Author: Diana Nyad
original name Diana Winslow Sneed, (born August 22, 1949, New York City, American) distance swimmer and journalist
Part 1
It’s the fifth time I stand on this shore, the Cuban shore, looking out at that distant horizon, believing, again, that I’m going to make it all the way across that vast, dangerous wilderness荒芜地区 of an ocean.
Not only have I tried four times, but the greatest swimmers in the world have been trying since 1950, and it’s still never been done.
The team is proud of our four attempts.
It’s an expedition远征队 of some 30 people.
Bonnie is my best friend and head handler, who somehow summons will (增强成功的欲望), that last drop of will within me, when I think it’s gone, after many, many hours and days out there.
在经历了许多、许多个小时和日子之后，当我认为意志已经消逝时，她会以某种方式召唤意志，召唤我内心的最后一滴意志。
The shark experts are the best in the world-- large predators below（海底下有最大的捕食者）.
The box jellyfish, the deadliest venom致命毒液 in all of the ocean, is in these waters, and I have come close to dying from them on a previous attempt.
（--Box jellyfish--）
conditions themselves, besides the sheer distance of over 100 miles in the open ocean – the currents洋流 and whirling eddies（旋转漩涡） and the Gulf Stream（墨西哥湾流） itself, the most unpredictable of all of the planet Earth.
And by the way – it’s amusing to me that journalists（记者们） and people, before these attempts, often ask me, “Well, are you going to go with any boats or any people or anything?”
And I’m thinking, what are they imagining? That I’ll just sort of(有几分;近似;有那么点儿) do some celestial navigation（天体导航） , and carry a bowie knife（长刃猎刀） in my mouth, and I’ll hunt fish and skin them alive and eat them, and maybe drag a desalinisation plant(海水净化装置) behind me for fresh water.
Yes, I have a team.
And the team is expert, and the team is courageous（[kəˈreɪdʒəs]，勇敢的）, and brimming with（to be full of it） innovation and scientific discovery, as is true of（与...一样） any major expedition on the planet.
Part 2
And we’ve been on a journey.And the debate（争论） has raged（[reɪdʒd]激烈进行）, hasn’t it, since the Greeks, or isn’t it what it’s all about (此处意为：并不止于旅行)?
Isn’t life about the journey, not really the destination?
难道生活并不是关于旅途，而不是目的吗？
And here we’ve been on this journey, and the truth is, it’s been thrilling（令人激动）.
We haven’t reached that other shore, and still, our sense of pride and commitment, unwavering commitment（坚定不移的决心）.
When I turned 60, the dream was still alive from having tried this in my 20s – dreamed it and imagined it.
The most famous body of water on the Earth today, I imagine Cuba to Florida.
（--Cuba to Florida--）
And it was deep. It was deep in my soul.
When I turned 60, it wasn’t so much about the athletic accomplishment（竞技成就）, it wasn’t the ego（自我价值感） of “I want to be the first.”
That’s always there and it’s undeniable.
But it was deeper. It was “how much life is there left?” Let’s face it – we’re all on a one-way street, aren’t we?
And what are we going to do?
What are we going to do as we go forward, to have no regrets looking back?
And all this past year in training, I had that Teddy Roosevelt quote（泰迪·罗斯福的名言） to paraphrase（解释） it, floating around in my brain. It says, “You go ahead.
You go ahead and sit back in your comfortable chair and you be the critic, you be the observer,while the brave one gets in the ring and engages（进入拳击场，开始比赛） and gets bloody and gets dirty and fails over and over and over again, but yet isn’t afraid and isn’t timid（胆怯的） and lives life in a bold way(勇敢的方式).”
And so, of course, I want to make it across.
It is the goal, and I should be so shallow（肤浅的） to say that this year, the destination was even sweeter than the journey.
But the journey itself was worthwhile taking.
And at this point, by this summer, everybody – scientists, sports scientists, endurance experts（耐力专家）, neurologists（神经学家）, my own team, Bonnie – said it’s impossible.
It just simply can’t be done, and Bonnie said to me, “But if you’re going to take the journey, I’m going to see you through to the end of it, so I’ll be there.”
