I lost one of my subscribers a few days ago. Although I never met the man but I always appreciated his willingness to read my posts and to remain a subscriber. I feel bad that I didn’t know more about him. It’s obvious that we could have been friends or he would have cancelled his subscription long ago.
The people subscribing to Opinionbypen are very important to me. Probably more important than you realize. At the moment I have far fewer than 100 subscribers. Although it goes up and down on a regular basis, I watch that number very closely. I’m ecstatic when it goes up and disappointed when it goes down.
It’s not ego that drives my interest in that number (okay maybe a little) but you few people, you very few people, know and understand me far better than most of my relatives. Most astounding, even with that understanding, you still consented to have me send you more. Many of the people I consider good friends won’t go that far.
While many of my subscribers are co-workers and family, many more of you are anonymous email addresses. I consider all of you are close friends. You’ve listened to my rants, my triumphs and my ramblings and still remained a subscriber. There’s not so many of you that the loss of just one of you can be shrugged off.
I lost my subscriber to death. After a long life as a war hero, civil engineer and a spiritual leader, death came to him in his sleep. I feel a great sense of loss there. Not because my numbers went down by one; not because he referred more people to my site than Microsoft’s Bing but because as a subscriber, he was a friend and yet I knew so little about him.
As I think about this, I realize how little I know of any of you. If this were Facebook, we would be sharing pages, thoughts and embarrassing situations. Although Facebook is not for everyone, knowing that I’m also competing for your attention with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a sundry of other services makes me even more appreciative of your subscription.
This loss has forced me to acknowledge how little I know about any of my subscribers. Why did you subscribe? Why are you still reading my posts? What would you like me to know about you?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to show up on your doorstep, notebook in hand, asking about your life and why you decided to subscribe. I’m not looking to turn our relationship into lifelong pen pals. I’m not even going to ask if you read all the posts I’ve written. Some questions are best unasked.
I’ve tried to make it easy for you to comment. I also understand the reluctance with public comments. My public email address is admin@opinionbypen.com. I would like to know more about you, achievements, hobbies, posts you would like to see, posts you hated.
Knowing that I just exposed my email address to thousands of scammers and would marketeers, I fully understand your reluctance to share your email address. For all you know, this could be the start of my multi-level marketing scheme. If that’s the case, might I suggest Mailinator.com. Their public inbox allows complete anonymity. If you create a sufficiently obscure email address, no one else is likely to use that address.
They say you never fully appreciate something until you lose it. That’s certainly true in this case. To all my readers that have stayed with me through the years, Thank You!, I sincerely hope you continue as subscribers. To my departed subscriber, thanks for all your support, you are missed.
© 2021, Byron Seastrunk. All rights reserved.
