你手中现在拿的这本书有关乎“自給自足”的主题，但什么是自给自足？
自给自足首先意味可以给自己提供基本生活需要。旧时，在大规模的工业生产和分配时代来临之前，无论于个人层面还是更多见的社区层面，自给自足通常无处不在。健康生活所需要的一切，人们从周边环境中唾手可得。本土生产的粮食、传统架构的房屋、当地取材的工具，都可由人们亲手制作和修补。这不仅使人们能为自己提供生活所需品，其所带来的共同利益和合作更拉近了人与人之间的关系。而这种相互依赖的意识正是我们尊重他人和自然环境的基础。
2017年1月，Erik在唐冠华发起的南部生活共识社区中，带领大家进行音乐律动工作坊。
现在一切都已改变。现代化的生活和资本主义社会将我们引入了一种完全不同的生产和消费模式。各种新兴技术能够更有效地生产物品，但大多数物品却没被主要用于满足使用者的需要。相反，它们的出现是为了生产者的利益。商品生产变成了商人牟利的手段，而非满足人们真正的需求和联系。这种变化对人们以往相联方式的影响是毁灭性的。古老的自治系统正在被现代式生活和技术承诺吞噬，自给自足和自主能力对大多数人来说已经成为遥不可及的梦想。
在16-17世纪的英国，第一代资本家封占了村民用于打柴和饲养牲口的公共土地，从而剥夺了亿万农民自给自足的基础。借此有效地迫使他们迁往城市，出售自己的时间和劳动力来换取金钱。这也是他们得以满足基本生活需求的唯一方式。从此，人自身便成了可在劳动力市场上出售和购买的商品。
中国社会在过去三十年里经历了翻天覆地的变化。这些发生在世界各地不同时刻的相同改变，今天仍然在大多数国家进行着。相较传统而言，可持续的生活方式正在被全球化下的资本主义制度破坏着。它迫使人们到城市工作赚钱，大多数人放弃了传统，放弃了土地，紧接着放弃了自主权。他们的孩子在成长过程中将无法学习如何运用各种简单而有效的方式来维系自己的生活和所属的社区。
随着自主权的丧失，有些孩子明显失去了一个富有价值的社交生活。每一个人都要供给自己的生活，大到供楼买车，小到柴米油盐。人们难以在城市的环境中寻求社区感。人们的这种被迫分离是由某种盲目力量导致的，我们不能责怪任何一个个体，然而任何人也难逃其责。做出真正改变的唯一途径则是寻找相同波长的志同道合之人。
这本书中介绍的技术是悠久传统与创造性好奇心的相遇，激励人们寻求一种新形式下的可持续生活。一种对人类而言有意义的生活，而不仅仅是从经济角度出发。该书同样源于越来越多的人开始意识到，这个世界的污染、疾病、社会孤立，金钱崇拜，自私自利，战争和许多其它形式的暴力必须被取代。因为所有这些社会疾病都是彼此关联的，而解决它们的唯一方法是学习过去，结合当下，创造共同生活的新方式。
城市的快速发展意味着大量人口离开农村投奔城市。然而现时开始发生的事情正好相反，一些强大的和独立的思想回到农村，重拾自主。他们没有等待任何人告诉他们应该如何做。相反，他们主动揭示了与每个人的未来都息息相关的巨大责任。这里的“强大的和独立的思想”并不是指替他人做决策的领袖，而是那些决心尊重自己，以及同样尊重他人的人。他们有勇气对抗现代化的麻木，回到所谓的死胡同中。他们有慧眼发现志同道合的朋友，学习如何强大的团结在一起。
2017年1月，Erik在唐冠华组织策划的南部生活节现场进行篝火音乐会
当多数家庭为了赚钱而分离，选择金钱重于社会福祉和有意义的人际关系时，南部生活的成员正在和很多人一起尝试一些不同的东西。资本主义使人群分类，幸福的未来在于那些懂得人比金钱更重要的人手中。生活的自主可以体现在许多方面，众多技术帮助人们摆脱对工作的依赖。作为对抗社区破碎的手段，生活技术让人们重新聚集在一起，这种牢固的友谊是用金钱买不到的。
6年多来我一直生活在龙谷脉（Longo Mai），欧洲最令人信服的自给自足和自主性实验之一。自1973以来，在5个欧洲国家的10个合作社中，来自不同国家和文化的人们一直在生产他们自己的食物，建造他们自己的房子，亲自制作参与从工具和药品到艺术和集体管理的过程。这是一段令人难忘的经历，它的特殊并不在于那里的生活总是融洽，而是因为它所提供的生活方式让我发现了一种比我想象中更为人性化，更真切且有意义的生活可能性。
学习普通话，以及在中国度过的8个月让我对这个社会近年来转型背后的意义有了更深刻的了解。它也让我认识了许多年轻人和老年人，他们选择不接受这些改变，并用充满创造性的想法去建立替代性的生活方式。南部生活是我在中国的日子里感觉最像家的地方，最重要的是它所带来的源源不断的创造力，批判性态度和宝贵友谊。在那里任何事情都可能发生，只因为这是我们坚持实现的梦想。它是无价的，值得投入的，但同时也需要我们全力以赴。
2016年，Erik与唐冠华在青岛相见，参观自给自足实验室，并欲2017年带领法国龙谷脉社区一行三人来到福州南部生活共识社区生活创作约1个月。
在中国，唐冠华有着同样的追求。当他第一次另辟蹊径，探索有责任意识的自由新道路时，他发现人们太容易在社会压力和物质诱惑面前屈服。他深刻地意识到，有意义的社会关系才是所有问题的关键。同时他也明白想要实现自给自足是极度复杂的过程。对于大多数出生在城市中的我们，这大致等于重新塑造生活中的一切。虽然这样听上去有些令人畏惧或沮丧，但唯一真正的解决办法仍是动手和学习，从与他人的交往中发现一点一滴。这正是这本书的可贵之处，它是知识的宝贵来源，在它的启发和帮助下，我们不仅可以做到借助简单的技术去创造生活所需，也可进一步明白实验生产替代品背后的必要性。对科技的痴迷容易让人迷失，以致我们每日如僵尸般坐在桌前敬畏着现代科学的奇迹。我真诚地希望这本书中的技巧和文字能够让你更接近真正意义上的生活：充满意义的人与人之间的关联。
我鼓励你们每一个人不仅要阅读和尝试书中的技术，更要真正地走出去，结交志同道合的朋友。他们可能不是你的邻居，可能不住在你邻近的街道，甚至与你不在同一个省份和国家，但是他们有着跟你一样的理想。仅仅尝试这本书中的技巧可能不会带你走得很远，但与大家一起寻找答案会使我们更加强大和自信，激励我们去超越想象中的可能。
作者：埃里克（比利时）
2017年2月, 法国利芒
译者：王蓬
原文：
The book you are holding in your hands is about self-sufficiency. But what is self-sufficiency?
