« While traditional man roots meaning in transcendence, the worldly man perceives meaning in predominantly materialistic ways. He compensates for his lack of verticality by an excessive horizontality. Lacking quality, he searches for meaning in predominantly quantitative terms. What he lacks in depth, he strives to express in intensity. What he lacks in wisdom, he makes up for in cleverness. What he lacks of love, he pursues in power. What he lacks in compassion, he compensates for in sentimentality. What he lacks in nobility, he strives to express in tawdry celebrity. What he lacks of beauty, he seeks in graphic realism or garish sensationalism. What he lacks in wonder and reverence, he strives to express in idolatry. What he lacks in vision, he compensates for in curiosity. What he lacks of reality, he seeks in the abstract or the surreal. What he lacks of spirituality, he seeks in hallucinatory experiences or in the occult psychology of pseudo-spiritualism. What he lacks of religion, he pursues in false creeds and utopias, in progressivism, materialism and scientism. »

— Ali Lakhani, The Timeless Relevance of Traditional Wisdom.

It is as if an eagle fancied to be a snake and crawled on the ground, ignoring its wings.