Took walks and complained about other peoples traditions.
Source: hp lovecraft
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025
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Before the printing press, introverted men worked the farm, while introverted women spun thread, made and repaired clothes, cooked, cleaned, nursed babies, and also worked the farm.
this is the same as what extroverts did, because back then, you contributed to the farm and the household whether you liked it or not.
At a celebration or festival, the introverts might gather in a corner to tell stories, but there was no way to avoid being part of the community back then.
Model trains, stamps, and books.
Unless your name was Henry Cavendish - Then you'd be making amazing scientific breakthroughs and not tell anyone, only to get credit posthumously after someone reads your lab notes.
He conversed little, always dressed in an old-fashioned suit, and developed no known deep personal attachments outside his family. Cavendish was taciturn and solitary and regarded by many as eccentric. He communicated with his female servants only by notes. By one account, Cavendish had a back staircase added to his house to avoid encountering his housekeeper, because he was especially shy of women.
By one account, Cavendish had a back staircase added to his house to avoid encountering his housekeeper, because he was especially shy of women.
💀 This is next level introversion, way too above my level.
Before the Internet, I read books. Everywhere, constantly. Haven't read a book since the 90s, probably.
In 2003 I worked for a small company that was attempting to be an early ebook publisher, before the days of ereaders and smartphones. It was too ahead of its time and closed after our first two publications. One of the books was on an old mining town, and part of my job was doing research and collecting photos and reference materials for the book.
I had the chance to read the diary of a miner from the 1860s. Keeping a diary was one popular hobby, but one thing that stood out to me was how he described a day off he had, it was a Sunday I believe and he spent 6 hours watching a bird and writing down all that it did.
What I gathered is that in the absence of entertainment or chores, humans will find things to fill the void. What seems extremely boring to you or me was very fulfilling to those with no other options.
I've worked in factory where my responsibility was to watch a machine that needed intervention at most once per shift. I perfected the art of paper plane folding.
Bird watching is still a popular hobby
In the spring and summer, in a park near my home, there's a three feet-tall crane that makes appearances before sunup, and on the days I can't sleep, I get up early to go see him. Birds can be really neat.
Reading books, writing, doing crafts, going on walks, hanging out with pets, gardening, doing chores, cooking, making art, looking at the stars…
I wish that was my life.
With the exception of the stars (assuming you live somewhere with bad light pollution, which is most people), all of those things are still achievable. You can even use the internet to learn how to do them; don’t let your dreams stay dreams!
For much of America, going on walks isn't a pleasant experience. Most people live in car-centric areas, where you will have the noise, fumes, and dangers of cars at all times
I live a couple of blocks off a freeway exit, I’m very familiar with that. I still go walking in the rich neighborhoods, because they have nice trees and can’t stop me.
Time isn't free.
Any time spent on here is also time that can be spent on other things. The habit of scrolling isn't something you have to be bound to.
That pales in comparison to the massive time investment of having a full time job and taking care of a living space by yourself (cooking, cleaning, shopping, repairs, etc). This is unique to our era, we used to not work as many hours and we used to live in more communal family spaces where work was evenly shared so that everyone had lighter loads.
The fact that I can squeeze in 20 minutes of posting a day isn't the reason I can't go on 3 hour walks like I used to.
Never has been free, the only difference is that there's more junk to spend your time on now.
It's always been up to you if you want to spend time productively or not.
There's also longer work days (it's not like peasants spent very much time farming in the middle of the winter) and less work shared between the clan/gens/extended family. Our time is spent productively, it's just that almost all of it is spent working for a wage and and doing chores to maintain a living space. A few minutes squeezed in to relax isn't the problem.
I think actually relaxing is productive, taking the time to be at your best possible performance is time well spent.
I just think that many modern activities are counterproductive to both rest and productivity.
Like doom scrolling is big-time counterproductive because it blocks rest by frustrating you but also doesn't actually yield anything of benefit.
You can do my chores for me if you want, I know it’s little but it’s something.
Minus the stars, it's my life. It's pretty good.
Feeling blessed that this is basically my life, except I do have to go to pesky work Mon-Fri. And work is work, I'd always rather be home, but in the grand scheme of jobs, I have one where I'm challenged and get to learn new things with a decent group of humans on my team and good work/life balance so, yeah, feeling blessed for sure.
Mountain hermit
A lot of crafts and trades can be done in small teams or solo. Leather-working, furniture making, blacksmithing, etc. If we're talking before the printing press, being a scribe could be solitary (or at least quiet, if you were a monk). Tending livestock (especially sheep) was often a solo job. Fishing, trapping, the list is long.
Shepherds are famous for having lots of free time to write religious fanfiction so future generations bicker about it.
People used to live in the secluded far edges of the village when they really wanted to be left alone
Build model trains.
I spent a good deal of time disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling slot cars. Plenty of reading. Climbed trees. Ate wild mulberries. Fixed bicycles.
Introverts probably had it much better back then. You couldn't physically take your work home with you. Your news came once a day, to the front porch, and was not constantly bombarded at your eyeballs. When you were home, you only interacted with your immediate family, unless you had someone physically over to visit. Or if someone called in the telephone, which you could always just not answer.
in the telephone, which you could always just not answer.
Indeed what feesh hell is this
I mostly don't answer my phone, i have a ringtone for my parter and that's the onky one i DO answer.
I can't speak to pre-1950s, but before the modern internet (not counting ARPANET), I spent most of my time hiking trails and reading.
Before the printing press was before organized timekeeping or most automated machines.
This meant there was plenty of space for introverts doing isolated manual labour that we now automate.
What did they do at the end of the day instead of visit at the pub? Probably collapse in exhaustion.
For those who had more power, there was always religious orders.
Spending the day working in a field, in a factory, etc you don't do a lot of socializing.
Damn that sounds so sad, I forgot the 5-day/40-hour workweek wasn't a thing back then.
They often had seasons off back before the industrial age. Like, war was seasonal. Ya had to return your piece of shits to plant their fields or pick them, but in between, they had time off for pointy pointless things.
The mind wonders when you’re doing mundane tasks. A sheep herder would be lost in their thoughts all day.
Developing Philosophy.
I think people are painting the past with a little bit of rose colored glasses. There was less support in the 90's, you couldn't just look up how to do something, be yourself, or understand the basics about anything. We had a 3 "pedophiles" on our street. Were they? I don't know, it was a rumor. There was no list. It was great in some ways and not so great in others.
Join a convent/monastary and spend your life in seclusion and take up an oath of silence. Or at least let people assume you took the oath and just not talk to anybody. Spend time 'meditating'.
Humans are social mammals. In many important respects, it makes no sense to even think of us as individuals.
I suspect that in the past people with higher levels of social anxiety probably just spoke a little less than average, and noticably less on the much less frequent times they met strangers.
But i think it's its probably very inaccurate to imagine anyone who we'd recognize as an "introvert" in the much more collectivist cultures that dominate history.
books. sorry did not take it all in. before the printing press? no idea.