Unit 5B - Could You Live with Less?
Could You Live with Less?
Stephanie Mills
Compared to the lifestyle of the average person on Earth, my days are lush with comfort and convenience: I have a warm home, enough to eat, my own car. But compared to most of my urban American contemporaries, I live a monastically simple life.
Since 1984 I've made my home outside a small city in Lower Michigan, where the winters are snowy but not severely cold. My snug 720-square-foot house is solar- and wood-heated. No thermostat, just a cast-iron stove. There's electric lighting, indoor plumbing, a tankless water heater, a secondhand refrigerator and range—but no microwave oven, no dishwasher, no blow-dryer, no cordless phone. My gas-sipping compact station wagon has 140,000 miles on it and spreading patches of rust. I've never owned a television set. My home entertainment center consists of a thousand books, a CDless stereo system, a picture window and two cats.
Part of the reason I live the way I do is that as a freelance writer, my income is unpredictable and at best fairly unspectacular. Thus it behooves me to keep in mind the difference between wants and needs. Like all human beings, I have some needs that are absolute: about 2,500 calories a day, a half a gallon of water to drink, a sanitary means of disposing of my bodily wastes, water to bathe in, something muscular to do for part of the day and a warm, dry place to sleep. To stay sane I need contact with people and with nature, meaningful work and the opportunity to love and be loved.
I don't need, nor do I want, to complicate my life with gadgets. I want to keep technology at the periphery rather than at the center of my life, to treat it like meat in Chinese cuisine as a condiment rather than as a staple food. Technology should abet my life, not dominate or redefine it. A really good tool—like a sharp kitchen knife, a wheelbarrow or a baby carrier, all of which have been with us in some form for thousands of years—makes a useful difference but doesn't displace human intelligence, character or contact the way higher technologies sometimes do. Working people need the tools of their trade, and as a writer, I do have a fax, but I've resisted the pressure to buy a personal computer. A manual typewriter has worked well for me so far. Noticing that the most computer-savvy people, I know are always pining for more megabytes and better software, I've decided not to climb on the purchasing treadmill of planned obsolescence.
Doing with less is easier when I remember that emotional needs often get expressed as material wants, but can never, finally, be satisfied that way. If I feel disconnected from others, a cellular phone won't cure that. If I feel like I'm getting a little dowdy, hours on a tanning bed can't eradicate self-doubt.
Why live in a snowy region when I don't use central heat? I moved here for love several years ago, and while that love was brief, my affection for this place has grown and grown. I like the roots I've put down; living like Goldilocks, moving from chair to chair, seems like not much of a life to me.
Being willfully backward about technology suits my taste—I like living this way. Wood heat feels good, better than the other kinds. (Central heating would make my home feel like it was just anywhere.) Fetching firewood gets me outdoors and breathing (sometimes gasping) fresh air in the wintertime when it's easy to go stale. It's hard, achy work to split and stack the 8 or 12 cords of stove wood I bum annually. I've been known to seek help to get it done. But the more of it I do myself, the more I can brag to my city friends.
My strongest motivation for living the way I do is my knowledge, deep and abiding, that technology comes at a serious cost to the planet and most of its people. Burning fossil fuels has changed the Earth's climate. Plastics and pesticides have left endocrine-disrupting chemicals everywhere—in us and in wildlife, affecting reproductive systems. According to Northwest Environment Watch in Seattle, the "clean" computer industry typically generates 139 pounds of waste, 49 of them toxic, in the manufacture of each 55-pound computer.
I refuse to live as if that weren't so. In this, I'm not unique. There are many thousands of Americans living simply, questioning technology, fighting to preserve what remains of nature. We're bucking the tide, acting consciously and succeeding only a little. Yet living this way helps me feel decent within myself—and that, I find, is one luxury worth having.
