幽灵公社：一次远离尘嚣的尝试.docVIP

幽灵公社：一次远离尘嚣的尝试 　　20 years ago， seven friends bought a cheap piece of land in western Colorado. Like most people who do such things， they were young， idealistic， and generally overjoyed by their ability to survive on almost nothing at all. 　　The land was cheap for good reasons： it was high on a mesa1）， thick with rocks， and spiked2） with scraggly juniper trees. Worse， it was uphill from the irrigation ditch3）. To locals， all land was defined by its position above or below the ditch， and land above was useless， too dry for growing anything but a few cows. People who invested in it were desperate or fools. Or both. 　　But the friends saw something different in the land. They saw acreage they could afford at a time in their lives when everyone they knew was struggling just to make rent. They saw sheltered spots where they could try building their own houses. They saw a place where they could unplug from the electrical grid―and from a society they saw as wasteful and destructive. 　　So they pooled their savings， paid up and moved in. For the first time in their lives， the friends were living as they thought they should， consuming as little and reusing as much as they could. They went without electricity or telephones， hauled water and groceries up the hill by hand， and rode their bikes even through the snow and ice. The houses multiplied bit by disorderly bit， built with mud and old wood and hazily remembered Boy Scout skills， insulated with straw and the discarded refrigerator. Over time， the place became more civilised. 　　They invested their time in the ways they thought mattered， teaching and writing and tending to the sick. They fell in and out of love. There were marriages and， eventually， a baby. There were late-night campfires， and wide-angle views of sky and stars and thunderstorms. 　　Those first years should have been hard， and at times they were. But mostly， they were full of jokes and adventures and something close to contentment. 　　When I married int