英文パラグラフリーディングの技法
Miura Takashi
0
目次
この授業の概要 ··································································· 2
PART-1 読解方略
方略 1. 主語と述語動詞の発見 ·············································· 3
方略 2. 語順訳の技法 ·························································· 4
方略 3. General→Specific の流れを読み取る ··························· 4
方略 4. Topic Sentence と Support を見つけよう ······················ 5
方略 5. Introduction, discussion, conclusion には役割がある ····· 5
方略 6. 段落間構造を判別しよう ··········································· 6
方略 7. 図表化して内容を整理しよう ······································ 9
追加 READING 教材集······················································· 10
A Tribute to the Dog ··························································· 10
Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address ················· 11
1
この授業の概要
１．授業の目的
英語の 論説文を会う程度以上のスピードで読むことができ、その上で、大意を把握したり、そこか
ら必要な情報を正確に入手できるようになることを目標とします。
２．そのための筋道
１．英文理解の基本である[主語＋述語動詞]が発見できるようにする。
２．語順読みのテクニックにより、英文を頭から聞き・読 めるようにする。
３．パラグラフの主題文(topic sentence)とその根拠（support）を見分けることにより、要点の把握
を可能にする。
４．複数のパラグラフ同士が論理的にどう関係しているかの構成パターンを予測して読むことにより、
英語論説文の正確・迅速な大意理解を可能にする。
５．使用テキスト
①Skills for Better Reading（南雲堂）②この冊子
参考書：高校時代に使っていた英文法参考書（持ってない人は桐原書店の『総合英語 Forest』がお
勧めです。）
６．成績評価方法：予習プリント・復習課題・発表分担などの平常点で 50％、中間試験と期末試験で
50％の成績を付けます。45 分以下の遅刻・早退は 0.5 回、それ以上は 1 回の欠席と数え、欠席超
過の学生は単位不認定となります。
７．先生への連絡法：火曜日 14 時 30 分～15 時、非常勤講師控室
著者からのメッセージ
この授業では追加教材として、学生の皆さんがこれからの自分の生き方を考える上で参考に
なるような、内容の豊かなものを入れてゆきます。また、読んだ英文については学生同士で
感想や意見を交換しながら、読解力を高める授業としたいと思います。2013 年 4 月
(http://homepage3.nifty.com/tutormiura/index/html)
2
三浦
孝
Part-1 読解方略
方略 1. 主語と述語動詞の発見
2.4
学習の困難点(4)：英語の文の骨組みがわからない
(a) 英語は＜主語・述語動詞（＋目的語・補語）＞の４大要素が必須
(b) 英語は、4 大要素の並び順に、厳然としたルールがある。
ア
イ
イ
ア
日本語では「ネコがネズミを食べた」のアとイを入れ替えて「ネズミをネコが食べた」としても、意
ア
イ
味が変わらないが、英語で ‘The cat ate the mouse.’のアとイを入れ替えたら、ネズミが猫を食べた
ことになり、意味が全く変わってしまう。
このように英文は語順が意味を決定する割合が非常に大きい。したがって、文を理解する際には、何
が主語・述語動詞・目的語・補語かを識別する力が求められる。また作文する際には、主語を何にし、
それをどういう動詞で受けるか、という判断がカギを握る。そしてこのことは、基本的な品詞の概念の
理解を必要とする。
(c)文の 4 大要素になれる品詞は限られている。
「主語になれるのは名詞・代名詞か、名詞句や名詞節」文を理解する際にも、たとえば“Not until recently
did he realize his mistake,”の中で、主語の可能性があるのは名詞か代名詞（
‘he’か‘mistake’）だという
ことを知っていれば、理解は容易になる。
以上、特定の品詞から成る文の 4 大要素が、厳格な語順のルールで並んで、文の骨組みを形成すると
いうのが、英文の特徴である。
(d) 修飾語が文の骨組みを見えにくくする
“The cat ate the mouse.”のような単純な文の場合は、主語・動詞・目的語の認識は困難ではない。し
かし学習が進むにつれて、これにさまざまな修飾語が付加されて、主語・動詞・目的語の認識は困難に
なってゆく。たとえば下記の(a)(b)(c)の文は、文構造が同じであるが、下へ行くほど修飾語が複雑に付加
されて、主語・動詞・目的語の認識を困難にしている。
：
(i) The man drank [wine].
