Pico Iyer: What ping-pong taught me about life
פיקו אייר: פינג-פונג וחידת הניצחון
Pico Iyer has spent more than 30 years tracking movement and stillness -- and the way criss-crossing cultures have changed the world, our imagination and all our relationships. Full bio
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are set up in a studio.
ממוקמים בסטודיו.
the balls collide in midair
we select partners and play doubles.
ושותפים ומשחקים משחקי זוגות.
tell you who's won,
every five minutes.
of who is winning games.
מי מנצח במשחקים.
of furious exertion,
without competition.
is best followed by watching ping-pong.
אחר גיאופוליטיקה דרך צפייה בפינג-פונג.
were fiercest enemies
היו אויבים מושבעים
some small green tables,
could breathe more easily.
"a spiritual nuclear weapon."
honorary lifelong member
"חבר כבוד לכל החיים"
this win-win situation
(ניצחון לכולם) הזה
the bouncing white ball.
like a cousin of "sing-song,"
"סינג-סונג",
that it was invented by high-class Brits
מהמעמד הגבוה המציאו אותו
over walls of books after dinner.
מעל קירות של ספרים לאחר ארוחת הערב.
from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire:
מהאימפריה האוסטרו-הונגרית לשעבר:
early world championships
that was hit at them
the whole sport to a standstill.
in Prague in 1936,
two hours and 12 minutes.
the umpire had to retire with a sore neck
בגלל כאב צוואר,
the ball back with his left hand
לאחור בידו השמאלית
started, of course, filing out,
maybe 12,000 strokes.
כ-12,000 מכות.
the International Table Tennis Association
לטניס שולחן
longer than 20 minutes.
למעלה מ 20 דקות.
Japan entered the picture,
watchmaker called Hiroji Satoh
in Bombay in 1952.
he wasn't highly rated,
הוא לא היה מדורג גבוה,
that was not pimpled,
secret weapon,
into the streets of Tokyo
was set into motion.
של יפן שלאחר המלחמה.
at my regular games in Japan,
the inner sport of global domination,
של שליטה גלובלית,
במועדון שלנו,
we change partners every five minutes,
you're very likely to win
מ-2 מערכות,
that as a boy growing up in England,
of a game was to win.
that, really, the point of a game
האמיתי במשחק
around you feel that they are winners.
להרגיש שהם מנצחים.
as an individual might,
כפי שיחיד עלול לעשות,
steady chorus.
a 9-1 lead for their team
יתרון של 9-1 של הקבוצה שלהם
is intensely involved.
מעורבים באינטנסיביות.
these high, looping lobs
הגבוהים האלה
but I think he's thought of as a loser.
שהוא נחשב למפסיד.
is really like an act of love.
כמו משחק אהבה.
to take all the fun out of the sport.
את כל הכיף מהספורט.
victory against our strongest players,
נגד השחקנים הכי חזקים שלנו
with a new partner,
I never felt disconsolate.
and started playing singles again
לשחק משחקי יחידים
I was really brokenhearted.
I couldn't sleep either,
only one way to go,
business in Japan,
באופן מקצועי ביפן,
after four hours,
לאחר ארבע שעות,
are based on winning percentage,
can finish ahead
was ever brought over to Japan
Japanese baseball team,
second-place finish,
quite a lot like that point
כמו הנקודה הזו
two hours and 12 minutes,
the daring, the excitement, out of things.
ההעזה, וההתרגשות, אל מחוץ לדברים.
playing ping-pong in Japan
regularly enjoy more fun
your small part perfectly,
החלק הקטן שלכם בצורה מושלמת,
a beautiful harmony
than the sum of its parts.
from a child's simple sense of either-ors.
מהתחושה הילדותית משהו של אוֹ שֶׁ אוֹ שֶׁ.
of winning isn't losing --
for years after it has unfolded.
אחרי שהוא התרחש.
I owned in the world,
that it was that seeming loss
on the earth more gently,
בנעימות רבה יותר,
known as the ping-pong table.
המוכר כשולחן הפינג-פונג.
into the perfect job,
really relieves me of all my anxiety,
מכל החרדות שלי,
in a more or less equal state of delight.
פחות או יותר שווה.
isn't the same thing as falling behind
is the same thing as being dead.
כמו להיות מת.
are said to offer degrees in ping-pong,
מציעות תארים בפינג-פונג,
have found that ping-pong
with mild mental disorders
עם הפרעות נפשיות קלות
to tell who's won or who's lost
for two hours and 12 minutes?
לאורך שעתיים ו- 12 דקות?
ended up, six years later,
כעבור שש שנים,
of Auschwitz and Dachau.
his ping-pong playing days.
before even the first point was concluded.
שהסתיימה הנקודה הראשונה
על מספר הנקודות.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Pico Iyer - Global authorPico Iyer has spent more than 30 years tracking movement and stillness -- and the way criss-crossing cultures have changed the world, our imagination and all our relationships.
Why you should listen
In twelve books, covering everything from Revolutionary Cuba to the XIVth Dalai Lama, Islamic mysticism to our lives in airports, Pico Iyer has worked to chronicle the accelerating changes in our outer world, which sometimes make steadiness and rootedness in our inner world more urgent than ever. In his TED Book, The Art of Stillness, he draws upon travels from North Korea to Iran to remind us how to remain focused and sane in an age of frenzied distraction. As he writes in the book, "Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds ... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilarations of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world."
Pico Iyer | Speaker | TED.com