I heard that back in the days, people used to just go when their work was done on the farms and there was no concept of 9-5 (these days seem 24 hours work). There used to be a lot of holidays. Is that true? If it is, then given the abundance in technology, why our work hours increased and why do we have such weird lives that we live to work?
In France it’s not legal to build anything on agricultural land, and the lands you can build on are much more expensive, and you’ll need permits and to pay taxes. So I really don’t see how one could really isolated himself like you said
You can usually build agricultural buildings just not houses.