To be poor, isn't everyone deprived of something of value?

Mostly, money is the first thing to enter one's mind - I don't have enough money - for food, shelter, for stuff I must have to survive. But many without money aren't poor. I was reading a blog post about abstinence, the not having sexual relations with other human creatures I guess... most of my life is without having sexual relations with other human creatures, my mother expected too much from me, and having human sexual reproductive activities with humans of the opposite sex was really frowned upon by her.

I never felt poor because I wasn't following the Playboy Philosophy of Mister Hefner. Certainly did like looking at the charming young ladies in his magazine, and the cartoons, and the jokes. Don't remember reading any of the writing and I was a reader, reading more books in a week than some boys read in a year.

Being poor, feeling poor, never did - although I was sure there should be more money for Earl to catch up with the Jones boy - I realized later that my parents had done very well with four greedy little grubbers to clothe, shelter and feed. And it wasn't until I was throwing my own money away that I truly appreciated how rich that life had been.

I guess if I were to be asked, not that anyone cared, I counted my riches in the family, the dinner table and card table conversations, the number of magazines and books circulating in the home, always being read. I was rich in that there was only one television and one full bathroom and when I was a senior I got my own room. (decorated for a girl?). I was rich in friends that would tease me and people that liked some of me, hoping the rest would settle down and turn out okay. It was always difficult enough to live up to my own dreams and expectations - doing it for others was nearly impossible.

There was, and probably still are hundreds of sexual education teachers that tell young people that you aren't normal without sexual activity. That abstinence doesn't work, that... well, I can teach killing as well as that sexual education teacher can teach sex, but I also know that you really aren't morally prepared for the responsibility of killing another human being in high school - although, like sex, it does happen.

If when you are a child, you learn good manners, good language, sharing and helping, if you learn right from wrong then you will be closer to being prepared for starting a human life (which is what all sexual activity is designed to do) or ending a human life (which is what all military combat is about). But you would have to see beyond the video games, the movies and television drama to find the real people all around you - and you will notice you aren't going to have sexual relations with most of them, nor even try to kill anyone of them for the good of some government guy. And that is a much better normal than I or that Sex Education teacher can illustrate.

Marry once and forever, and when sex dies, let it lie. Don't ever kill anyone, no ugly to try to not remember. Gee, I feel so rich in never having to have to have a hundred screaming fans watch me pretend to have sex in some love relationship - oh, yeah. Tom Cruise has it tougher than that forgotten soldier in Afghanistan - I guess being a short actor was tough on Clark Gable, too. I am so rich to have never been so deprived as to be an actor without a justification for my words, work or lack of height. Can't be poor all the time.