In the opening scene of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film The Sacrifice the protagonist is shown planting a tree on a desolate coastline with the help of his young son. The man says to his son, “You know, sometimes I say to myself, if every single day, at exactly the same stroke of the clock, one were to perform the same single act, like a ritual, unchanging, systematic, every day at the same time, the world would be changed.” I played this scene back several times to make sure I wrote it down correctly, as the idea of dedicating yourself to a daily ritual seemed worth noting.