Americans become unhappy and vicious because their preoccupation with amassing possessions obliterates their loneliness. This is why production in America seems to be on such an endless upward spiral: every time we buy something we deepen our emotional deprivation and hence our need to buy something.
Frugality without creativity is deprivation.
There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.