The poet Ronggowarsito once described that the time in which modern humans live will be a situation in which people who do not join the madness will not get it,"ora edan ora keduman". People who live a straightforward life will be marginalized.
This term can be translated as, modern humans have to be crazy in order to exist. You see, people today are never free from their to-do list. Starting from opening your eyes in the morning, to closing them again at night. Everything is neatly scheduled in the daily to-do list .
Notifications, digital calendars and even smartwatches serve as constant reminders so that not a single moment is missed. People today must always work, work and work until the working hours are increasingly blurred. All of this is done in order not only to survive, but also to be recognized, to be accepted in their community.
Then does working, producing a lot of work, give us a meaningful life? In the past, productivity was seen as a large quantity of work. But now with the realization of the nature of life, productivity also means working with awareness, efficiency, and clear direction.
Modern man, because of his ambition, has become a man who is controlled by his own ambition. He loses his self-control. When referring to the Stoic philosophy that teaches the importance of wisdom, self-control and inner peace to achieve happiness, man needs to focus on things that can be controlled by himself.
Such as thoughts and actions, and gracefully accepting things that are beyond one's control. Stoic teachings make the boundary of productivity not about physical results, but about the extent to which one lives life with awareness, serenity, and virtue. Stoicism emphasizes the importance of choosing meaningful actions, not just productive ones.
When it comes to meaningful work, Hannah Arendt, a German-born philosopher who grew up in the United States in her book The Human Condition, distinguishes between labor (work to survive), work (creating something that lasts), and action (revealing who we are). She criticized modern society for being too focused on productivity and consumption, losing the space for meaningful action.
For Arendt, modern society is too focused on labor and work, losing the action that is the essence of what it means to be human. In fact, the meaning of life lies in actions that are spontaneous, full of freedom, and able to shape the social world.
Humans, in Arendt's view, need to always be concerned with the public sphere and its ability to change the world through collective action. She reminds us not to drown in production without reflection. Technology can make us efficient, but we need space to act, interact, and be ourselves.
In the midst of digital distraction, we need to control our thoughts, filter information, and focus on what we can control-our own intentions, ethics, and response to the world.
On the other hand, we need to realize that humans are not just work machines, but beings with souls, who thirst for connection with the Almighty. Prayer, remembrance, and contemplation provide space to reorganize the meaning of work: not just to make a living, but to fulfill a mandate and worship.
Now, it's time to ask, what are we really pursuing while working?
