York stage actor who did the occasional law and order. But circumstances took me to Los

ニューヨークの舞台俳優で、時折『法と秩序』を演じていた。しかし、事情があってロスに行くことになった。

Angeles where when I was 29, I did a pilot for a television show called How I Met Your

29歳のとき、『ハウ・アイ・メット・ユア』というテレビ番組のパイロットを務めた。

Mother. Until that point, I had been an intermittently successful, though relatively working actor.

お母さん。それまで私は、比較的現役の俳優ではあったが、断続的に成功を収めていた。

And then the pilot got picked up, the show went out into the world, and everything changed.

そしてパイロット版が採用され、番組が世に出て、すべてが変わった。

The strangest and most disorienting of those changes was that suddenly a lot of people knew me. Well, they didn't know me, they knew my face. They knew this character that I was playing. By some strange coincidence, the character and I looked a lot alike. So suddenly,

その変化の中で最も奇妙で、最も混乱させられたのは、突然、多くの人が私のことを知っていたことだ。まあ、彼らは私を知っていたのではなく、私の顔を知っていたのだ。私が演じているキャラクターを知っていたのだ。奇妙な偶然で、その役柄と私はよく似ていた。だから突然に、

I had this new, weird, vertigo-inducing dimension to my reality. People had been spending a lot of time with me, and I was unaware of having spent time with them. Now, as the show continued to grow in popularity, I realized that if I wasn't careful, if I didn't cultivate a strong group of friends I could trust and a life philosophy that I could lean upon,

私の現実は、奇妙で眩暈を起こすような新しい次元にあった。人々は私と多くの時間を過ごしていたが、私は彼らと過ごしたことに気づいていなかった。この番組が人気を博し続けるにつれ、私は、もし自分が注意深くなければ、もし信頼できる友人たちや、自分が寄り添えるような人生哲学を培っていなければ、と気づいた、

I was going to get into some trouble. So I had to ask myself, given that this public thing was, at least now for the time, being a feature, in fact, of my life, what kind of public person did I want to be? Now, an answer didn't announce itself immediately.

私はトラブルに巻き込まれそうだった。そこで私は自問しなければならなかった。少なくとも今は、この公的なことが私の人生の特徴であり、事実であることを考えると、私はどのような公的な人間になりたいのだろうかと。答えはすぐには出なかった。

I was clear, though, given the menu of options, about what I didn't want to be. I didn't want to be an alcoholic or a drug addict. I didn't want to be an impossible-to-be-around narcissist.

とはいえ、選択肢がある以上、何になりたくないかははっきりしていた。アルコール依存症にも薬物依存症にもなりたくなかった。ナルシストにもなりたくなかった。

And I didn't want to be a reclusive weirdo who refuses to cut his fingernails or leave the house. Okay, well, what then? How was I to live and grow in the public eye if I had no other choice? Now, one of my favorite things about being on a television show with a global reach is that it's made the world feel smaller in a really nice way. I like meeting new people, and I've had the opportunity to meet fans of the show in India, Singapore,

それに、爪を切ることも家から出ることも拒むような引きこもりの変人にはなりたくなかった。じゃあ、どうする？他に選択肢がないとしたら、私はどうやって世間の目を気にしながら生き、成長していけばよかったのだろう？今、世界的な広がりを持つテレビ番組に出演して気に入っていることのひとつは、世界が本当にいい意味で小さく感じられるようになったことだ。私は新しい人々に会うのが好きで、インドやシンガポールで番組のファンに会う機会があった、

Mallorca, Tanzania, Italy, Peru, and Texas, just to name a few. I've also connected with some people in some really tough situations, people going through divorce, health crises, losing loved ones, soldiers stationed overseas, who told me that How I Met Your Mother was a huge source of light and laughter in some incredibly dark times. To be a part of something that can offer that, well, I don't take that for granted. But still, like with all things, it has not been without its challenges. When How I Met Your Mother first went on the air,

マヨルカ島、タンザニア、イタリア、ペルー、テキサスなどなど。離婚や健康上の危機、愛する人を亡くした人、海外に駐留している兵士など、本当につらい状況にある人たちともつながりができたが、その人たちは、『How I Met Your Mother』が、とてつもなく暗い時代に光と笑いを与えてくれたと言ってくれた。それを提供できる何かの一部であることは、まあ、当然のことだとは思っていない。しかし、それでも、すべての物事がそうであるように、困難がなかったわけではない。ハウ・アイ・メット・ユア・マザー』が初めて放送され

I ran into an actress that I knew, and she said, are you just like so happy all the time?