(ii) The Japanese man on the American ship drank [wine] for the first time.
(iii) The Japanese man who had been shipwrecked and saved by the American ship drank [something] red that
looked like human blood for the first time.
またこの時役に立つのが、文中の修飾語句（特に前置詞句）を識別する力である。文中の修飾語句が
指摘できれば、逆に文の 4 大要素の識別は非常に容易になるからである。たとえば“on the American
ship”
、
“for the first time”などの前置詞句（前置詞+名詞）は、ひと塊のまとまった意味を持つ修飾語で
あることを認識する力である。この識別ができれば、修飾語のジャングルのように入り組んだ複雑な文
章でも、
(The) (Japanese) man (on the American ship) drank wine (for the first time).
という風に文の骨組みが容易に識別できるので、理解が可能になる。
文を理解するためには、文章の主語（
『～は/が』を表わす部分）を
で囲み、それを受ける述語
動詞にアンダーラインを引くとよい。
3
方略２. 語順訳の技法
(1)英文をチャンク（意味のまとまり）ごとに区切る。
(2)区切ったチャンクの中だけで日本語訳する。
(3)チャンクが出てくる順番に、頭から訳していく。逆戻り訳をしない。
語順読みの利点
(1)逆戻りしないので、スピードのある訳ができる。
(2)英文を頭から理解する力は、リスニングにおいても非常に役に立つ。
語順訳練習：テキスト 12 ページの Is English the world’s most common language?を語順
訳してみよう。
方略 3. General→Specific の流れを読み取る
論説型の英文は、全体を広く概略した文（general）で始め、それから細部へと具体的に説明した文
(specific)が続きます。これは日本語の論述方式とは逆になっていますから、注意しましょう。
Why have ￥ 100-shops
been so
successful?
なぜ 100 円ショップは成功したか
One reason is the way
The 2d reason is the way
The
their
they
3rd
reason
is
Finally, the idea of
timing.
‘\100’ is appealing.
produced.
products.
第 3 の理由はタイミング
第 4 の理由は「100 円」の
第 1 の理由は、生産方式
第 2 の理由は販売方式
の良さ
魅
products
途上国
人件費等
で生産
が安い
are
sell
their
効率的な代理店制度
本社から店へ商品を直接
卸す
1990 年
購買力
デ フ
代の不
の低下
レ
況
100 円で 100 円な
後悔し
何でも ら気楽
ても損
買える
に使え
失は軽
る
い
生産者 40 円→本社 60 円→
代理店 100 円
When one hundred yen shop first appeared in Japan, they surprised us with their low
prices and wide variety of products. Why have they been so successful?
One reason is the way their products are produced. These shops have factories located
4
in developing countries like China, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Labor and costs are much
cheaper in these countries than in Japan. In this sense, the one hundred yen shop is the
offspring of economic globalization.
The second reason is the way these shops sell their products. They have developed an
efficient franchise system. Products are transported directly to the franchise shops without
going through several retailers. It is said that, typically, the maker sells an item at 40 yen,
the one hundred shop company sells it at 60 yen to each franchise shop, where it is then sold
for 100 yen.
The third reason is timing. In the 1990s the Japanese economy became stuck in
recession and the consumer’s purchasing power collapsed. Deflation was the trend at the time.
People could no longer afford to buy expensive products.
Finally, the idea of ‘one hundred yen’ is also appealing. With just one coin, shoppers can
buy all kinds of goods. One hundred yen is easy to spend. And even if the product does not
meet your expectations, you have not lost a lot of money.
To sum up, the one hundred yen shop is the outcome of economic globalization, pursuit
of marketing efficiency, and the decline of the Japanese economy.
方略４. Topic Sentence と Support を見つけよう
１つの英文パラグラフには、１つのトピック・センテンス(ＴＳ)が置かれます。これは、そのパラ
グラフの内容を代表する 1 文のことです。Support は、ＴＳの根拠・理由・詳細を述べた部分で
す。論説文では普通、パラグラフの冒頭に topic sentence が置かれます。TS と Support の間に
も、General-Specific の関係があります。
つまり、英語の長文を読む場合、Topic Sentence を拾い読みしてゆけば、素早く概略をつかむ
ことができます。Support の部分に、難解な文や難解語が出てきても、気にする必要はありませ
ん。
方略５.