And now we’re there.
As we’re looking out, kind of a surreal（more like a dream than reality） moment before the first stroke（划第一下水）, standing on the rocks at Marina Hemingway（海明威码头）,the Cuban flag is flying above, all my team is out in their boats, hands up in the air, “We’re here! We’re here for you!”
Bonnie and I look at each other and say, this year, the mantra（咒语） is – and I’ve been using it in training – Find a way.
You have a dream and you have obstacles（障碍物） in front of you, as we all do.
None of us ever get through this life without heartache, without turmoil,
我们每个人的一生都不会没有心痛，没有动荡
and if you believe and you have faith and you can get knocked down and get back up again and you believe in perseverance（韧性，毅力） as a great human quality, you find your way.
And Bonnie grabbed my shoulders, and she said, “Let’s find our way to Florida.”
And we started, and for the next 53 hours, it was an intense（十分强烈的）, unforgettable life experience.
The highs were high, the awe – I’m not a religious person, but I’ll tell you,
高处很高，还有敬畏 - 我不是一个信教的人，但是我会告诉你
to be in the azure（ [ˈæʒər] 蔚蓝色的） blue of the Gulf Stream as if, as you’re breathing, you’re looking down miles and miles and miles, to feel the majesty（庄严） of this blue planet we live on – it’s awe-inspiring（令人惊叹的）.
I have a playlist of about 85 songs, and especially in the middle of the night … That night, because we use no lights – lights attract jellyfish, lights attract sharks, lights attract baitfish（饵鱼） that attract sharks, so we go in the pitch black(漆黑一片) of the night. You’ve never seen black this black.
You can’t see the front of your hand, and the people on the boat, Bonnie and my team on the boat – they just hear the slapping of the arms, and they know where I am because there’s no visual at all.
And I’m out there kind of tripping out（沉浸于） on my little playlist.
I’ve got tight rubber caps（耳朵的密封橡胶盖）, I don’t hear a thing. I’ve got goggles（护目镜） and I’m turning my head 50 times a minute, and I’m singing …
(Singing)Imagine there’s no heaven doo doo doo doo doo
It’s easy if you try doo doo doo doo doo
And I can sing that song a thousand times in a row.
Now there’s a talent unto itself.
这本身也是一种才能
And each time I get done with, (Singing) Oh, you may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one
222
(Singing) Imagine there’s no heaven
And when I get through the end of a thousand of John Lennon’s “Imagine”, I have swum nine hours and 45 minutes …exactly.
Part 3
And then there are the crises危机. Of course there are.
And the vomiting呕吐 starts, the seawater --you’re not well. You’re wearing a jellyfish mask for the ultimate protection.
It’s difficult to swim in. It’s causing abrasions擦伤 on the inside of the mouth, but the tentacles触手 can’t get you.
And the hypothermia体温过低 sets in. The water’s* 85 degrees*（约29摄氏度）, and yet you’re losing weight and using calories.
And as you come over toward the side of the boat – not allowed to touch it, not allowed to get out, but Bonnie and her team hands me nutrition营养补给 and ask me how I’m doing, am I all right. I am seeing the Taj Mahal泰姬陵 --Overhere.
I’m in a very different state – And I’m thinking, "Wow! I never thought I’d be running into the Taj Mahal out here.
It’s gorgeous华丽的! I mean, how long did it take them to build that? It’s just … So, uh – wooo – you know?
We kind of have a cardinal基本的 rule that I’m never told how far it is, because we don’t know how far it is.
What’s going to happen to you between this point and that point? What’s going to happen to the weather and the currents and, God forbid, you’re stung蛰, when you don’t think you could be stung in all this armor盔甲.
Bonnie made a decision coming into that third morning that I was suffering, and I was hanging on by a thread命悬一线.
And she said, “Come here,” and I came close to the boat, and she said, “Look, look out there.” And I saw light, because the day is easier than the night, and I thought we were coming into day. I saw a stream of white light along the horizon, and I said, “It’s going to be morning soon.”
And she said, “No, those are the lights of Key West基韦斯特岛.”
