Thirty Years Old

30歲

Turning thirty is a milestone for most people, especially those of the generation that proclaimed it would never trust anyone over that age. To celebrate his own thirtieth, in February 1985, Jobs threw a lavishly formal but also playful—black tie and tennis shoes—party for one thousand in the ballroom of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The invitation read, “There’s an old Hindu saying that goes, ‘In the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you.’ Come help me celebrate mine.”

對于大多數人，尤其是那些宣稱絕不能相信30歲以上的人的那代人來說，30歲是一個里程碑。1985年2月，為了慶祝自己的30歲生日，喬布斯在舊金山圣弗朗西斯酒店的宴會廳舉辦了一場非常正式但又好玩的派對。他邀請了1000人出席，大家都打著黑領帶，穿著網球鞋。請柬上寫著：“有句古老的印度諺語是這樣說的，‘在人生的頭30年里，你養成習慣；在后30年，習慣塑造你。’過來跟我慶祝我的30歲吧。”

One table featured software moguls, including Bill Gates and Mitch Kapor. Another had old friends such as Elizabeth Holmes, who brought as her date a woman dressed in a tuxedo. Andy Hertzfeld and Burrell Smith had rented tuxes and wore floppy tennis shoes, which made it all the more memorable when they danced to the Strauss waltzes played by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

宴會上，有一桌坐的都是軟件業巨頭，包括比爾·蓋茨和米切爾·卡普爾。另一桌坐著他的老朋友，如伊麗莎白·霍姆斯，她還帶來了一位身著燕尾服的女伴。安迪·赫茨菲爾德和伯勒爾·史密斯穿著租來的禮服，腳上踩著松軟的網球鞋，一旁舊金山交響樂團演奏著施特勞斯的圓舞曲，兩人伴著音樂起舞的樣子使這場派對更加令人難忘。

Ella Fitzgerald provided the entertainment, as Bob Dylan had declined. She sang mainly from her standard repertoire, though occasionally tailoring a song like “The Girl from Ipanema” to be about the boy from Cupertino. When she asked for some requests, Jobs called out a few. She concluded with a slow rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

由于鮑勃·迪倫拒絕了邀請，派對上獻唱的是埃拉·菲茨杰拉德（EllaFitzgerald）。她主要唱自己的傳統曲目，偶爾也會改編一下曲目，如將《伊帕內瑪姑娘》（TheGirlFromIpanema）唱成“庫比蒂諾小伙兒”。她要聽眾點歌，喬布斯就點了幾首。最后，她用一首慢節奏的《生日快樂》結束了表演。

Sculley came to the stage to propose a toast to “technology’s foremost visionary.” Wozniak also came up and presented Jobs with a framed copy of the Zaltair hoax from the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, where the Apple II had been introduced. The venture capitalist Don Valentine marveled at the change in the decade since that time. “He went from being a Ho Chi Minh look-alike, who said never trust anyone over thirty, to a person who gives himself a fabulous thirtieth birthday with Ella Fitzgerald,” he said.

斯卡利走上臺，提議為“技術領域最重要的遠見者”干杯。沃茲尼亞克也走上臺，送給喬布斯一個相框，里面裝著一張1977年西海岸電腦節上子虛烏有的“扎爾泰”電腦宣傳單，AppleII電腦就是在該電腦節上發布的。唐·瓦倫丁對喬布斯十年間的轉變感到驚奇。“他以前就跟胡志明似的，認為絕不能相信任何一個30歲以上的人，現在卻同埃拉·菲茨杰拉德一起，給自己辦了個這么棒的30歲生日宴會。”他說道。

Many people had picked out special gifts for a person who was not easy to shop for. Debi Coleman, for example, found a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. But Jobs, in an act that was odd yet not out of character, left all of the gifts in a hotel room. Wozniak and some of the Apple veterans, who did not take to the goat cheese and salmon mousse that was served, met after the party and went out to eat at a Denny’s.

許多人都為這個挑剔的家伙準備了特別的禮物。例如，黛比·科爾曼就為他找到了第一版的《最后的大亨》（TheLastTycoon），這是弗蘭西斯·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德（F.ScottFitzgerald）的一部小說。喬布斯卻將所有禮物都留在了酒店房間里，這個行為雖奇怪但也與他的性格相符。喬布斯一件禮物都沒拿回家。沃茲尼亞克和一些蘋果公司的元老沒有吃派對上的山羊乳干酪和鮭魚慕斯，派對結束后，他們聚在一起去丹尼餐廳吃飯。

“It’s rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing,” Jobs said wistfully to the writer David Sheff, who published a long and intimate interview in Playboy the month he turned thirty. “Of course, there are some people who are innately curious, forever little kids in their awe of life, but they’re rare.” The interview touched on many subjects, but Jobs’s most poignant ruminations were about growing old and facing the future:

“一個藝術家到了三四十歲還能做出驚人的東西來，這是很罕見的。”喬布斯對作家戴維·謝菲（DavidSheff）說道，言語中流露出渴望之情。謝菲于喬布斯30歲生日的當月，在《花花公子》雜志上發表了一篇言語親密的長篇訪談。“當然，有些人天生就有求知欲，永遠像小孩一樣對生命充滿敬畏，但是這種人很少。”這次采訪涉及許多話題，但是在變老和面對未來的問題上，喬布斯發出了最尖銳的反思：

Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them.

你的想法會在自己的頭腦中創建出模式，就像腳手架一樣。大腦中的化學反應蝕剜出思維的模式。在大多數情況下，人們會陷入這些模式，就像唱片上的針槽，并且再也出不來了。

I’ll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I’ll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I’m not there, but I’ll always come back. . . .

我會永遠保持與蘋果的關系。我希望這一生，能讓自己的生命歷程和蘋果的命運彼此交錯，就像編織一幅掛毯那樣。可能我會離開蘋果幾年，但我終究是會回來的。而這就是我可能想要做的事情。關于我，應該謹記的關鍵一點就是，我仍然是個學生，我仍然在新兵訓練營。

If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.

如果你想有創造性地過自己的生活，像藝術家一樣，就不能常常回顧過去。不管你做過什么，以前是怎么樣，你都必須心甘情愿地接受一切，并將一切樾諸腦后。

The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, “Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.” And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.

外界越是試圖強化你的形象，你就越難繼續做一名藝術家，這也是為什么很多藝術家要說，“再見，我得走了，我要瘋了，我要離開這里。”然后他們就離開了，在某處休隱。也許之后他們又會重新出現，變得有些不同。

?

With each of those statements, Jobs seemed to have a premonition that his life would soon be changing. Perhaps the thread of his life would indeed weave in and out of the thread of Apple’s. Perhaps it was time to throw away some of what he had been. Perhaps it was time to say “Bye, I have to go,” and then reemerge later, thinking differently.

喬布斯說出這番話，似乎是有預感自己的生命將很快改變。也許他的生命歷程確實會與蘋果的命運彼此交錯，也許他這時候應該將過去的自己拋諸腦后，也許是時候說“再見，我得走了”，然后重新回來，帶著不同的思考方式。