不花錢更開心

Reporter： Believing that money distorts our relationships with the natural world and with one another， Mark Boyle set out to live for a full year without making any use of money at all. A year later， to his surprise， he found that he was happier， healthier and more content than he had ever been. He wrote a book called The Moneyless Man and used the royalties to start a movement called“Freeconomy，” which utilizes an online site to present the philosophy of moneyless living and to provide a clearing-house where members can connect with other members to share skills， possessions or accommodation. Its now used by people in 162 countries.

Mark Boyle： Just happened to move over to the UK， and then got a job in an organic food store， and that put me into contact with lots of green-thinking people， people who are questioning things. You know， Id heard of earthworms and bees and stuff for the first time. After having studied economics for six years， Id never actually once come across kind of real-life economics. And so it made me question everything about the way we were living and the monetary system. And I got to the point in 2006 where I was trying to think “What am I going to dedicate my life to？ Theres so many big issues in the world， from sweat shops to factory farms and ecological destruction， like， which is going to be my passion？”And I realized that these were all just symptoms of a deeper recourse， and for me that recourse was our separation from the things we can see and our separation from nature， and until we reconnect with what we can see and with the natural world， then very littles gonna change. And I had like another kind of momentary realization of one of the biggest disconnecting tools that we have is…is money. It gives us the illusion of independence. Its a good thing to be independent， but what were actually really doing is just becoming dependent on people far away from us. Its not like any of us could survive by ourselves today. We speak always about the benefits of money—its every day in the papers—but what we dont talk about is the consequences. And I realized that actually theres no point me talking about these consequences if I dont actually start to live it myself， first to see how it feels as a human being， to live without money in a world thats pretty much driven by it. So I made a commitment to， for one year， to live without money. By the end of it， my biggest…my biggest problem was can I go back into the monetary world. It was a real struggle for a few months， and I just realized Ive never been happier. Thats why I continued doing it after the first year， but it has been the best experience of my life on so many different levels.

記者：馬克·博伊爾認為金錢會扭曲我們與自然的關系，扭曲人與人之間的關系。于是，他開始了一整年完全不花錢的生活。出乎他意料的是，一年后，他覺得自己比任何時候都開心、健康和滿足。他寫了一本名叫《一年不花錢：我的無貨幣主義生活》的書，并用稿費成立了一個叫“免費經濟”的組織，該組織利用網站向世人介紹無錢生活的理念，并為組織成員相互分享技能、個人物品和住處提供一個平臺。如今，已經有162個國家的人在嘗試他的這種做法。

馬克·博伊爾：當時我碰巧搬到了英國，然后在一家有機食品店找到了一份工作。這讓我有機會與許多主張保護環境的人接觸，這些人常常會對事情提出質疑。你知道嗎，那是我第一次聽說蚯蚓、蜜蜂這一類東西。我學了六年的經濟學，卻從來沒有真正接觸過真實生活中的經濟學。這一切讓我審視我們生活方式的點點滴滴，還有金融體系的各個方面。到了2006年，我在想，“我要獻身于什么事業呢？世界上有許多重大問題有待解決，從血汗工廠到工廠化農場，還有生態失衡，我將為哪一樣傾注我的激情？”我后來意識到這些只不過是一些表面現象，它們源自更深層次的一種依賴，而那種依賴讓我們與自己的所見所聞、與自然界之間處于分割狀態，在我們得以與我們所見以及自然界重新建立起聯系之前，情況不會發生什么變化。我有過瞬間的恍然大悟，意識到讓我們處于這種分割狀態的最大因素就是……是金錢。金錢給了我們一種獨立的錯覺。獨立本是一件好事，但實際情況是我們必須依賴在遠方的人們，今天，我們所有人都不可能靠自己生存。我們總是談論金錢的好處——報紙每天都在說——但我們卻不討論它帶來的后果。我意識到如果我不首先親身在一個被金錢驅使的世界里過不花錢的日子，看看它到底是個什么樣子，那空談金錢帶來的后果是沒有意義的。因此，我下定決心過上一年不花錢的生活。這一年結束后，我最大的問題是自己還能不能回到這個貨幣世界中。有幾個月真的很難，后來我發現自己從來沒有這么開心過。這也是我在第一年結束后仍繼續那種不花錢生活的原因。從許多層面上說，那是我生命中最好的經歷。