I watched the sun go down; the deserted island opposite me glowed rosily, happily like a cheek after a kiss. I heard the small songbirds returning drowsily to go to sleep, tired after a full day’s hunting and singing. Soon the stars would rise to take their places one by one, and the wheel of night would begin to turn. Midnight would come, dawn would come, the sun would assuredly appear, and the wheel of day would commence its round.
A divine rhythm. Seeds in the ground, birds, stars — all obey. Only man lifts his hand in rebellion and wants to transgress the law and convert obedience into freedom. This is why he alone of all God’s creatures is able to sin. To sin — what does that mean? It means to destroy harmony.
- Nikos Kazantzakis, from Report to Greco

. . .

To live one’s life aware of, and in harmony with, the divine rhythm is an accomplishment worthy of the gift of life. It should be easy — it is mostly a matter of removing the superfluous — but it is difficult. We’re distracted by the trivial.

...you can see that basically our lives are, to a large extent, spent in avoiding confrontation with ourselves.  And then you can begin to make sense of the enormous amount of our culture's daily activities, which attempt to distract us from ourselves, from deep reflection, from deep thinking, from existential confrontation.  There's a wonderful phrase by the philosopher Kierkegaard, "tranquilization by the trivial."  And I think our culture has mastered this better than any culture in history, simply because we have the wealth and means to do so.
- Roy Walsh, psychiatry professor in The Search For Meaning by Phillip L. Berman