That’s because we’ve replaced jobs that involved growing or building real tangible objects with jobs that either create intangible objects or manage others that create intangible objects.
You certainly could drive a truck or flip burgers and feel alienated but those are not white collar occupations where the value of what you do is not at all obvious. I mean, we all have to eat.
At work it all feels so abstract and pointless, the only thing I’m achieving that matters to me is that my employer moves some of their money into my bank account.
Then I go home and grill some burgers after work and build a bookshelf out of wood over the weekend and feel so much more self worth.