The Rite of Rhythm

The great drummer Babatunde Olatunji once said, "Rhythm is the soul of life." I believe that is true. But what exactly does that mean? I have been on a quest for the past few years to understand the pulp of that statement, its implications and wisdom. In fact, I hadn't discovered that quote until about two months ago; but I've felt it for much longer.
When someone else articulates the deep things inside of you, when they tune into your frequency (or your rhythm, if you will) and express that which you could never find words for, it's a sweet, sweet thing in life.

If you consider the world around you - for example, the world of humanity - and distinguish a single element of it, you'll find a whole world of rhythm.
Language, for instance. Any native speaker will be able to decipher whether or not someone else is a native speaker primarily by cadence, the rhythmic patterns of the groupings of their words. Basically, the way you say something can have just as much meaning as the ideas behind the words. Think about it musically for a minute: Two people can play the same note or range of notes with vastly different effects, whether due to their placement of each note in relation to the others, or their skill, or their personality, etc. The phrasing of those notes, the way they are played, has the most essential role in their effect on the listener. And "Phrasing" falls directly under the category of rhythm. You could even go as far as to say that melody is a sub-category of rhythm, because without phrasing we simply have notes that endure for unspecified lengths, or ones that carelessly lay on top of one another with no rhyme or reason.

I realize that my approach so far is quite scientific. What I mean is that, at this point, I'm simply making observations with no philosophical conclusions. Those will come later.