知り合いの女優に偶然会ったんだけど、彼女はこう言ったんだ。

And I remember thinking, does she really think that when CBS picked up the show, it left me with an inability to feel anything other than unbridled joy? But the joke was on me because I kind of thought it would. I had bought into the not uncommon notion that when

そして、CBSがこの番組を取り上げたことで、私が抑えきれない喜び以外の感情を抱けなくなったと、彼女は本当に思っているのだろうか、と思ったことを覚えている。しかし、冗談は私の方だった。なぜなら、私はそうなると思っていたからだ。

I taste success, when I get over there, then I'll be happy. But the strangest thing happened.

成功の味を覚え、あそこへ行けば、私は幸せになれる。しかし、奇妙なことが起こった。

As the show got more successful, I got more depressed. And I kind of had to keep that to myself. The circle of people to whom you can complain about being on a hit television show is unsurprisingly small. A lot of people think getting famous will save you, that it will grant you the life you feel you're owed and spare you certain indignities. I was pretty bummed to realize that rather than lessening or eliminating my insecurities and least attractive qualities, it basically poured fertilizer on them. The upside was that I could really see them, how competitive I was, how much I compared myself to others, how vain, anxious, and self-conscious I could be in my least attractive moments. The list goes on. And

ショーが成功するにつれて、私は落ち込むようになった。そして、それを自分の胸にしまっておかなければならなくなった。ヒット番組に出演していることに文句を言える人の輪は、意外にも狭い。多くの人は、有名になることで自分が救われ、自分が負わされていると感じている人生を手に入れ、ある種の侮辱を免れることができると考えている。私は、自分の不安や最も魅力的でない資質を軽減したり取り除いたりするどころか、基本的にその上に肥料を注いでいることに気づき、かなりがっかりした。自分がどれほど競争心が強いか、どれほど他人と自分を比べ

I saw that if I wanted to live with myself, I was going to have to work on myself. At some point, I realized that all of this was providing me with an intense and fruitful spiritual practice. Fame could be a terrific teacher if I agreed to the lesson plan. Now, part of that lesson plan involved getting used to a different degree of attention. There's this idea about actors that we love and crave the spotlight and welcome any chance to be in it. This is generally false. I want what I do to be seen and appreciated, but I can also be intensely shy and slightly monastic. Partly, this is born of a lifelong allergy to humiliation. Now, any garden variety, insecurity, or self-consciousness I might have felt before I was on television was suddenly multiplied a hundredfold. As the writer David

自分自身とともに生きたいのなら、自分自身に取り組まなければならないと思った。ある時、このすべてが私に強烈で実りある精神的修行を与えてくれていることに気づいた。レッスンプランに同意すれば、フェームは素晴らしい教師になれるだろう。さて、そのレッスンプランの一部には、これまでとは異なる注意力に慣れることが含まれていた。私たちはスポットライトを浴びるのが大好きで、それを切望し、どんなチャンスでも歓迎するという考え方が俳優にはある。これは一般的に間違っている。私は自分のしていることを見てもらい、評価してもらいたいと

Foster Wallace once said, nothing stimulates your what-will-I-look-like gland more than being on television. Now that I was on television every week and that gland was in overdrive,

フォスター・ウォレスはかつて、テレビに出ることほど、自分の "なりたい自分腺 "を刺激するものはないと言った。今、私は毎週テレビに出ていて、その腺はオーバードライブ状態だった、

