By “Introverts”, I’m talking about like people who don’t like talking to other people. How did they spend their time?
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.
Minus the stars, it’s my life. It’s pretty good.
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.
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.
Bird watching is still a popular hobby
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.
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.
Mountain hermit
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.
Before the Internet, I read books. Everywhere, constantly. Haven’t read a book since the 90s, probably.
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.
The mind wonders when you’re doing mundane tasks. A sheep herder would be lost in their thoughts all day.
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.
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’.
People used to live in the secluded far edges of the village when they really wanted to be left alone
Developing Philosophy.
Took walks and complained about other peoples traditions.
Source: hp lovecraft