参考译文——你可以简朴地生活吗？
你可以简朴地生活吗？
斯蒂芬妮·米尔斯
和地球上普通人的生活方式相比，我的日子过得既舒适又便利，算得上奢华：我有一个温暖的家，有足够的食物，有自己的车。但是和大多数住在城市中的同时代的美国人相比，我则过着如僧侣般简朴的生活。
从1984年起，我在下密歇根的一个小城外安了家，那里冬天会下雪，但并不是特别冷。我那个720平方英尺的房子靠太阳能和木柴取暖，温暖而又舒适。屋里没有温度自动调节器，只有一个铸铁炉子。屋里还有电灯，室内水管管道，一个即热式热水器，一个二手冰箱和炉灶——但是没有微波炉，没有洗碗机，没有吹风机，没有无线电话。我的低油耗的客货两用小汽车已经行驶了140,000英里，上面锈迹斑斑。我从未拥有过一台电视机。我家的娱乐中心包括上千本书，一个不能播放CD的立体音响系统，一个落地窗和两只猫。
我之所以选择这样的生活方式，部分原因是，作为一名自由作家，我的收入是难以预料的，最多的时候也是相当普通的。这对我来说理应牢记想要和需要的区别。像所有的人—样，我有些需要是绝对的：一天摄取大约2,500卡路里的热量，喝半加仑水，处理身体废物的卫生设备/工具，用来洗澡的水，抽空做些强身健体的运动，还需要有一个温暖干燥的地方睡觉。为了保持神志正常，我需要和人们联系，和自然接触，需要有一份有意义的工作，拥有爱与被爱的机会。
我既不需要，也不想让各种小玩意使我的生活复杂化。我想让科技处于我生活的外围而不是我生活的中心，我只想把它们当成是中国菜中的肉，仅仅是一种调味品，而不是主食。科技应该帮助我的生活，而不是主宰或者改变我的生活本质。—件真正好的工具——如一把锋利的菜刀，一辆独轮手推车或者一个婴儿背带，所有这些都是我们以不同形式用了几千年的物件——会产生有益的影响而不是像高科技一样有时候会取代人类的智慧、改变人的特性或者联络方式。工作的人需要有本行业的各种工具，作为一名作家，我确实有一部传真机，但是我顶住了购买一台个人电脑的压力。目前对我来说，一台手动打字机就足够了。当我发现我认识的那些最精通电脑的人总是在渴望着更大的内存和更好的软件时，我决定不让自己登上那辆需要不断购买更新换代产品的购物脚踏车。
当我想到情感需求往往会以物质需求的形式表现出来却无法最终通过物质来满足的时候，生活得简朴些就比较容易。如果我觉得自己与别人隔绝了，一部手机并不能解决问题。如果我觉得自己有点缺乏魅力，躺在日光浴床上几个小时也不能消除自我怀疑。
我不用中央供暖，为什么还要住在下雪多的地区呢？几年前我因为喜欢才搬到了这里，虽然那时候的喜欢十分简单，现在我对这个地方的热爱却日益增加。我喜欢我定居的地方，像从一个椅子换到另一个椅子上的金凤花姑娘那样生活，对我来说似乎算不上是一种好的生活。
故意落后于科技符合我的志趣——我喜欢这样生活。木柴取暖感觉很舒服，比其他方式要好（中央供暖会让我的家变得跟其他地方一样)。出去取柴火可以让我在空气容易变得污浊的冬天呼吸（有时候是深深地呼吸）新鲜的空气。劈开并放好我每年讨要来的8或12捆柴火是一项艰难而又累人的工作。我曾经为了完成这项工作寻求过帮助。但是我自己做得越多，我就越可以向我城市里的朋友炫耀。
我选择这样生活，最强烈的动机源于一种深层且持久的认知，我认为科技的到来让这个星球和大多数的人付出沉重的代价。燃烧矿物燃料已经改变了地球的气候。塑料和杀虫剂使得引起内分泌紊乱的化学制品到处都是——遍布于我们以及野生生物的身边和周围，影响着生殖系统。据西雅图的西北部环境观察组织说，“干净清洁”的计算机产业每生产55磅的计算机通常会产生139磅废物，其中有49磅是有毒的。
如果不是那样的话，我不会如此生活。我并不是唯一这样的人。有成千上万的美国人生活简朴，质问着科技，奋力去保护那些还属于大自然的东西。我们拒绝潮流，自觉地践行着，虽然作为很少。但是，以这种方式生活能够让我内心觉得体面——而且我认为也是一种值得拥有的奢侈。
Key Words:
plumbing ['plʌmiŋ]
n. 管道装置，铅管工行业 动词plumb的现在分词
snug [snʌg]
adj. 温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的 v. 使整洁干净，
compact [kəm'pækt]
想一想再看 联想记忆
lush [lʌʃ]
adj. 苍翠繁茂的，多青草的，丰富的 n. 酒，酒鬼
stove [stəuv]
n. 炉子，火炉窑;烘房；【主英】温室
abet [ə'bet]
v. 煽动，教唆，教唆某人犯罪
eradicate [i'rædikeit]
v. 根除，扑减，根绝
brag [bræg]
n. 吹牛的人，自夸，傲慢的态度 v. 吹牛，炫耀
consciously ['kɔnʃəsli]
adv. 有意识地，自觉地
decent ['di:snt]
adj. 体面的，正派的，得体的，相当好的
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