Self-sufficiency means to be able to provide in your own basic needs. In the past, before the age oflarge scale industrial production and distribution, self-sufficiency used to be everywhere, on apersonal level and most of all on a community level. In their immediate surroundings, people wouldhave access to everything they needed for a healthy life. Food would be produced locally, housesbuilt using traditional know-how and local materials and tools would be made and repaired bypeople themselves or by others they knew personally. Not only would this allow people to providefor themselves, this would also naturally create tight relationships between people based on mutualinterest and cooperation. This awareness of interdependence was the basis for a respectfulattitude towards others and the natural world surrounding us.
All of this has changed now. Modern life and capitalist society have introduced a completelydifferent way of production and consumption. Many new technologies are able to produce thingsmore efficiently, but most of them are not being used primarily to meet the needs of those who usethose things. Instead they are set up to make profit for those who produce. Things have essentiallybecome ways to turn money into more money instead of ways to relate to others and provide us allwith the things we really need. The effects of this change on the ways people used to relate toeach other are devastating. In a time where age-old systems of autonomy are being wiped awayby modern life and the promises of technology, self-sufficiency and the ability of self-determinationhave become nothing more than distant dreams to most people.
In 16th-17th century England, the first generations of capitalist entrepreneurs enclosed thecommon lands villagers used to gather firewood and herd their cattle on, thereby taking away thebasis of self-sufficiency for millions of peasants, effectively forcing them to move to cities and selltheir time and labor force in exchange for money which was their only way of meeting their basicneeds. This way human life became a commodity to be sold and bought on the labor market.
Chinese society has undergone tremendous changes in the last 30 years. Those same changeshave happened in different parts of the world at different moments and are still happening in mostcountries today. Traditional, sustainable ways of living are being dismantled by the pressures of aglobalized capitalist system which forces people to go to cities and work for money. Most of themgive up their traditions, give up their land and along with these they give up their autonomy. Manyof their children will grow up never learning so many simple and meaningful ways of sustainingthemselves and their communities.
For some of these children it has become very clear that with the loss of their autonomy has comethe loss of a social life worth living, a sense of community which is very hard to find in urbancontexts where every individual has to make their own living and pay their own house, car,refrigerator and TV. This forced separation of people is created by a blind force, which we cannotblame anyone for and one which it is impossible to escape from, at least as an individual. The onlyway to really start something different is by finding others who are on the same wavelength.
