TED | 快乐藏在哪里？

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

But if the aesthetics of joy can be used to help us find more joy in the world around us, then couldn’t they also be used to create more joy? I spent that last two years scouring the planet, looking for different ways that people have answered this question. And this led me to the work of the artist Arakawa and the poet Madeline Gins, who believed that these kinds of environments are literally killing us. And so they set out the create an apartment building that they believed would reverse aging. And this is it.

但如果快乐审美能帮助我们在身边发现更多快乐，那它能不能帮助我们制造快乐呢？我花了至少两年的时间四处寻觅，寻找不同的人来回答这个问题。我找到了画家阿拉卡瓦，还有诗人玛德琳·基恩斯，他们认为这样的环境正在毁灭我们。于是他们打算建一栋公寓楼，可以帮助我们逆生长。它长这样。

It’s a real place, just outside Tokyo. I spent a night there, and it’s a lot.

这栋房子真的存在，就在东京郊外。我在那儿住过一晚，但那一晚有点漫长。

The floors undulate, so you don’t end up walking around so much as kind of bouncing around the apartment, and there are bright colors in every direction. I’m not sure I left any younger, but it’s as if, by trying to create an apartment that would make us feel youthful, they ended up creating one that was joyful. And yes, this is a bit much for every day life, but it made me wonder: What about the rest of us? How do we bring these ideas back into the real world?

地板是起伏不平的，因此你无法在屋子里正常行走，只能跌跌撞撞地前进，到处是明亮的色彩。我不知道离开的时候有没有变年轻一点，但他们的确是想建一所公寓，可以让我们感觉年轻，这所公寓给我们带来了快乐。当然，如果每天都这样，会有点吃不消，但是这让我思考：我们其他人该怎么办呢？我们如何把这些想法带回给大众？

So I started finding people who were doing just that. For example, this hospital, designed by the Danish artist PoulGernes. Or these schools, transformed by the non-profit Publicolor. What’s interesting is that Publicolor has heard from school administrators who say that attendance improves, graffiti disappears and kids actually say they feel safer in these painted schools. And this aligns with research conducted in four countries, which shows that people working in more colorful offices are actually more alert, more confident and friendlier than those working in drab spaces.

于是我开始寻找那些在做同样事情的人。比如这家医院，是丹麦画家波尔·杰恩斯设计的。还有这些学校，由非盈利机构“公众色彩”改造。有意思的是，“公众色彩”从学校管理者那里得到反馈，说出勤率上升了，也没有涂鸦了，孩子们说，彩色的学校让他们感到更安全。有一项在4个国家开展的研究也证实了这一点，在彩色办公室里工作的人会更加机敏，更加自信，更加友好，比那些在单色调办公室的人表现要好。

Why would this be the case? Well, as I started to trace back our love of color, I found that some researchers see a connection to our evolution. Color, in a very primal way, is a sign of life, a sign of energy. And the same is true of abundance. We evolved in a world where scarcity is dangerous, and abundance meant survival. So, one confetto - which happens to be the singular of confetti, in case you were wondering -

为什么会这样呢？我开始回顾我们对色彩的喜爱，我发现，有些研究者认为这跟我们的进化有关。颜色，从最原始的角度来看，象征着生命和活力。同时也象征着真正的富足。在我们生存的世界，匮乏是危险的，而富足意味着生存。所以，一片小纸屑（confetto）——就是漫天飞舞的纸屑（confetti）中的一片，是的，我就是这么精确——

isn’t very joyful, but multiply it, and you have a handful of one of the most joyful substances on the planet. The architect Emmanuelle Moureaux uses this idea in her work a lot. This is a nursing home she designed, where she uses these multicolored spheres to create a feeling of abundance. And what about all those round things I noticed? Well, it turns out neuroscientists have studied this, too.

并不那么有趣，但如果是很多纸屑，你就拥有了这个星球上最有趣的东西。建筑师爱玛努埃勒·穆罗在很多作品中运用了这一点。这是她设计的一座疗养院，她用许多五颜六色的球体来营造一种富足的感觉。关于圆形的东西，我有什么发现呢？神经学家已经做过研究。

They put people into fMRI machines, and they showed them pictures of angular objects and round ones. And what they found is that the amygdala, a part of the brain associated in part with fear and anxiety, lit up when people looked at angular objects, but not when they looked at the round ones. They speculate that because angles in nature are often associated with objects that might be dangerous to us, that we evolved an unconscious sense of caution around these shapes, whereas curves set us at ease.

他们把人放进功能性磁共振成像机，分别给他们看带尖角的和圆形的物体。他们发现杏仁核，就是大脑中与恐惧和焦虑有关的部分，会在看向尖锐物体的时候被点亮，而看向圆形物体的时候则没有。他们推测因为自然界中的尖角，往往跟危险的东西有关，于是看到尖锐的物体，我们会下意识地变得警觉，而曲线会让我们放松。

You can see this in action in the new SandyHook Elementary School. After the mass shooting there in 2012, the architects Svigals + Partners knew that they needed to create a building that was secure,but they wanted to create one that was joyful, and so they filled it with curves. There are waves running along the side of the building, and these squiggly canopies over the entryway, and the whole building bends toward the entrance in a welcoming gesture.

这一发现已经在桑迪·胡克小学得以应用。2012年大规模枪击案发生后，建筑师斯维格斯和他的同事们知道他们需要建一栋安全的建筑，但他们想建一栋有趣的建筑，于是他们运用了很多曲线的设计。建筑物的边是波浪形的，入口通道的顶棚也是弯曲的，整栋建筑向着入口弯曲摆出欢迎的姿势。

Each moment of joy is small, but over time,they add up to more than the sum of their parts. And so maybe instead of chasing after happiness, what we should be doing is embracing joy and finding ways to put ourselves in the path of it more often. Deep within us, we all have this impulse to seek out joy in our surroundings. And we have it for a reason. Joy isn’t some superfluous extra. It’s directly connected to our fundamental instinct for survival. On the most basic level, the drive toward joy is the drive toward life.

快乐的时光总是短暂的，但随着时间推移，这些快乐会叠加出更明显的效果。所以与其去追求幸福，其实我们更应该拥抱快乐，想办法让自己在快乐的路上停留更久。因为在内心深处，我们都想在自己周围寻找快乐。这是有原因的。快乐并不是锦上添花的事情。它直接与我们的生存本能相关联。从最基本的层面来说，追求快乐，就是追求生命。