Chastisement

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word ‘chastisement’ appears first in 1340 where it referred to an “authoritative correction of one who is in fault; means of amendment, discipline, training.” An earlier definition, dating from 1303 defines ‘chastisement’ as “corrective or disciplinary punishment, corrective, chastening; also simply punishment.” I get it. Ironically however, the verb, ‘to chastise,’ dates only from 1330 when it meant “To correct (authoritatively) the faults of; to amend, reform improve (a person or thing).” Interestingly, an earlier definition defines chastise as “to inflict punishment or suffering upon, with a view to amendment.” This definition includes knowingly to inflict some physical or psychic pain. I mention these definitions because these days I seem beset by chastisements meant I suppose, too chastise. I am surrounded by those who would me chastise. Let me count the ways:

·      I walk every day for exercise. Once I was a distance runner, but, alas, I have aged. During my daily walk I carry my iPhone and listen to music (or on very, very rare occasions, tune it to the news: this is always a desperate measure and usually causes me pain. I chastise myself for tuning in). On my smartphone an Apple application would measure my steps and distance. How it did so exceeded my comprehension, but when I returned home from my walk I would check on my phone how I had done that day. The phone would recount to me the measurements of my walk: how many steps (I walk in the morning) I had thus far taken (today, 7,493 steps). It also measured how many flights (of stairs or hills?) I had thus so far climbed: today it reported only one flight had been scaled, but I know that wasn’t an accurate report because I had exited downstairs several times and returned home from various errands and missions an equal number of times: each time I had to climb the stairs. The phone told me that I walked less today than I usually do but that I was walking more this month than I did last month. It also told me that I was walking less this year than I did last year! The phone also reported other data: “You are walking less this week than you did last week,” it chastised, or “This year you are walking less steps than you did last year.” And I am aware that there are other statistics the phone compiles, but I am afraid to look further than my steps and stairs. But to keep my phone from chastising me I ended up walking not for the pleasure of the exercise and the out of doors but to please the phone and keep it from chastising me.

·      On my dentist’s recommendation I purchased (from my dentist’s office!) an electric toothbrush. In a variety of different colored alerts the toothbrush tells me whether the pressure is satisfactory: green is good and red is bad. And the device keeps carefully measured time of my brushing. If I can brush for two whole minutes the toothbrush smiles at me with starry eyes. If, however, I fail to reach this goal the toothbrush frowns at me and there are no stars in its eyes. 

·      I receive a great many emails during the expanse of any day. Some notices are solicitations to shop: I shop. Some messages are announcements that somewhere someone is attending to my academic work and for $90.00 wouldn’t I like to know who that might be. I’d like to know but not for $90.00. However, the vast majority of emails these days come from the Democrats asking for contributions to the campaign. The dire warnings of a Democratic loss are chastisements enough, but so many requests for money are first accompanied by rather pointed accusations that I am not paying attention, that I haven’t signed a circulated petition, that I haven’t attended to the threats posed by the loss of government control by the Democrats. You aren’t listening, Alan, the messages scream. If I don’t contribute now catastrophe will result. I suffer their scolding throughout the day whenever I too often check my email. Of course, I have contributed to a host of campaigns across the country, but I recognize that if I contributed to every chastising request I would daily expend more than $200.00 seven days a week.

·      The anti-Semites chastise me for being Jewish: they would discipline me even to death. And the Jews chastise me for not being Jewish enough. I remember the Mitzvah Wagon on the corner of Broadway and 96^th Street accosting me as I walked past and demanding to know if I was Jewish and if so, would you like to put on tefillin.

·      My smart speaker, Alexa, periodically announces that based on my order history I might be running low on this and that and that I should consider re-ordering such and such so as not to run low on supply. Would I like to order now, she warns?

·      My clothes censure me for being either too fat or too thin, too short or too tall. In fact, the clothes I purchased even just last year are no longer wearable because as the doctor informs me, I have shrunk in my aging. Ah, Sam, you made the pants too long. And though I do not anymore regularly wear neck ties, the last time I attempted to do so my shirt collar chastised my neck for its girth, and I opted to leave the collar unbuttoned.  

·      Of course, my children have chastised my parenting periodically and quite pointedly and these days relentlessly reprove my lack of social awareness and my failure to use Instagram or TikTok or any social media platforms that would keep me current. But yes, nonetheless, we do get along fairly well.

·      And then, there is always my ever-present superego that watches me severely and chastises me relentlessly! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.