We've been "chained to our desks" for all of our humanity till very recently. There was not time in which a common person did not have to do drudgery to get on with life. So it is a luxury and a privilege to not have to. But it is still a historical exception. I will grant you that there were some low seasons, in some places where the pace abated. But remember, at sundown, things stopped. You had to do whatever it was you did while there was sunlight. Fire was mostly for cooking.