Creating potential: Where does wealth come from?

I've been wondering the past week where wealth comes from. Money--what does it money actually mean? It's so abstract now, isn't it? A kind of faith? The value of money is based on the faith we have in the US economy to be able to buy stuff? 

Well it's a faith-based system now, but it wasn't always like that. The dollar used to be tied to the value of gold, but that doesn't do any more to answer my question. Why or how did gold come to have any value beyond aesthetic? Functionally it's good for just about nothing. It's soft, it appears in computer parts in miniscule amounts. But that's about it. And why has it maintained such consistent value? People facing starvation aren't exactly going to choose gold over food, are they? As best as I can figure, the only things that could have real value are those that feed us, clothe us, shelter us.

I guess this assumes we place value on not living, but survival. I'm sure we do. But once we have enough food, clothing, shelter for a long enough period of time, we'd take them for granted, and they'd lose their apparent value. We'd start assuming we'll always have them. In that case value would have to transfer to things that make us feel good, and that, I think is where an economy really begins, and maybe that's where value gains a layer of abstraction that allows money to step in as a kind of guarantee of future happiness, or at least contentment. That guarantee in and of itself makes us feel better, knowing that our future is at least a little more secure.

What then of the classic tale of the wealthy who discovers his money doesn't buy happiness, that he feels his life is empty because he spent it only focused on money? Is that true? Does that exist? Bill Gates seems happy. Warren Buffet as well. I tend to agree with Stephen Colbert, though--"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy things that make you happy." I might tweak that to say that it has the potential to buy things that make you happy, which makes you content. 

It's really all about the potential, not what you actually do with it.