Introduction, discussion, conclusion には役割が
ある
幾つかのパラグラフが有機的に集まって英文エッセーを構成します。英文エッセーの代表的な構
成は、次のようです
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図３．英文エッセーの構成
Introduction
イントロでは、そのエッセーの主題を明確に提示する。いち早く読者の関心をひきつける
イントロが望ましい。ここは、読み手に読んでもらえるか、もらえないかの分かれ目にあ
たるからだ。
「～は正しいかどうか」といったテーマでは、イントロで筆者の立場を明言し
て始めることも一案である。
In Section One I will explain/discuss/ summarize....のように、各セクションで何を述べ
るのかを予告してもよい。
Discussion 1
エッセーで最も多くのスペースを占める部分。筆者の主張の証拠や根
拠を挙げる部分だから、十分なスペースを取って論述する。
Discussion
Discussion 2
discussion は短いエッセーでは、１パラグラフの場合もあるが、普
通は数パラグラフを当てる。主張の積み上げ方には、下記の２種類が
Discussion 3
Discussion 4
あるが、英語では[Top Down]式が主流である。
[Top Down 式]
1.
制服は必要だ。
1. 着る服に迷わない。
2 着る服に迷わない。
2 貧富の差が出ない
3．貧富の差が出ない。
3．自校の生徒がすぐわかる
Discussion n 4．自校の生徒がすぐわかる。
5．流行に流されない
Conclusion
[Bottom Up 式]
4．流行に流されない
5．だから制服は必要だ。
Conclusion での締めくくり方が、エッセー全体の出来を大きく左右する。
「これまでの論
述で、何があきらかになったか」という観点でまとめるとよい。代表的なまとめ方は、①
自分の主張を要約する、②掲げた議論に判断を下す、③考えをさらに発展させるような疑
問を発する、④さらなる発展の方向は何かを指し示す（上村＆大井：102-103）
。ただし、
本文中で扱ってこなかったアイディアや話題を、conclusion で扱ってはいけない。
方略６. 段落間構造を判別しよう
①Time Order（時間順） 物語文の構造：時間の順に物語る
テキスト Lesson 8
②Space Order（場所順） 場所の順に物語る
A Best Spot to Have a Sky View of Firenze
If you are visiting Firenze, Italy, a visit to Michelangelo Square in the
southeast of the city is a must. It is one of the best points to have a panoramic
view of Firenze. In the center of the square is a monument dedicated to
Michalangelo, with several of the most famous sculptural works by the great
master: a copy of the David stands in the center, and at its feet are copies
of the four statues which adorn the Medici tombs in the Chapel of San Lorenzo.
6
Down below the square you can overlook the River Arno flowing gently from
the left to the right, dividing the city into two large parts. On the river
are several bridges, among which Ponte Vecchio (Vecchio Bridge) is the most
famous. The covered bridge houses a fancy shopping archade of enchanting and
gorgeous jewelry shops.
Across the Arno from the Michelangelo Square is the church of Santa Croce
(built in 1221) where you can see tombs of many great names of this city,
including Michelangelo. A little farther to the left of Santa Croce stands
the Duomo (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, built in 1296), the symbol of
Firenze, with its grand dome as high as 106 meters. Next to the Duomo stands
the Giotto’s Belltower, where you can command another panoramic view of the
city at the height of 84 meters up 414 stairs.
To the left of the Cathedral, closer to Ponte Vecchio, you can see another
tall belltower in Gothic style. It belongs to the Palace of Vecchio built in
1298 as the central office of the Firenze city government, where the Medici
family exerted their dominant power. Between Vecchio Palace and the River Arno
stands Uffizi Gallery, one of the most famous art museums in the world. Uffizi
Gallery features 2500 Italian Renaissance masterpiece pictures painted
between 13th and 18th centuries, including the works of Botticelli, Raphael,
Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Far from the crowd of the city, you will enjoy some quiet recess here in
this square having a bird-eye view of the beautiful city. There are stalls
nearby to buy food and drinks if you want. The place is good to visit after
dark as well as during the day; the night view is excellent with Firence’s
major historical building illuminated along with tens of thousands of city
lights twinkling like stars.
③Definition（定義文）
何事かを定義する
テキストの Lesson 12
④illustration（例示）
ある原理を、例示して説明する
後述の追加リーディング教材 ’A Tribute to Dogs’で、原理と例示をみつけよう。
⑤Cause-Effect（因果関係）
原因と結果の関係を述べる
テキストの Lesson 12
⑥Problem-Solution（問題と解決）
問題→講じる解決策→解決策の評価
The internet has transformed the way information is shared and
consumed, but it has also created problems that did not exist before.