I really had to look at this in earnest. So I came to see that it was pride that was holding me hostage. Pride is a word we've turned into a virtue, but throughout much of human history it's been considered to be a vice, the capital defect, in fact, the one from which all the others spring. And it expresses itself in my life in a number of ways. First off, I want everyone to love and praise everything I think and say and do, and I feel there must have been some great cosmic error when they don't. The flip side is I can also feel like a world-class fraud who can't believe anyone lets me on primetime television or invites me to speak at fancy conferences in India. It really just depends upon the day. So there's a great spiritual master who gave some practical, if startling, advice regarding dealing with pride. He advised his students to find a way to get insulted every day. Now he took this quite seriously. There's a wonderful story about this master that apparently he had an enemy in the town in which he lived. This man hated the master and never missed an opportunity to gossip and spread reputation-destroying lies about him. The master knew of this man and what he was saying, and he was shaken by it. So what did he do? Once a week he would go to this man's house, he would knock on the door, the man would open the door, see the master standing there, and he would scream at him, call him names, say what a horrible fraud of a person and teacher he thought he was, on and on. The master would stand there for as long as the man had the energy to scream at him, and he always said nothing. He didn't object or defend himself. He remained completely silent. One day after years of doing this, it came time for the master to go to the man's house, and he didn't go. His students noticed and said, Master, it's four o'clock. Aren't you supposed to be at so-and-so's house getting screamed at? And he said, No, I don't need to go anymore. They said, Why not? And he said, I was there last week, and as he screamed at me, I felt nothing. Now, I didn't have to put myself through such an arduous exercise in exposure therapy, because fortunately there's the Internet, where you can get insulted for free on a very regular basis. The Internet,

私はこのことを真剣に考えなければならなかった。そこで私は、プライドが私を人質にしているのだと理解した。プライドとは、私たちが美徳としてきた言葉だが、人類の歴史の大半において、それは悪徳であると考えられてきた。そしてそれは、私の人生においても様々な形で表れている。まず、私が考え、発言し、行動することすべてを皆に愛され、賞賛されたいと思っている。裏を返せば、私をゴールデンタイムのテレビに出演させたり、インドの高級カンファレンスに招いて講演させたりする人が信じられないような、世界的な詐欺師のように感じることもあ

I've come to realize, is the perfectly designed pride-reduction technology. When my show first went on the air, I thought I would go on the old WWW and check out what people thought.

これこそ、完璧に設計されたプライド低減技術だと私は悟った。私の番組が初めて放送されたとき、昔のWWWで人々の感想を調べようと思った。

What could be the harm, right? And so I'm reading messages on some comment thread or another, and there were some very nice things about the show and about me, and you can probably guess where this is headed. It started to get meaner and meaner, until I arrived at this one, which quickly embedded itself in my cranium and has to this day never left.

何が悪いんだ？それで、コメントスレッドか何かのメッセージを読んでいたら、番組や私についてとてもいいことが書かれていた。だんだんと意地悪になってきて、このメッセージにたどり着いた。

It said, Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what it is I don't like about this guy, and I think

この男の何が気に入らないのか、考えているんだ。

I finally figured it out. His face. Nice, right? Now, there is, of course, an easy solution to all of this. Don't read it. And that was my policy for years and basically still is.

やっと分かったんだ。彼の顔。いいでしょ？さて、もちろん、これには簡単な解決策がある。読まなければいい。それが私の長年のポリシーであり、基本的には今もそうだ。

But there's also a usefulness in letting it toughen you up, in draining it of its power to chip away at your sense of self. The master didn't bury his head in the sand and wish his enemy went away. He stood there and he listened to him until it didn't affect him anymore. I'm never going to succeed at silencing my critics, but I can get a different relationship to criticism, one where I'm not rattled so easily. On the other side of that has been a new kind of freedom. As Winston Churchill said, nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. Now, if you're visible in any way, you can be assured that people you've never met are going to come out of the woodwork and tell you you suck.

しかし、敵に自分を強くさせ、敵の力を奪って自我を削ぎ落とすことにも有用性がある。マスターは、砂の中に頭を埋めて敵がいなくなることを願ったのではない。彼はそこに立ち尽くし、敵が自分に影響を与えなくなるまで耳を傾けたのだ。批評家を黙らせることに成功することはないだろうが、批評と違う関係を築くことはできる。その反対側には、新しい種類の自由がある。ウィンストン・チャーチルが言ったように、人生において、結果なしに撃たれることほど爽快なことはない。今、もしあなたが何らかの形で注目を浴びているのなら、会ったこともない人

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. In today's world, if people are drawn to say negative things to you and about you online, it's actually a weird sign of success. People are paying attention. And it's my belief that that attention confers upon us a certain level of responsibility. You become a kind of ambassador. But for what? Now, many celebrities just want to sing or act or do whatever it is they do and be left alone. That's entirely reasonable.

