Is it natural to work every day?

From the low-effort department 

I never used to "get" Reddit. But my lovely is keen, so I've joined in for a while (u/available_fact_3445 1 year 9 months karma 4000+)

I just had a submission to r/antiwork rejected for "low effort" (the irony), so it appears here, in splendid obscurity.

This was a reply I wrote on a thread discussing the fantasy of retreating into the wilderness, building your own cabin, and living an independent life.

A comment took it as natural that you would have to work hard every day. I demurred as follows:

***

 >"working" every day

It depends on the abundance readily available in the locality, but when this is studied among contemporary hunter-gatherer societies (eg Sahlin's Stone Age Economics) the natural rhythm of "purposive activity" is much more like every other day. For about 4-5 hours.

This chimes with the many, many, many rest days obliged by the church from rural peasants in medieval Europe.

It is also coherent with modern work practices which allow a four day week. The hard land of the Scottish Highlands obliges crofters to strictly respect the sabbath; were it not so the infinite possibility of productive work with meagre yields would soon exhaust any man, or woman.

A vegetable garden and an orchard require regular intervention, but not *every* day. Rain stops play. You only prune the blackcurrent bushes, once, in winter. And so on.

You only never get a day off when you start exploiting animals, so not *every* day, no, unless you start to keep chickens or something.

So how do these leisured hunter-gatherers spend the rest of their time? Mainly cooking, chatting, and grooming their relatives.

***

Reddit makes it easy to submit one text in many places, and I thought this might be interesting to the readers of r/antiwork.

It seems the moderators there disagree, so it's published here, for that reason.

On cycling round pedestrians

 From the self-translated-rants department 

Cyclists who don't respect pedestrians' priority are simple hypocrits. They would certainly be most unhappy if motorists meted them the same treatment.

At the end of the day, the pedestrian must always have priority because walking is basic. And yes, even buffoons, the tipsy, and clueless tourists have the right to walk freely.

So when you operate a potentially hazardous machine such as a bicycle in their vicinity, take great care! Always respect a minimum passing distance of one metre, and ride at walking pace if space is limited. Always give way to crossing pedestrians.

Making eye contact enables the courtesy of indicating the pedestrian's priority as follows: look the crossing pedestrian right in the eye, and the instant they glance back, tip your cap with a brief nod, and brake to a halt theatrically. Ideally I will make no other signal, neither visual nor audible. I aim to briefly maintain a track stand at least 3m from the crossing markings, before getting briskly on my way once more. It's convivial and efficient.

If you don't like the effort of reaccelerating after giving way to a pedestrian, buy an ebike and be done

Note:

This is the translation to the English of a comment in French made   here