大卫·布鲁克斯 (David Brooks) ，《纽约时报》的专栏作家，是西方世界最知名的知识分子之一。
17年毕业典礼上，芝加哥大学首次邀请非本校教职工，大卫·布鲁克斯（校友）做毕业致辞。
同样地，大卫·布鲁克斯也分享了自己在芝加哥大学的学习生活经历等，但是最让小编印象印刻的莫过于他提到的“焦佼者 （焦虑的佼佼者）”这个话题：这种人没有使命感，没有目标感，但依然试图让自己从所遇的问题中解脱出来。
请问，这个点，有没有戳中你呢？是不是你当下的状态，亦或者是你身边人的状态呢？
或许，你可以从中找到不一样的解决答案。
We have a Telos Crisis in this country.
目前在这个国家，我们正经历着关于终极意义的危机。
Many people do not have a clear sense of their goals and their own purpose.
许多人对自己的目标和目的没有清晰的认识。
They don't know what they are shooting for, or what fundamental convictions should guide their behavior.
他们不知道他们在追逐什么，或者遵从什么样的根本信念行事。
They've been trained in hyper-specialized research universities that tell them how to do things, but don't ask them to think about why they should do them; that don't give them a forum to ask the questions.
他们在各自细分的专业领域接受大学的科研训练，学校教他们怎么做事，却不教他们思考为何要做。大学也没有为他们提供发问的论坛，
What is my own best life?
去问我应该如何生活？
What am I called to do?
我的使命是什么？
Why am I here?
我为什么要来这里？
From college they enter the world we all live in, which is a busy world.
从大学里走出，他们就进入了真实的世界，一个忙忙碌碌的世界。
The flow of a thousand emails, the tasks of setting up a career and family.
成千上万的电邮要回，马不停蹄地规划事业、组建家庭。
These things distract from the great questions of purpose and meaning.
种种此般皆让人无法聚焦于关乎生命意义与目的的问题。
I find that many people haven't even been given a moral vocabulary to help think these things through.
我看到很多人就连这些思考德性话题的词汇都不具备。
They haven't been surrounded with a functioning moral ecology and a set of ideal to guide and orient them.
他们并没有处在一个良好的道德生态之中，也甚少接触那些能引导指点他们的理念。
And this produces a great emotional fragility.
这就造成了一种巨大的情感脆弱。
Our friend Nietzsche said that he who has a why to live for can endure any how.
我们的朋友尼采曾说过，若知为何而生，遂可纳受一切。
But if you don't know what your purpose is, then the first failure or setback can totally throw you into crisis and total collapse.
但倘若你不知道自己的使命，那即使是第一次失败或挫折就能置你于危机之中，让你彻底崩溃。
I see this among my former students, and I see it over and over again in people in their mid-twenties.
我在我教过的学生身上看到过这种缺失，这在二十几岁的年轻人身上屡见不鲜。
The young person without a conscious purpose graduates and hopes by piling success upon success he can fill the void within.
没有明确目标的年轻人毕业了，指望用一次次堆砌成功来填补内心的空洞。
He becomes what the writer Matias Dalsgaard calls "The Insecure Overachiever".
他们成了 Matias Dalsgaard所谓的"焦虑的佼佼者"。
"Such a person, " Dalsgaard writes, "must have no stable or solid foundation to build upon, and yet nonetheless tries to build his way out of his problem.
Dalsgaard 写道："这种人一定没有稳固的根基，但依然试图让自己从所遇的问题中解脱出来。
It is an impossible situation.
这等于陷自己于不可能之境。
You can't compensate for having a foundation made of quicksand by building a new story on top of it.
你无法通过建造新的楼层来弥补像流沙一般的地基。
But this person takes no notice and hopes that the problem down in the foundations won't be found out if only the construction work keeps going".
但这种人会继续无视这点，一心希望只要修建工作继续下去，地基的问题就不会被发现。"
But of course the reckoning always comes.
但凡事终有报。
It produces the crisis, the depression, the sadness.
危机感来临，压抑感和沮丧接踵而至。
David Foster Wallace noticed it back in 1996: "It's more like a stomach level sadness". He wrote,
大卫.福斯特.华莱士在1996 年注意到了这点，他写道:"这种悲伤深入直觉。
"I see it in myself and my friends in different ways.
我在自己身上、朋友身上都以不同的方式看见过。
It manifests itself in a kind of lostness".
它表现出种若有所失。"
"This is a generation that has an inheritance of absolutely nothing as far as meaningful moral values goes,"
"从有意义的道德观念方面来看，这是继承了虚无的一代人。
He wrote,"You can see the fruits of the Telos Crisis in the rising suicide rates, the rising drug addiction rates.
终极意义危机的恶果体现在不断攀升的自杀率上，体现在不断增加的毒品成瘾上。
You can see the social distrust.
你看到社会信任缺失，
You can see the isolation and the lives of people who are adrift.
不少人过着离群索居，漂泊无依的生活。
The fact that you went to Chicago means you'II always have an orientation that is slightly different than the mainstream culture, slightly countercultural.
你到芝大来，就意味着你一一定会受到一种指引，它与主流文化略有不同，稍微逆流而行。
You'll have a harder time being shallow.
肤浅地过活，反而变得不易。
You may not know your life's purpose or your calling, but you know that mountain world exists and you can explore it, and that the answers can be found up there in the Museum of Beautiful Things, and that knowledge itself will be a source of great comfort and stability.
你可能并不知道生命的意义或是你的使命，但是你知道崇山峻岭就在那里，它等着你去探索，而人生的诸多答案就在那座美好之物的博览馆里;知识本身会给你莫大的安慰，让你变得冷静沉稳。
Life at the university of Chicago is not always filled with day to day happiness.
在芝大的生活并非流淌着日常的幸福，
But it gives you glimpses of cosmic happiness, glimpses of understanding the long story all involved in.
但它会让你瞥见宇宙大我的幸福，瞥见人类求索这一幸福的漫长旅途。
And if you have cosmic joy, because you know this story is ultimately about something meaningful, holy and good, you can bear the day to day miseries a lot better.
如果你体会到了这种大我的欢愉，因为你知道它最终关切的是某种神圣、美妙而富于意义之物，你就能更好地承受日常的痛苦。
So that is the good side of what I got here and what I hope you got here.
这些就是芝大赐予我的美好，也是我期望大家也能从这儿获取的。