“Unsubscribe” is an ugly new verb of the Internet era. While I add several new readers a week, I invariably lose one or two to that dreaded little button conveniently located, albeit in tiny type, at the base of any automatic email or text transmission. Advised of a defalcation, I wince as if jabbed. Who is this apostate! Do I know them? Are they mad at me? Is their disfavor spontaneous or cumulative? Maybe they’re just “cleaning out their inbox” (though who likes being treated as detritus!). Maybe my vocabulary is beyond them. (The dissed can get very disagreeable.) Maybe they’re secretly fond of the Nameless One, whom I keep excoriating (though I figured by now I’d have rinsed such rogues from my rolls). Maybe they died.

The hurt subsides, as hurts will, at its own pace, which varies according to the acuity of my regret. If friend or family unsubscribe, I’ll inquire if they meant to and if so no worries but ARRRGH! If a stranger, I shrug, easy come easy go, two steps forward one back, have a nice life. I tend to forget how readily I unsubscribe – to as many as a dozen feeds a week – because their occasion has passed (Elect Kamala, say) or this maker hasn’t warranted my attention.

Only seldom do I unsubscribe with gusto. Recently, with fervor (and regret), I bid farewell to The Washington Post, in response to its owner’s pusillanimous truckling to Evil. So, I read, did several hundred thousand others. Jeff Bezos, among the new class of plutocrats, I’d admired; Jane and I depend on his emporium. I’ve neither the time nor patience to “shop locally,” though I applaud the concept. I’d as soon exchange our dear Beemer for a donkey-cart.

We can’t live easily without Amazon. But the Post, which I’ve long revered, I can – with difficulty – do without. War ravages relationships – it can’t be helped. (I urge you to consider the same – forswear allegiance to any who salute the wrong flag. The time has passed for kumbaya camaraderie. Our enemy’s friend cannot be ours.)

Today’s cancellation – by the most casual of acquaintances – barely grieves, which surprises me. I used to gnash and stomp like Rumpelstiltskin at any quittance. Maybe it’s age mellowing (or walloping) me. I bid them Godspeed with a tranquil heart. What’s changed?

Saying goodbye is a survival skill in our crowded moment. Prosperity and technology have lavished us with too much of everything – too many things, too much food, too many choices and voices. To experience more, we must consume less. To know we must say no. Polonius was right (albeit platitudinous):

I love you with a hot love, revel in our strolls, but love takes time, and we must spend our scant allotment best we can. If you don’t have time for me, if these sentences don’t nourish, I get it, move on, I’m sad yet glad you’re simplifying, for it is hard. While I aspire to the simplicity of Thoreau’s cabin, I haven’t the hardihood. I cling to my friends as they to me. Love is a dance.

Modernity’s a riotous scrum in which all compete with all for affection, response, respect. We have few intrinsic, inescapable communities anymore, we must shape our own. That I wake each dawn to your intelligent interest suffuses me with gratitude and awe. You are my great good luck. To our bond I daily resubscribe.