You would adapt rapidly.

I was fired from a city job.

Started hitchiking and living outside. Eventually worked on a fishing boat in the Bering Sea, worked the oil fields in the Dakotas, fought in a civil war in another country, hiked state-long parts of the PCT, hung out with tree-dwelling hippies in the doug-fir forests etc.

I would live that life again in a heartbeat if I didn't have a child to support, which was pretty much the end of my adventures. If you're single you can pretty much work day labor 25% of the year and have plenty enough to live inna-woods. The reason why most 'homeless' people seem so miserable is they are too mentally ill or drug ridden to do some fairly basic things to make their lives living outside 100x better; if you are sober and able bodied and able-minded it is a cakewalk.

Exactly, it's the dose that makes the poison. A week of camping is fun, a lifetime of camping is hell.

As a child, I spent about 4-5 years on both a family farm and then followed by about 6-months at a large commercial egg production farm (my father took a job as the farm manager, came with free housing) - it cemented within me the desire never to toil in the fields or take care of animals outside of pets.

Yet of course - my kids and grandkids who were raised in suburban environments ALL romanticize farming...

Interestingly, one of my ex-girlfriends from my 20s had a dad that did this. He was an engineer and quit to become a farmer, building his own generators and living off the grid powering his operation with waste vegetable oil he obtained for free from the same restaurants he sold artisan vegetables to. He lived in a different state and I only met him once, but it actually did seem like a pretty great life and he was clearly happy with it.

The problem to me when I see this kind of life suggested as something people should try to do is that it isn't universalizable. There are only so many restaurants in any given city that need artisan vegetables. There is only so much land near such cities that can grow it. Even if all people who try are equally able, very few would succeed in doing this.

As you say, farming is difficult, so if you're going into it with the expectation that it is idyllic, you have another thing coming. There is no "time off" on the farm. Some may enjoy that, but most people dreaming about it wouldn't.

It's much better to examine one's motivations for romanticizing the farm. Is it escapism from reality and the suffering endemic to it (in which case, you are only multiplying it by avoiding it)? Is it pride (too good to work)? Is it an impulse toward "immanentizing the eschaton"? Does your current job suck? Is the environment bad? Is it because you're living your life in a meaningless way?

Worth exploring.

> Hard does not mean negative or bad

It does when it applies to your life. (Edit to reply to your edit) A bit of physical activity doesn't make your life harder. A lot of it might. And almost only hard physical activity is pure punishment, even literally used as such in labor camps.

> the safety nets are often illusions

Safety nets are sometimes illusions, they are mostly helping. Like an airbag they only need to work once to prove their worth.

> see: insurance, for one example

Insurance saved the livelihoods of millions of people, sometimes many times over. Rebuilding houses, repairing equipment, covering medical expenses, or critical services. Sometimes they fail you.

Do you know many people who wish for a hard life? For the homeless life? To not have any sort of insurance?

> There's a balance of course [...] You are forsaking nature and an eon of evolution to satisfy what exactly?

The balance.