I, Disappointing

MY DEAR FRIEND OF MANY YEARS informed me that he was disappointed in a remark I made. He told me that he had read several of my blog posts, and I informed him, in no unceratin terms, that I do not write and publish blog posts, but rather, essays. My words, my classification of them, is my view. He responded that the difference is minor, and that I had chastised him tersely for a minor matter, and that he found it disappointing. Not so minor to me, I thought, but didn't say. Having spent my life apologizing for minor matters, I have recently decided to abaondon the habit. My response to him was that I had no intention of chastising him, but that my intention was indeed to speak tersely, and that my intention is always to speak tersely. Furthermore, I asserted, so many people have been disappointed with me that I no longer care who I disappoint. (I could have added, but didn't, that I haven't the power to disappoint anybody, that other people's disappointment with me dervies from their mental processes, not my words or deeds.) "OK" he said. "OK" is my least favorite "word". People use it to mean "what you said I find unworthy of respect, but I condescend to allow it without opposition". Indeed I do get tired of people responding to my remarks with "OK" and "really", both of which I consider vacuous and unintelligent. But I told my friend I was glad to get an "OK" from him, which I took for approval. In fact I've been disappointing people my entire adult life, and perhaps somewhat as a child, atlthough as I think back I got more approval and less disapproval, even from my parents, during my childhood. Maybe I would have served myself better to never have grown out of it. I'll start from recent disappointments, and work my way back through history, through the mists of my lifetime. At my local senior center, which is heavily populated by eighty year old conservative Pentecostal Christians, mostly Trump supporters, I don't dress properly. I often wear my Jimi Hendrix T shirt. Somethimes I wear my Rolling Stones lips and tongue T shirt. Their glaring Pentecostal gazes convey distinct disapproval, "disappointment". I wear my New York Yankees choker necklace. Less objectionable, but still not good. The piece de resistance is my red "Make America "Greta" Again: ball cap, an obivous insult, as intended, the object of barely concealed contempt, disapproval, disappointment. During the pandemic year 2020 I particpiated in no fewer than seven "Black Lives Matter" protests, here in my small southern red state. Again, the disapproving disappointmentmost notably among those with a conservative political ideology and fair skinned pigmentation. Out from beneath their moss encrusted rocks,out of the woodwork, come slighering the good ole white boys, in all their disgusting inevitability... In 1991 I marched in college town with hundreds of other protestors protesting the War in Iraq to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's grasp and make Iraqi oil safe and available for American corporate exploitation. Out came the pseudo patriots, angered, disappointed by a true American patriot, me. I think I disappointed most of my family in the nineteen seventies by becoming the first and only Democrat in family history, and opposing the Viet Nam War. I have also always believed that my rooting for the New York Yankees was a disappointment to my circle of family and friend Cardinal fans. While in my teenage years two of my "friends" told me that unless I changed the way I wore my hair hey were done with me. No problem, I got done with them before they with me. As I enter the final portion of my life, my pantheistic religiosity, leaving me unsaved and at risk of eternal damnation, is, I am well aware, a source of great disappointment to the sanctimoniously righteous, concerned more about their lack of power over me than about my salvation. Get in line, join the ranks of those disappointeed in me! If you're waiting for me to conform to your preferences, you'll be there a long time, but you will not be wasting mine.