しかし、それは必ずしも悪いことではない。今日の世界では、もし人々がネット上であなたやあなたについて否定的なことを言うようになったら、それは実は成功の奇妙なサインなのだ。人々は注目しているのだ。そして、その注目は私たちにある種の責任感を与えてくれると私は信じている。一種の大使になるのだ。でも、何のために？今、多くの有名人は、ただ歌ったり、演技したり、何でもいいから放っておいてほしいと思っている。それはまったく理にかなっている。

But at the very least, I think one should consider adopting the physician's credo. First, do no harm. I got a big lesson in this the second year of my show. I was giving someone a ride home from a party where I'd had a few drinks, and I got pulled over by the police.

しかし少なくとも、医師の信条を採用することを考えるべきだと思う。まず、危害を加えないこと。このことについては、ショーを始めて2年目に大きな教訓を得た。お酒を飲んだパーティーの帰りに誰かを家まで送っていたら、警察に止められたんだ。

I was put through the whole battery of sobriety tests, and my heart was beating so fast that

一連の飲酒検査を受け、心臓の鼓動がとても速くなった。

I didn't actually do all that well. The officer gave me a breathalyzer test, which I passed barely. The next morning, I realized that had I been arrested, there's a good chance my mugshot would have ended up splashed across myriad gossip websites. I thought about a young kid who was maybe a fan of the show and of mine and him seeing that and what that would look like to him. It was a reminder that my life was no longer entirely my own, that my missteps would be there for many people to see. First off, it made me take a good hard look at my drinking, which had ticked up considerably since the show went on the air. The rates of drug and alcohol abuse among celebrities are well-documented. I didn't want to be another sad statistic. I realized after the incident that I was much more interested in being an example rather than a cautionary tale, that my behavior off-screen was as vital and consequential as my behavior on. In my more awakened moments, I try to remember that everything that comes my way is potentially my teacher. Everything is an opportunity to go against my tired habits and practice something new. When a reporter misquotes or quotes me wildly out of context, I can practice surrender. When a fan behaves strangely around me, I can practice compassion. When a beautiful woman approaches me with a big smile and says,

実は、そんなにうまくはいかなかったんだ。警官に飲酒検査を受けたが、かろうじてパスした。翌朝、もし私が逮捕されていたら、私の顔写真が無数のゴシップサイトに掲載されていた可能性が高いことに気づいた。おそらく番組や私のファンであろう若い子がそれを見て、それが彼にとってどう映るかを考えた。私の人生はもはや完全に私だけのものではないこと、私の不始末は多くの人に見られるものであることを思い知らされた。まず、この番組が放送されて以来、私の飲酒量はかなり増えていた。有名人の薬物乱用やアルコール依存の割合は、よく知られてい

I've never seen your show, but my boyfriend is a huge fan and he was too shy to come over and ask, but can he have a picture with you? I can practice acceptance. When the girlfriend's camera on her phone won't work and I'm standing awkwardly shoulder to shoulder with her grinning boyfriend for what seems like hours, I can practice patience. When I feel overwhelmed with attention or scrutiny, I can practice gratitude. When no one knows who I am or cares what I'm doing, I can practice humility. When people say all manner of offensive things in the guise of a compliment, such as, you're much more attractive in person or you're much thinner than you look on television, I can practice everything.

あなたのショーは観たことがないんだけど、ボーイフレンドが大ファンで、恥ずかしくて声をかけられなかったんだけど、一緒に写真を撮ってもらってもいい？受け入れる練習ができるガールフレンドの携帯電話のカメラが使えなくて、ニヤニヤしているボーイフレンドと何時間も肩を並べて気まずい思いをしているとき、私は忍耐の練習ができる。注目や詮索に圧倒されそうになったら、感謝の気持ちを持つ。私が誰なのか誰も知らないし、私が何をしているのか誰も気にしていないとき、私は謙虚さを練習することができる。例えば、あなたは実物の方がずっと魅

The other options available to me in those instances are anger, frustration, resentment, disappointment, and a feeling of hopelessness and victimhood. One choice gives me some agency in my life, the other does not. One choice moves me forward, the other does not. Life is constantly offering up these fork in the road moments, and I've realized that which path I choose is a really big deal. I love what I do and I am immensely grateful I get to do it. I would like to stay sane and creative and energized and employed. The last decade for me has been a journey of busting through illusions, of getting my priorities straight.

