Music is the fourth great material want of our natures,—first food, then raiment, then shelter, then music.

Once the body is fed, clothed and housed, something else turns out to be nearly as insistent. Music sits fourth on that list not as a luxury but as the next real hunger, the one people satisfy even when they can barely afford the first three. That ranking is a claim about how little of a person is accounted for by survival. Something in you needs feeding that bread does not reach.

Notice what you turn to once the practical parts of your day are handled. If the honest answer is nothing, put one thing back: an album you loved, an instrument you abandoned, a concert worth travelling for.