龙与女仆【视频】- Embracing otherness, embracing myself 演讲-英语学习

【视频】| Embracing otherness, embracing myself 演讲-英语学习


Actor Thandie Newton tells the story of finding her "otherness" -- first, as a child growing up in two distinct cultures, and then as an actor playing with many different selves. A warm, wise talk, fresh from stage at TEDGlobal 2011.

00:15
Embracing otherness.When I first heard this theme,I thought, well, embracing othernessis embracing myself.And the journey to that placeof understanding and acceptancehas been an interesting one for me,and it's given me an insightinto the whole notion of self,which I think is worth sharing with you today.
00:40
We each have a self,but I don't think that we're born with one.You know how newborn babiesbelieve they're part of everything;they're not separate邪帝校园行 ?Well that fundamental sense of onenessis lost on us very quickly.It's like that initial stage is over --oneness: infancy准提镜 ,unformed, primitive.It's no longer valid or real.What is real is separateness,and at some point in early babyhood,the idea of selfstarts to form.Our little portion of oneness is given a name,is told all kinds of things about itself,and these details,opinions and ideasbecome facts,which go towards building ourselves纸张开数表 ,our identity.And that self becomes the vehiclefor navigating our social world.But the self is a projectionbased on other people's projections.Is it who we really are?Or who we really want to be冯立淼, or should be?
01:45
So this whole interactionwith self and identitywas a very difficult one for me growing up.The self that I attempted to take out into the worldwas rejected over and over again.And my panicat not having a self that fit,and the confusion that camefrom my self being rejected,created anxiety, shameand hopelessness,which kind of defined me for a long time.But in retrospect,the destruction of my self was so repetitivethat I started to see a pattern.The self changed,got affected, broken, destroyed,but another one would evolve --sometimes stronger,娄清 sometimes hateful,sometimes not wanting to be there at all.The self was not constant.And how many timeswould my self have to diebefore I realizedthat it was never alive in the first place?
02:49
I grew up on the coast of Englandin the '70s.My dad is white from Cornwall,and my mom is black from Zimbabwe.Even the idea of us as a familywas challenging to most people.But nature had its wicked way,and brown babies were born.But from about the age of five,I was aware that I didn't fit.I was the black atheist kidin the all-white Catholic school run by nuns.I was an anomaly,and my self was rooting around for definitionand trying to plug in.Because the self likes to fit苏菲的异界 ,to see itself replicated,to belong.That confirms its existenceand its importance.And it is important.It has an extremely important function.Without it, we literally can't interface with others.We can't hatch plansand climb that stairway of popularity,of success.But my skin color wasn't right.My hair wasn't right.My history wasn't right.My self became definedby otherness,which meant that, in that social world,I didn't really exist.And I was "other" before being anything else --even before being a girl.I was a noticeable nobody.
04:18
Another world was opening uparound this time:performance and dancing.That nagging dread of self-hooddidn't exist when I was dancing.I'd literally lose myself.And I was a really good dancer.I would putall my emotional expressioninto my dancing.I could be in the movementin a way that I wasn't able to bein my real life, in myself.
04:52
And at 16,I stumbled across another opportunity,and I earned my first acting role in a film.I can hardly find the wordsto describe the peace I feltwhen I was acting.My dysfunctional selfcould actually plug into another self, not my own,and it felt so good.It was the first time that I existedinside a fully-functioning self --one that I controlled,that I steered,that I gave life to.But the shooting day would end,and I'd returnto my gnarly, awkward self.
05:37
By 19杨棋珺 ,I was a fully-fledged movie actor,but still searching for definition.I applied to read anthropologyat university.Dr. Phyllis Lee gave me my interview,and she asked me, "How would you define race?"Well, I thought I had the answer to that one,and I said, "Skin color.""So biology, genetics?" she said."Because, Thandie, that's not accurate.Because there's actually more genetic differencebetween a black Kenyanand a black Ugandanthan there is between a black Kenyanand, say生命读经 , a white Norwegian.Because we all stem from Africa.So in Africa,there's been more timeto create genetic diversity."In other words,race has no basisin biological or scientific fact.On the one hand, result.Right?On the other hand, my definition of selfjust lost a huge chunk of its credibility.But what was credible,what is biological and scientific fact,is that we all stem from Africa --in fact, from a woman called Mitochondrial Evewho lived 160,000 years ago.And race is an illegitimate conceptwhich our selves have createdbased on fear and ignorance.
