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If the old people I spent my childhood and youth with (them born in the 1930s) are to be trusted, and given what I could observe of their habits and expectations, then the farmers who lived off of unmechanized agriculture, above all, hustled. They hustled every day, to make ends meet and to make sure that ends would continue to meet for another year. They hustled to make sure their fields yielded as much crop as possible, to make sure they got as much as possible out of their animals, and then they side-hustled to improve their social standing, to earn some money directly, to improve their working relationships with their neighbors and field-neighbors and craftsmen who provided them with tools and services, and to keep their houses from falling in on them. Theirs were lives of constant activity and an abyss of true abject poverty and physical deprivation and social sanction yawning left and right of the straight and narrow path. Even well into their 80s, these people remained as active as their bodies would permit, constantly hustling to save a few cents here or to make some improvement to their garden there or to socialize a little more.
They're practically a different species from the moderns who complain about working 40 hours a week, retreat into their little black boxes at every chance, spend extravagantly on a dazzling variety of luxuries, and who can rely on public welfare to catch them when they can't be assed to take care of their own affairs. Yes I know, old man yelling at clouds, "früher war alles besser". I'm a modern too, I know what I'm talking about.
People nowadays are mentallly drained, tired and stressed out? Maybe. Blame it on alienation, atomization, and in no small part on their brains being fried by a constant excess of sugar, screens and dopamine by any means. But it's not because they actually need to do more than peasants.
I also think working with your hands can be a lot more satisfying it's what we designed to do after all. Sure a lot of farming is backbreaking especially during harvest season. But crafting, sewing, woodworking, fishing? These are all things people do voluntarily in their free time.
The hobby version of these activities removes both the pressure and most of the worst parts of them.
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People also farm in their free time. They call it gardening.
I agree with you, mind. Humans are bodies as well as minds. Just using one and not the other isn't just a waste; it's an impoverished form of existence.
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