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Having most of the year off for festivals and holy days
Good news: take up subsistence farming, no healthcare, no electricity, and make everything yourself, and you too can have half the year "off".
Don't threaten me with a good time
I mean the reality was that the time "off" was spent farming their own land, taking care of animals, fixing the house and doing the insane number of household tasks that come with premodern living. Spend a few days just cooking in a medieval style, and you'll quickly realize it's a LOT of work.
Meh,
- They had horrible healthcare they couldn't afford and WE have horrible healthcare we can't afford
- They spent a lot of time at festivals and with their communities helping each other and WE spend a lot of time chatting on our phones, but mostly playing games.
- They spent a lot of time outdoors doing a lot of work but keeping active, and we can sometimes go for hikes or walks, but we're Americans, we as a whole, don't.
- They knew how an could fix things around the farm, we can watch youtube videos unless it's electronic or DRM.
- They had witch hunts and misinformation and WE have witch hunts and misinformation.
- All of the food they grew was organic but they had to grow it themselves and we have to pay an arm and a leg for non-poisoned food.
- They spent all day working for the king and we spend all day working for billionaires.
- They have poor starving people during famines, we have a too big percentage of poor starving people (13% of US population was food insecure during 2023).
- They had xenophobia and WE have xenophobia.
When you delve into the details of what those bullet points actually entailed, they were all far far worse in medieval times.
Medieval cooking sounds a little bit fun. Besides, maybe, all the slaughtering of animals and heavy use of entrails.
And gathering your own firewood, and water, and making twice as much to prepare for winter, and the strongly reduced options.
I mean yeah, it IS fun for a bit, I do medieval reenactment, obviously I enjoy it. But doing it every day absolutely sucks.
take up subsistence farming
Where?
Plenty of places you can do this. Put "homesteading" into a search engine of your choice and you'll get more information on the topic than you can handle.
You'll also pretty quickly realize its a very hard, tedious life and we have it pretty good in many ways in the modern world.
Gotta buy land first. Like 10 acers if you want to grow most of your own food.
Japan sells rural land for cheap
Getting the visa is another story though.
Is Alaska still giving away free land?
No, but it's like a dollar per square meter if you're remote enough..
So you think in order for people to not work their lives away we would have to take up subsistence farming? With all the tech and machines we have the only viable way to not be a company man is to give away all of the luxuries we currently have?
How's that Kool aid tasting?
That's not remotely close to what I think the world SHOULD BE like.
It is, unfortunately, what I think the world IS like.
I'm also pointing out that if you want that aspect of the middle ages, you can have it right now by also taking all the crappy aspects of the middle ages..
Depending on the state and one's farming capabilities, some people could already be halfway there! At least part of the year