Now the highest form of affirmation is the festival; among all its characteristics, Karl Kerenyi tells us, is “the union of tranquility, contemplation, and intensity of life.” …The feast is the origin of leisure, and the inward and ever-present meaning of leisure. And because leisure is thus by its nature a celebration, it is more than effortless; it is the direct opposite of effort. (43)
From Leisure: the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (1952).