Around 500 BCE the humans transitioned from Mythos to Logos. The greek philosopher Empedocles said that all matter is composed of these four elements: Earth, Water, Air and Fire. Most interpreters think that he choose those four elements because they think that they reflect the four states of matter: Solids, Liquids, Gases and Plasma. But that is a retrospective construction. What if he got his perspective by thinking about the necessities of life? The things we cannot survive without.

Let me tell you about an experience.

In the summer of 2010 I flew into Alicante to look at vacation houses in the area. I had arranged to meet a real estate agent in Javea. But when I arrived there were no rental cars. It was a hangover from the 2008 financial crisis — the Spanish banks had tightened their lending so severely that rental companies couldn’t get the loans to stock their usual summer fleet.

I called the agent and told him. He asked me to wait. Ten minutes later he called back. He had a couple nearby who rented out a room. He had sold them their house. They were nice and reliable. Two hours later a Jeep pulled up. In the back seat sat a royal standard poodle.

His name was Lennox.

The couple had built their way up through the London property ladder over many years — one room apartment, fixed and sold, bigger apartment, fixed and sold, always climbing. The last had been a house with a stream running through the plot. They sold it for a million pounds and decided to leave England. They had looked for a place all over the world. They couldn’t have children of their own so Lennox was their child. Because taking Lennox outside Europe was complicated, they settled on Spain.

The first months they had been enthusiastic. They would go into the garden and feel the warmth and say to each other: what lovely weather. But after a while the thrill faded. The weather was still lovely. They had stopped noticing. They were bored, and a little lost, and so they had decided to rent out a room — not for the money, but for the company. For someone to talk to over breakfast.

One morning I sat with them at the breakfast table. Lennox rested his head in my lap. He was trusting me, and I felt it — I have strong feelings for animals, and being chosen by a dog felt like a gift.

The man looked at his coffee and said that they had the money, but that life hadn’t turned out the way they had imagined it would.

I said: the most valuable things are free. Or almost free.

He looked at me.

“What do you mean?”

“You are breathing right now,” I said. “The air is free. How much would you pay for it if it wasn’t?”

“Pretty much,” he admitted.

“And sunshine, free. A piece of bread and water? Almost free.”

His head bobbed in a slow, heavy nod, his eyes widening. His shoulders dropped. It was not the nod of a polite man. It was the nod of a man who had just seen the missing piece of his own puzzle.

Air, water, sunshine (fire), bread (earth). They are the necessities of life. The things that have real value, that the property ladder cannot reach, that no jeep or villa or million-pound house can provide.

Lennox already knew this.