘴和眼睛都長在了他們的胸口上。”

　　我每次讀到這一段的時候，都不禁大笑起來。他的想象力真的是讓人敬佩。但關于他的作品極其重要的一點是它昭示著西方社會講述非洲故事的一個傳統，在這個傳統中，撒哈拉以南的非洲充滿了消極、差異以及黑暗，是偉大的詩人Rudyard Kipling筆下所形容的“半惡魔、半孩童”的奇異人種。

　　正因為如此，我開始意識到我的那位美國室友一定在她的成長過程中，看到并且聽過關于這個單一故事的不同版本，就如同之前一位曾經批判我的小說缺乏“真實的非洲感”的教授一樣。話說我倒是甘愿承認我的小說有幾處寫的不好的地方，有幾處敗筆，但我很難想象我的小說既然會缺乏“真實的非洲感”。事實上，我甚至不知道真實的非洲感到底是個什么東西。那位教授跟我說我書中的人物都和他太相近了，都是受過教育的中產人物。我的人物會開車，他們沒有受到饑餓的困擾。正因此，他們缺乏了真實的非洲感。

　　我在這里不得不指出，我本人也常常被單一的故事蒙蔽雙眼。幾年前，我從美國探訪墨西哥，當時美國的政治氣候比較緊張。關于移民的辯論一直在進行著。而在美國，“移民”和“墨西哥人”常常被當做同義詞來使用。關于墨西哥人的故事是源源不絕，講的都是欺詐醫療系統、偷渡邊境、在邊境被捕之類的事情。

　　我還記得當我到達瓜達拉哈拉的第一天，看著人們前往工作，在市集上吃著墨西哥卷、抽著煙、大笑著，我記得我剛看到這一切時是何等的驚訝，但隨后我的心中便充滿了羞恥感。我意識到我當時完全被沉浸在媒體上關于墨西哥人的報道，以致于他們在我的腦中幻化成一個單一的個體---卑賤的移民。我完全相信了關于墨西哥人的單一故事，對此我感到無比的羞愧。這就是創造單一故事的過程，將一群人一遍又一遍地呈現為一個事物，并且只是一個事物，時間久了，他們就變成了那個事物。

　　而說到單一的故事，就自然而然地要講到權力這個問題。每當我想到這個世界的權力結構的時候，我都會想起一個伊傅語中的單詞，叫做“nkali”,它是一個名詞，可以在大意上被翻譯成”比另一個人強大。”就如同我們的經濟和政治界一樣，我們所講的故事也是建立在它的原則上的。這些故事是怎樣被講述的、由誰來講述、何時被講述、有多少故事被講述，這一切都取決于權力。