7
What are the most serious problems associated with the internet and
what solutions can you suggest?
The enormous growth in the use of the internet over the last decade has led to radical changes
to the way that people consume and share information. Although serious problems have
arisen as a result of this, there are solutions.
One of the first problems of the internet is the ease with which children can access potentially
dangerous sites. For example, pornography sites are easily accessible to them because they
can register with a site and claim to be an adult. There is no doubt that this affects their
thoughts and development, which is a negative impact for the children and for society.
Another major problem is the growth of online fraud and hacking. These days, there are
constant news stories about government and company websites that have been hacked,
resulting in sensitive information falling into the hands of criminals.
It is important that action is taken to combat these problems. Governments should ensure
that adequate legislation and controls are in place that will prevent young people from
accessing dangerous sites, such as requiring more than simply confirming that you are an
adult to view a site. Parents also have a part to play. They need to closely monitor the
activities of their children and restrict their access to certain sites, which can now be done
through various computer programs. Companies must also improve their onsite IT security
systems to make fraud and hacking much more difficult by undertaking thorough reviews of
their current systems for weaknesses.
To conclude, the internet is an amazing technological innovation that has transformed
people’s lives, but not without negative impacts. However, with the right action by individuals,
governments and businesses, it can be made a safe place for everyone.
(285 words)
出典：http://www.ieltsbuddy.com/problem-solution-essays.html
⑦Comparison-Contrast（類似と相違）
２つ（以上）のものの類似点と相違点を対比する
テキストの Lesson 5
⑧Claim-Counterclaim
（主張と反論）
テキストの Lesson 4
＊それぞれの構造には、それぞれ特徴的な vocabulary があります。
段落間構造の知識の効用：イントロ部分を読んで、その作品の段落間構造を予測することができ
る。予測を持って読む・聞くことにより、概要の理解がはるかに容易になる。
8
方略 6. 図表化して内容を整理しよう
Graphic Organizer による内容提示/内容まとめタスク
内容理解活動１．ダイヤグラム（概念図）変換
主張―根拠―その根拠、や上位分類と下位分類など、重層的な事柄を叙述した文を概念図に書き
換える。
内容理解活動２．表を完成する
複数個の物や人の特徴を比較対象した文では、比較対象表を作る。
ワシントン
リンカーン
前職
生育歴
内容理解活動３．フローチャート（流れ図）を完成する
手順や事件の流れなどを表す文では、物事の起こる順番をフローチャートに書く。
内容理解活動４．絵や図の利用
情景描写や物語などの内容を、絵や図に完成したり、数枚の絵の並び順を読み取ったりさせる。
内容理解活動５．別のスタイルの文章への転換
たとえば会話文(spoken)→叙述文(written)、電話の会話→報告文、叙述文→ドラマシナリオのよ
うに、別のスタイルに変換させる作業を通して、理解を図る。
内容理解活動６．サマリー・ライティング
もとのテキストを、たとえば三分の一の語数に要約する作業を通して、読み手とテキストの意味
交渉を促進する。
内容理解活動 7．テキスト内容に関して教師と学生の間で Questions and Answers の問答を行う。
教師の問いに答えるために学生は何度もテキストの中から答を探そうとする。
9
追加 READING 教材集
A Tribute to the Dog
George G. Vest
1
2
George G. Vest was United States Senator from Missouri from 1879 to 1903.
3
He was a leading orator in the Senate. As a young lawyer, he represented
4
a man who sued another for killing his dog. When Vest’s turn came to
5
address the Jury, he made the following speech and won the case.
6
7
Gentlemen of the jury: The best friend a man has in the world may
8
turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has
9
reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and
10
dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name
11
may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may
12
lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man’s
13
reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The
14
people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success
15
is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure
16
settles its cloud upon our heads.
