No Matter How Far the Feet Travel, the Heart Always Knows the Way Home
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – There is a moment during every Eid that is difficult to explain but easy to feel. When the door of the home opens and someone who has been away for a long time, whether migrating to another city or immersed in endless busyness, finally steps inside and sits once again among the people who know them best. Nothing needs to be explained. No best face needs to be put on. There, in a space filled with the aroma of cooking and unscripted laughter, a person can be themselves again.
This happens every year, in millions of homes across the country. And it turns out that what we have long considered merely a tradition holds something far deeper than just a social custom.
Eid silaturahim, if viewed only on the surface, appears like a routine agenda: visiting relatives, shaking hands, eating together, then going home. But if observed more deeply, it is a subtle yet effective recovery mechanism, touching layers within a person that cannot be reached by instant message notifications or video calls, no matter how advanced.
Deputy for Coordinating the Improvement of Family Quality and Population from the Ministry of Coordinating Human Development and Culture, Woro Srihastuti Sulistyaningrum, articulates it clearly: the family as the smallest unit of society is the foundation of national resilience itself. “If the family is happy, society will prosper, and the nation will be strong with increasingly solid national cohesion,” she said.
That statement sounds like policy jargon, but it is actually rooted in the simplest truth: that humans cannot keep giving if their tank is empty. And silaturahim, in many ways, is the oldest and most effective way to refill it.
What Technology Cannot Do
We live in an era where distance no longer seems to be a barrier. Video calls can display the face of a loved one in seconds. Voice messages can convey longing across continents. Yet there is something that all of that still cannot replicate: genuine physical presence.
Dr Octaviani Indrasari Ranakusuma, a psychology lecturer from YARSI University, explains that physical meetings in silaturahim trigger the release of oxytocin, the hormone that builds feelings of safety, trust, and emotional closeness. A proud pat on the shoulder from a grandfather. A long hug from a mother after months without meeting. Laughter that bursts out together over an old joke that remains funny. All of that is not just pleasant moments; it is a real biological and psychological process that builds the foundation for a person’s resilience in facing life’s pressures.