I went skiing with my family recently. As a gimmick we went to a nearby barn where they had a carpenter’s shop. At first I was reluctant to go. But then I got into kind of a flow when I was working on the woods, grinding. I started sweating. There I felt for the first time: we are not made to sit in front of a screen for 8 hrs. At least for some days in the week I’d love to do some physical labor.
That's what million of years of evolution engineered us for.
Obesity epidemic, bad posture and other current issues are a reminder that our current lifestyle is way out of control. Technology evolved much faster than our bodies during the last 200-300 years. It's all fun and games when we're young but when we'll hit 40-50 we'll feel it.
If you don't actively try to exercise you can go literal months during which your physical activity will be: get out of bed, open a few doors, sit in a car, open a few doors, sit all day, open a few doors, sit in car, open a few doors, lay in bed.
It doesn't feel right to imagine that 50,000 years ago, humans laboured hard in the natural environment.
Apart from walking to plants and water sources and running after animals, and play/fighting, what exercise-like work would have been done or needed on a daily or weekly basis?
There is a middle ground between "labouring hard" and not doing anything remotely strenuous during your average week.
That's amplified by our new calorie dense diets that were not available before.
We can argue all day long, facts are there, obesity rates are going up every year, lifestyle related cancer too, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Damn, most of my colleagues can't run 5km (without time restriction).
I drifted about 2 years ago from white collar / "creative" work to forest maintenance. Not tree logging, but taking care of growing forest and planting trees. I'm in Eastern Europe, so the plan was to spend the warm season entirely outdoors and focus on "mental" work during winter when the available forestry jobs are not to my liking. (I've developed tinnitus -- constant ringing in my ears --, so I decided not to work with gas-powered brush cutters or other kinds of machinery any more. Luckily a fraction of forest maintaining can still be done using hand tools, mostly swedish or brush axes, but scythes also work well.)
I'm currently mostly at home with kids, but the general feeling is that I just would not want to work indoors any more. For my preferred hand labour the wages are tiny around here (IMHO not so when you're OK working with brush cutters, although some might disagree with that). But the mental and physical balance I get from being in the forest every day, rain or shine, tends to outweigh that. So as a parent it's surely a complicated decision as to what to do after we send our youngest off to kindergarten.
In particular, planting trees or cleaning treelings from weeds using a scythe could be a damn perfect job for every physically fit loner-introvert.
Here's a movie about tree planting in Canada (where this is a huge industry, isn't it?):
And here's an inspiring guy, forest keeper, scythe mowing enthusiast and witty documentary film maker Simon from the UK. Yep, I want to be just like him when I grow up. If you're interested in traditional tools and manual labour in the wilderness, be sure to check out his entire Youtube channel. Great movies about scythe mower vs tractor competition etc. :)
Tree planting in western canada is the complete opposite of office work. Instead of too little exercise, you'll have a broken body. From what I've heard, it's brutal work where you're paid by the tree and not by the hour. Not my cup of tea.
Yes, I suppose one gets paid by the tree pretty much everywhere. Many planters do say that after max 7-8 seasons you're broken. But -- to me, many of them seem to take this work too seriously. If you're paid by plant, why not take it _a little_ easier?
I've only planted in Estonia thus far and survived well, though. I seem to have suitable bodily proportions for the job, but it also comes down to planting ergonomically as wisely as you can right from the start. In particular, learning to use both of your hands and legs equally (plant "ambidextrously" as they call it). See this thread from replant.ca, an awesome resource for tree planters in Canada:
http://www.replant.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=65984
But, sure, it is tough work to the point of not being sensible to many.
> At least for some days in the week I’d love to do some physical labor.
So what's stopping you from doing this on the weekend?
Set up a home workshop, or find somebody or someplace (a maker's shop or a hacker space?) who has such tools available.
If you don't own a home, let me tell ya that if you want a lot of physical labor, maintenance on a home is where it is at, every weekend if you want it.
