It seems to me that idolatry is asking God to bow down to you. It is asking something from the universe which you have not put in it.
Was not the Golden Calf a visible sign of the possibility of material abundance, and celebrated as such? Rather than understand God’s will, they literally created a God out of their own wishes.
As I see it, our principle task is understanding how this universe works, and conforming ourselves to its dictates. We can never know what potential learning inheres in even the worst experiences.