had humanity been a great tree, then money would have been the dead shadow that this tree cast. Stop looking at the shadow and its trinkets with such wonder and take more time looking at the tree, i.e. looking at each other. That is where life is. There is where wonder resides and dreams first hatch. Learn to engage with other people and spark fire in their eyes. Learn to relate with others, to form genuine friendships, to empower your fellow human beings and you will find greater things than the yachts and Lamborghinis the media puts before you. That is what health magazines imply when they print tepid headlines like “studies show that stable relationships decrease health risk”. Human nature is when individual humans come together to form friendships and households and communities. The greatest life we can live is one spent as members of a community based on friendship and mutual trust. That is truly something! This we can call luxury. All these shiny objects they try to sell us… are the food of vultures!

Aristotle lived in a world much crueller than our own. There were no human rights nor any other guarantees of security that we get to enjoy today. Yet, the world in which Aristotle lived was much more politically dynamic and community oriented than our own. Ιt is under such conditions that he and other greats of his age saw (i) those engaged with their community as more valuable and worthy than the “ιδιώται” - idiotai -, i.e. the private individuals and (ii) money as a means for the empowerment of the community, not its end. Aristotle neither glorified money nor dismissed it. He put it in its proper place.