The techniques in this book were born from the meeting between century old traditions andcreative curiosity, inspiring each other in a quest for a new form of sustainable life, a life which ismeaningful to humans and not just from an economic point of view. This book is part of the growingawareness that something has to replace this world of pollution, illness, social isolation, obsessionwith money, selfishness, war and many other kinds of structural violence. Because all thesediseases are related, the only way to deal with them is to learn from the past and come up withnew ways of living together.
The fast-paced growth of cities has meant that so many people have left the countryside for thecities. What’s started to happen now is the opposite. Some strong and independent minds arereturning to the countryside and regaining autonomy. And they didn't wait for anyone to tell them what to do. On the contrary, their initiative reveals a great sense of responsibility for the future ofeveryone. By "strong and independent minds" I don't mean leaders who decide for others, I meanpeople who are determined to respect themselves and have the same respect for others. Peoplewho have the courage to go against what is senseless and turn back in this dead-end street.People who recognize others on their way and learn how to be strong together.
In a time when families are ripped apart by the need to make money, choosing money over socialwell-being and meaningful interpersonal relations, the people of Nanbu Shenghuo, together withmany others, are trying something different. Capitalism divides people, and a happy future is tothose who understood that people matter more than money. Autonomy can be lived in many waysand so many techniques helping people not to depend on jobs are also helping to bring peopletogether, thus serving as a real antidote against the atomization of individuals and so many rippedup communities. Real friendship will never be bought with money.
For more than 6 years now I’ve been living in Longo Maï, one of Europe’s most convincingexperiments in self-sufficiency and autonomy. Since 1973, in 10 cooperatives in 5 differentEuropean countries people from many countries and cultures have been producing their own food,building their own houses and making anything from tools and medicine to art and collectivemanagement processes. It has been an amazing experience to be part of – not because it wasalways easy, but because this lifestyle has allowed me to discover a lifestyle that is more humane,intense and meaningful than I had imagined possible.
Learning Mandarin language and spending 8 months of my life in China has allowed me to get adeeper understanding of the implications of its recent transformation. It has also allowed me tomeet many young and older people who choose not to undergo these changes but are full ofcreative ideas to build alternative ways of living. Nanbu Shenghuo may well have been the placeI’ve felt most at home in China. The constant feeling that creativity, critical attitude and friendshipare what matter, the feeling that anything can happen just because it’s our dream so we make ithappen, is something invaluable and worth living for. But it is also something which needs our fullimplication.
Tang Guanhua has been on the same quest in China. When he first started to look for somethingdifferent, for new ways of responsible freedom, he realized that people are all too easily distractedby social pressures and the lures of materialism. He profoundly understands that meaningful socialrelations are what it’s all about. He also understands that there is a great complexity to self-sufficiency. For many of us who were born in an urban setting, it basically seems like you have toreinvent everything. While this can be discouraging or too big a task to tackle, the only real solutionis getting hands-on, learning and discovering little by little as you go and meet others. That is whybooks like this one are invaluable sources of know-how and, maybe even more so, of inspiration,helping us not only to really do get hands on, using simple techniques with great results, but alsolinking this to why it is in the first place we feel the need to start experimenting with alternatives. It’seasy to get lost in an obsession with technology – innumerable zombies are sitting in front of theirdesks in awe of the miracles of modern science at this very moment. I sincerely hope thetechniques and words in this book will actually get you closer to what really brings sense to life:meaningful relationships with other people.
I encourage each and every one of you to not just read the book and try the techniques, but toactually go out there and meet people who have similar mindsets. They might not be yourneighbors, they might not even live on your block, in your neighborhood or even in your city orprovince, but many of us are having exactly the same ideas as you. Just trying the techniques inthis book will probably not take you very far. It’s approaching them together, finding solutionstogether with other people which is going to make us strong and confident and motivate us to goway beyond what we had ever imagined possible.
Erik D'haese, February 2017, Limans, France
本文为Erik D'haese为唐冠华的新书《独立之道》撰写的序言。
《独立之道》一书由唐冠华5年在崂山森林中探索衣食住用行可持续生活方法，陆续实践拍摄而成。目标是做成一本现代版《天工开物》。源于明代的古书《天工开物》记载了人类生活工具的生产制作，但其中的工艺大部分来自于走访采编，并没有经过作者亲身操作。
而2011年，时年22岁的唐冠华立志从认识每一种蔬菜、和水泥开始学起，完成一部零基础亲力亲为的自给自足生活指南。《独立之道》中的每一项关于生态建筑、可持续能源、自然食品、环保日用品的制作工艺都是经过唐冠华一步一步亲手学习、制作及拍摄的。
书中一半内容为自给自足生活方法图文指南，另一部分为唐冠华7年来的心理内观日记；以自动写作的形式记录潜意识的实验笔记。
《独立之道》内容节选
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