そのような場合に私が選べる他の選択肢は、怒り、フラストレーション、憤り、失望、そして絶望感と被害者意識である。一方の選択肢は私の人生に主体性を与えてくれるが、もう一方はそうではない。一方の選択は私を前進させ、他方は前進させない。人生には常にこのような分かれ道があり、どの道を選ぶかは本当に大きな問題だと気づいた。私は自分のしていることが大好きだし、それができることに心から感謝している。私は正気で、創造的で、活力があり、雇用されていたい。私にとってこの10年は、幻想を打ち破り、優先順位をはっきりさせる旅だった

I try now to save the dysfunction for the art following Flaubert's wise dictum, be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. So you may be asking yourself, why should this matter to anyone not on a long-running television show? Well, consider this. We're all pretty much visible at this point. Everyone has and curates an audience of sorts. Given this new weird visibility we all have, I think it's useful to ask ourselves, what are we putting out there? What are we emitting from our little control towers and what effect is that having on those who come in contact with it? I'm an optimist, but not of the delusional variety. The levels of suffering, hurt, hunger and ignorance in the world are outrageous and unacceptable. Given all of this, if a large or even a small number of eyeballs are on me for whatever reason, I feel deeply moved to offer something nourishing, something healing, something inspiring, something kind. Will this change anything? Will it move the world forward in any way? It's my belief that it can't not. I recently came across the psychological term behavioral contagion. The gist of behavioral contagion is essentially what it sounds like. Our behavior is contagious. Now we think we're these autonomous, independent-minded operators who are making clear-headed decisions. It's actually not true. We are porous, highly susceptible creatures whose words and actions are affecting each other constantly. We are in every moment taking cues from each other about who and how to be. The implications of this, if you really consider it, are pretty staggering.

私は今、機能不全を芸術のために取っておこうとしている。フローベールの賢明な箴言に従えば、規則正しく整然とした生活を送ることで、暴力的で独創的な作品を作ることができる。では、長寿テレビ番組に出演していない人間にとって、なぜこんなことが重要なのかと自問するかもしれない。考えてみてほしい。この時点では、私たちは皆、目に見える存在なのだ。誰もが、ある種の視聴者を持ち、それを管理している。この新しい奇妙な可視性を考えると、私たちは何を発信しているのか？私たちは小さなコントロールタワーから何を発信し、それに接触する人

Everything is contagious. Every word, every action, every tweet, every Facebook post is a contribution to the collective. Every encounter affects us in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, and then that encounter affects the next encounter, and so on, and so on, and so on. We are wildly underestimating the impact we have on each other. Those of us who are visible, and by that I really mean all of us, have a beautiful and holy opportunity. We can be contagiously good. I believe in the power of words. I believe in the molecule-altering properties of kindness, compassion, selflessness, and forgiveness. These are not headline-grabbing qualities, but they're what I believe we're hungering for beneath the shouting and the finger-pointing and the fence-building. A celebrity is one who is celebrated. What about us is worthy of celebration? I think there's a lot. I don't believe we're these miserable animals wired to maximize self-interest. I think that actually goes against our nature and causes us a lot of pain. Scientists who work at eradicating disease, they're not doing it so we can have a couple more years of being cruel to each other. We want more life, more time, so that we can have more stories, more inspiration, more opportunities to be kind. I believe deeply there can be no outer peace without inner peace, and that we always have a choice, that in every moment we're making the world with our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

すべてが伝染する。すべての言葉、すべての行動、すべてのツイート、すべてのフェイスブックへの投稿は、集団への貢献である。すべての出会いは、私たちに微妙な、あるいはそうでない形で影響を与え、その出会いは次の出会いに影響を与え、さらにその出会いは次の出会いに影響を与える。私たちは、自分たちがお互いに与える影響を過小評価している。目に見える私たち、つまり私たち全員には、美しく聖なる機会がある。私たちは伝染するほど善良になれるのだ。私は言葉の力を信じている。優しさ、思いやり、無私無欲、そして許しには、分子を変化させ

I think we can all take a little better care of each other, be better examples for each other. I don't know about you guys, but this to me is really exciting stuff. This, I suspect, is how we remake the world. One word, one sentence, one story at a time. Thanks.

私たちは皆、互いをもう少し大切にし、互いの模範となれると思う。君たちはどうか知らないが、私にとってこれは本当にエキサイティングなことだ。これこそが、私たちが世界を作り変える方法なのではないだろうか。一つの言葉、一つの文章、一つの物語を、一度に。ありがとう。