Thirty Years Old

30岁

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.”

对于大多数人，尤其是那些宣称绝不能相信30岁以上的人的那代人来说，30岁是一个里程碑。1985年2月，为了庆祝自己的30岁生日，乔布斯在旧金山圣弗朗西斯酒店的宴会厅举办了一场非常正式但又好玩的派对。他邀请了1000人出席，大家都打着黑领带，穿着网球鞋。请柬上写着：“有句古老的印度谚语是这样说的，‘在人生的头30年里，你养成习惯；在后30年，习惯塑造你。’过来跟我庆祝我的30岁吧。”

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.

宴会上，有一桌坐的都是软件业巨头，包括比尔·盖茨和米切尔·卡普尔。另一桌坐着他的老朋友，如伊丽莎白·霍姆斯，她还带来了一位身着燕尾服的女伴。安迪·赫茨菲尔德和伯勒尔·史密斯穿着租来的礼服，脚上踩着松软的网球鞋，一旁旧金山交响乐团演奏着施特劳斯的圆舞曲，两人伴着音乐起舞的样子使这场派对更加令人难忘。

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.”

由于鲍勃·迪伦拒绝了邀请，派对上献唱的是埃拉·菲茨杰拉德（EllaFitzgerald）。她主要唱自己的传统曲目，偶尔也会改编一下曲目，如将《伊帕内玛姑娘》（TheGirlFromIpanema）唱成“库比蒂诺小伙儿”。她要听众点歌，乔布斯就点了几首。最后，她用一首慢节奏的《生日快乐》结束了表演。

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.

斯卡利走上台，提议为“技术领域最重要的远见者”干杯。沃兹尼亚克也走上台，送给乔布斯一个相框，里面装着一张1977年西海岸电脑节上子虚乌有的“扎尔泰”电脑宣传单，AppleII电脑就是在该电脑节上发布的。唐·瓦伦丁对乔布斯十年间的转变感到惊奇。“他以前就跟胡志明似的，认为绝不能相信任何一个30岁以上的人，现在却同埃拉·菲茨杰拉德一起，给自己办了个这么棒的30岁生日宴会。”他说道。

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.

许多人都为这个挑剔的家伙准备了特别的礼物。例如，黛比·科尔曼就为他找到了第一版的《最后的大亨》（TheLastTycoon），这是弗兰西斯·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德（F.ScottFitzgerald）的一部小说。乔布斯却将所有礼物都留在了酒店房间里，这个行为虽奇怪但也与他的性格相符。乔布斯一件礼物都没拿回家。沃兹尼亚克和一些苹果公司的元老没有吃派对上的山羊乳干酪和鲑鱼慕斯，派对结束后，他们聚在一起去丹尼餐厅吃饭。

“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:

“一个艺术家到了三四十岁还能做出惊人的东西来，这是很罕见的。”乔布斯对作家戴维·谢菲（DavidSheff）说道，言语中流露出渴望之情。谢菲于乔布斯30岁生日的当月，在《花花公子》杂志上发表了一篇言语亲密的长篇访谈。“当然，有些人天生就有求知欲，永远像小孩一样对生命充满敬畏，但是这种人很少。”这次采访涉及许多话题，但是在变老和面对未来的问题上，乔布斯发出了最尖锐的反思：

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.

你的想法会在自己的头脑中创建出模式，就像脚手架一样。大脑中的化学反应蚀剜出思维的模式。在大多数情况下，人们会陷入这些模式，就像唱片上的针槽，并且再也出不来了。

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. . . .

我会永远保持与苹果的关系。我希望这一生，能让自己的生命历程和苹果的命运彼此交错，就像编织一幅挂毯那样。可能我会离开苹果几年，但我终究是会回来的。而这就是我可能想要做的事情。关于我，应该谨记的关键一点就是，我仍然是个学生，我仍然在新兵训练营。

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.

如果你想有创造性地过自己的生活，像艺术家一样，就不能常常回顾过去。不管你做过什么，以前是怎么样，你都必须心甘情愿地接受一切，并将一切樾诸脑后。

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.

外界越是试图强化你的形象，你就越难继续做一名艺术家，这也是为什么很多艺术家要说，“再见，我得走了，我要疯了，我要离开这里。”然后他们就离开了，在某处休隐。也许之后他们又会重新出现，变得有些不同。

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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.

乔布斯说出这番话，似乎是有预感自己的生命将很快改变。也许他的生命历程确实会与苹果的命运彼此交错，也许他这时候应该将过去的自己拋诸脑后，也许是时候说“再见，我得走了”，然后重新回来，带着不同的思考方式。