07:08
Strangely, these revelationsdidn't cure my low self-esteem,that feeling of otherness.My desire to disappearwas still very powerful.I had a degree from Cambridge;I had a thriving career建行结算通卡 ,but my self was a car crash,and I wound up with bulimiaand on a therapist's couch.And of course I did.I still believedmy self was all I was.I still valued self-worthabove all other worth,and what was there to suggest otherwise?We've created entire value systemsand a physical realityto support the worth of self.Look at the industry for self-imageand the jobs it creates,the revenue it turns over.We'd be right in assumingthat the self is an actual living thing.But it's not. It's a projectionwhich our clever brains createin order to cheat ourselvesfrom the reality of death.
08:12
But there is somethingthat can give the selfultimate and infinite connection --and that thing is oneness,our essence.The self's strugglefor authenticity and definitionwill never endunless it's connected to its creator --to you and to me.And that can happen with awareness --awareness of the reality of onenessand the projection of self-hood.For a start, we can think aboutall the times when we do lose ourselves.It happens when I dance,when I'm acting.I'm earthed in my essence,and my self is suspended.In those moments,I'm connected to everything --the ground, the air,the sounds, the energy from the audience.All my senses are alert and alivein much the same way as an infant might feel --that feeling of oneness.
09:16
And when I'm acting a role,I inhabit another self地道战歌词 ,and I give it life for awhile,龙与女仆 because when the self is suspendedso is divisivenessand judgment.And I've played everythingfrom a vengeful ghost in the time of slaveryto Secretary of State in 2004.And no matter how otherthese selves might be,they're all related in me.And I honestly believethe key to my success as an actorand my progress as a personhas been the very lack of selfthat used to make me feelso anxious and insecure.I always wonderedwhy I could feel others' pain so deeply,why I could recognizethe somebody in the nobody.It's because I didn't have a self to get in the way.I thought I lacked substance,and the fact that I could feel others'meant that I had nothing of myself to feel.The thing that was a source of shamewas actually a source of enlightenment.
10:28
And when I realizedand really understoodthat my self is a projection and that it has a function月迅龙 ,a funny thing happened.I stopped giving it so much authority.I give it its due.I take it to therapy.I've become very familiarwith its dysfunctional behavior.But I'm not ashamed of my self.In fact, I respect my selfand its function.And over time and with practice,I've tried to livemore and more from my essence.And if you can do that,incredible things happen.
11:06
I was in Congo in February,dancing and celebratingwith women who've survivedthe destruction of their selvesin literally unthinkable ways --destroyed because other brutalized成瑞龙 , psychopathic selvesall over that beautiful landare fueling our selves' addictionto iPods, Pads, and bling,which further disconnect ourselvesfrom ever feeling their pain,their suffering,their death.Because, hey,if we're all living in ourselvesand mistaking it for life,then we're devaluingand desensitizing life.And in that disconnected state,yeah, we can build factory farms with no windows,destroy marine lifeand use rape as a weapon of war.So here's a note to self:The cracks have started to showin our constructed world,and oceans will continueto surge through the cracks本耶普,and oil and blood,rivers of it.
12:18
Crucially, we haven't been figuring outhow to live in onenesswith the Earth and every other living thing.We've just been insanely trying to figure outhow to live with each other -- billions of each other.Only we're not living with each other;our crazy selves are living with each otherand perpetuating an epidemicof disconnection.
12:41
Let's live with each otherand take it a breath at a time.If we can get under that heavy self,light a torch of awareness,and find our essence,our connection to the infiniteand every other living thing.We knew it from the day we were born.Let's not be freaked outby our bountiful nothingness.It's more a realitythan the ones our selves have created.Imagine what kind of existence we can haveif we honor inevitable death of self,appreciate the privilege of lifeand marvel at what comes next.Simple awareness is where it begins.
13:30
Thank you for listening.
13:32
(Applause)
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