Around age 50, Leo Tolstoy had a deep existential crisis. He had already gained great acclaim plus wealth as the celebrated author of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina".
The crisis was about meaning and purpose which having climbed to the top of literary circles had not helped him find. He even at times contemplated suicide as he searched for expert opinion from within the worlds of science, philosophy and religion of his day.
Neither source provided him with satisfactory answers.
Tolstoy then turned to observing the simple peasants who worked his property and noticed that they found happiness within their simple existence. They weren't contemplating the deep questions of the nature of our existence but instead lived day to day while helping each other to survive.
He proceeded to work alongside them wearing simple clothing while toiling in fields performing manual labour.
Over time his crisis resolved and he found increasing solace in a simplified spirituality which resulted in becoming a heretic in the eyes of a Russian orthodox church that excommunicated him in 1901 for rejecting many of its doctrinal beliefs.
Tolstoy had ended up embracing a more radical and pacifist approach which ultimately ended up influencing people like Mahatma Gandhi; however it drew ire within conventional ecclesiastical circles.
He died in 1910 an unrepentant man.
The search for meaning took Tolstoy into the world of simplicity and helping others which resolved his crisis.
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