17
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish
18
world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves
19
ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man’s dog stands by him in
20
prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on
21
the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely,
22
if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that
23
has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in
24
encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his
25
pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert,
10
1
he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he
2
is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
3
If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless
4
and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of
5
accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his
6
enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master
7
in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter
8
if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the
9
noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open
10
in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death. (Mclean)
11
12
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
アップル・コンピュータと Pixar アニメーションスタジオの創始者、スティーブ・ジョブズ氏が、
アメリカの名門大学スタンフォード大の卒業式に招かれて行った卒業記念スピーチ。名門大学の
エリートたちを前に、ジョブズは「実は私は貧困家庭に育ち、大学は卒業していない」と切り出
す。幾多の苦節を乗り越えて、挫折をチャンスに変えて歩んだ彼のライフ・ストーリーは、人生
振り返れば「点が線になる」という名言に集約されている。
1
Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest
2
universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest
3
I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.
4
That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.
5
(the 1st story)
6
The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the
7
first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I
8
really quit. So why did I drop out?
9
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate
10
student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be
11
adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a
11
1
lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they
2
really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the
3
night asking, “We’ve got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?” They said, “Of
4
course.” My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from
5
college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final
6
adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would
7
go to college.
8
This was the start in my life. And 17 years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose
9
a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’
10
savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it.
11
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help
12
me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life.
13
So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time,
14
but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I
15
could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me and begin dropping in on the
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ones that looked far more interesting.
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It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’
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rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk
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the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare
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Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and
21
intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
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Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the
23
country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully
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hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I
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decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif
26
typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about
27
what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that
28
science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
29
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later
30
when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we
12
1
designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never
2
dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces
3
or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no
4
personal computer would have them.
5
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class
6
and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it
7
was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very,
8
very clear looking backwards 10 years later.
9
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them
10
looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
11
You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever–because believing
12
that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart,
13
even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
14
(the 2nd story)
15
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky, I found what I loved to do early in
16
life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10
17
years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with
18
over 4,000 employees. We’d just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier,
19
and I had just turned 30, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you
20
started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented, to run the
21
company with me. And for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the
22
future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of
23
directors sided with him. And so at 30, I was out – and very publicly out. What had been the
24
focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
25
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous
26
generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I
27
met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I
28
was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But
29
something slowly began to dawn on me, I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple
30
had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love, and so I decided to
13
1
start over. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing
2
that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the
3
lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the
4
most creative periods of my life.
5
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named
6
Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to
7
create the worlds first computer animated feature film, “Toy Story,” and is now the most
8
successful animation studio in the world.
9
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I returned to Apple, and the
10
technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene
11
and I have a wonderful family together. I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I
12
hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.
13
Sometime life – sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick, don’t lose
14
faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve
15
got to find what you love, and that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work
16
is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you
17
believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you
18
haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll
19
know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the
20
years roll on, so keep looking – don’t settle.
21
22
23
(the 3rd story)
My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like:
If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.
24
It made an impression on me. And since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in
25
the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life, would I
26
want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been no for too many
27
days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the
28
most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because
29
almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure,
30
these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
14
1
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking
2
you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your
3
heart.
4
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning,
5
and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The
6
doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should
7
expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get
8
my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try and tell your kids
9
everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It
10
means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your
11
family. It means to say your goodbyes.
12
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening, I had a biopsy, where they stuck
13
an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines; put a needle into
14
my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife who was there
15
told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because
16
it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the
17
surgery and, thankfully, I’m fine now.
18
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few
19
more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty
20
than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept, no one wants to die. Even
21
people who want to go to heaven, don’t want to die to get there, and yet death is the
22
destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is as it should be, because death
23
is very likely the single best invention of Life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to
24
make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you
25
will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
26
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma,
27
which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’
28
opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow
29
your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
30
Everything else is secondary.
15
1
2
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog,
3
which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart
4
Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This
5
was in the late 60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with
6
typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form 35
7
years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great
8
notions.
9
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then
10
when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.
11
On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the
12
kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the
13
words, stay hungry. Stay foolish. It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay hungry.
14
Stay foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin
15
anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay foolish. Thank you all very much.
引用文献リスト
IELTS Buddy-Free Online Exam Preparation.
<http://www.ieltsbuddy.com/problem-solution-essays.html> downloaded on April 21, 2013.
McLean, Paul (編著) (1992) Great World Speeches. 金星堂
Saito, Hikaru（ed）(1959) Out of My Life and Thought (translated by C. T. Campion, from the
original text Aus Meinem Leben und Denken, 1931)
Schweitzer, Albert. (1961) Pilgrimage to Humanity. New York: Philosophical Library Inc.
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