It was 15 more hours, which for most swimmers would be a long time.
You have no idea how many 15-hour training swims I had done.
So here we go, and I somehow, without a decision, went into no counting of strokes and no singing and no quoting Stephen Hawking on the parameters of the universe （没有再引用史蒂芬霍金和他的宇宙参数）.
I just went into thinking about this dream, and why and how.
As I said, when I turned 60, it wasn’t about that concrete具体的 “Can you do it?”
That’s the everyday machinations（[ˌmækəˈneɪʃənz] 诡计）. That’s the discipline（自我纪律）, and it’s the preparation, and there’s a pride（自豪） in that.
But I decided to think, as I went along, about – you know, the phrase usually is, "reaching for the stars.“And in my case, it’s reaching for the horizon.
And when you reach for the horizon, as I’ve proven, you may not get there. But what a tremendous（了不起的） build of character and spirit that you lay down（奠定了多么了不起的品格和精神）;
what a foundation you lay down（你搭下了坚实的地基）in reaching for those horizons.
And now, the shore is coming. And there’s just a little part of me that’s sad.
The epic（史诗般的） journey is going to be over.
So many people come up to me now and say,“What’s next?”
“We love that!”.“That little tracker on the computer? When are you going to do the next one? We can’t wait to follow the next one.”
Well, they were just there for 53 hours, and I was there for years.
And so there won’t be another epic journey in the ocean.But the point is, and the point was, that every day of our lives is epic.
And I’ll tell you, when I walked up onto that beach, staggered（摇摇晃晃地走） up onto that beach … I had so many times, in a very puffed-up ego way （自命不凡的方式）, rehearsed（排练） what I would say …on the beach.
When Bonnie thought the back of my throat was swelling up（肿胀的）, she brought the medical team over to our boat to say, “you know…She’s really beginning to have trouble breathing; another 12, 24 hours in the saltwater…” – the whole thing – I just thought, in my hallucinatory（[həˈluːsənətɔːri]幻觉的） moment, that I heard the word “tracheotomy（[ˌtreɪkiˈɑːtəmi]气管切开术）”
Bonnie said to the doctor, “I’m not worried about her not breathing.
If she can’t talk when she gets to the shore, she’s going to be pissed off（火冒三丈）.”
Part 4
But the truth is, all those orations演讲 that I had practiced, just to get myself through some training swims as motivation --it wasn’t like that.
It was a very real moment, with that crowd, with my team.
We did it. I didn’t do it. We did it.
And we’ll never forget it. It’ll always be part of us.
The three things I did sort of blurt out（脱口而出） when we got there, was first: Never, ever give up.
I live it.
What’s the phrase from today from Socrates(苏格拉底）?
Audience: To be is to do.
Diana Nyad: To be is to do.
So I don’t stand up and say, “Don’t ever give up.”
I didn’t give up. There was action behind these words.
The second is: You can chase your dreams at any age; you’re never too old.
Sixty-four，that no one, at any age, any gender, could ever do has done it.
And there’s no doubt in my mind that I am at the prime of my life（生命的巅峰） today.
And the third thing I said on that beach was, it looks like the most solitary endeavor（孤注一掷） in the world, and in many ways, of course, it is.
And in other ways, and the most important ways, it’s a team. And if you think I’m a badass坏蛋, you want to meet Bonnie.
Bonnie, where are you?
Where are you?
There’s Bonnie Stoll.
My buddy.
The Henry David Thoreau（亨利·大卫·梭罗） quote goes, “When you achieve your dreams, it’s not so much what you get as who you have become in achieving them.”
And yeah, I stand before you now.
In the three months since that swim ended, I’ve sat down with Oprah, and I’ve been in President Obama’s Oval椭圆形的 Office;
I’ve been invited to speak in front of esteemed受尊敬的 groups such as yourselves; I’ve signed a wonderful major book contract.
All of that’s great, and I don’t denigrate诋毁 it.
I’m proud of it all, but the truth is, I’m walking around tall（挺直腰杆走路） because I am that bold, fearless person, and I will be, every day, until it’s time for these days to be done.
Thank you very much and enjoy the conference.
