音频·阅读 | 你并不特别(3)

9. fete: 盛情款待；fawn over: 奉承讨好。

[好文分享：www.11jj.com]

But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not.

[好文分享：www.11jj.com]

 

The empirical10 evidence is everywhere. Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. So think about this: even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion, that means there’re nearly 7,000 people just like you. And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your planet is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe.11 In fact, astrophysicists12 assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it.

 

Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him…

 

“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my own version of perfection! Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!”13 And I don’t disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.

10. empirical: 以经验（或观察）为依据的。

11. 再来想想一个更宏观的场景：你生活的星球不是太阳系的中心，太阳系也不是银河系的中心，银河系也不是宇宙的中心。