What Are the Essential Building Blocks of Life?

What do you see as the essential building blocks of life that we have some management of or influence over? That's not an arbitrary question. It has to do with how did we evolve as human beings. We evolved as collaborative communal creatures whose sense of meaning wasn't derived from anything other than what we could bring to the communal life. And still, if you ask people now, when do you feel more at ease? When is your body more rest? Or when you've been openhearted and kind and generous?