what do you have to do to be de-friended?

I de-friend people on facebook in a timely fashion, usually because they begin to bloviate all over my time line. I typically don't comment on people's timelines who I loosely know: not right away and not extensively. Sometimes when I do comment, and I try to always be respectful - as if I were a vague acquaintance commenting on my own timeline - I comment just to see if they respond with interest or kindness or a warning, or in some way, either letting me know I'm welcome or not. The comment below the image got me de-friended off one thread. Oh, well. 

There were over 100 comments on a thread where people were sharing their experience as artists and the struggles they'd had. The thread's author had written on "how an artistic career should progress" and, seeing some responses in the "it's not quite so simple category" I chimed in. I was impressed at how, the longer the conversation went on, some real group work, as Wilfred Bion might say, was going on. 

I was wondering if anyone would respond to what I had to say, either a "get out of here" or an "I understand and hear you" or some such. I was knocked out in the hour. But I wanted to save my response, not to justify myself, but because I said something in it I want to hold onto.

I've had an unconventional art career - in terms of how people who write columns and books on the business of art would talk about it. I've worked as a librarian, adding an MLS to my MFA. I've worked as a webpage editor for a large web design and hosting company (large then, it's a vapor now). I scored writing and math tests for two testing companies. Finally I've worked on an MDiv and become an ordained minister in a mainline denomination. In that process I did some serious work as a chaplain resident in hospitals, Atlanta's inner city, and in assisted living facilities. I was pushed in terms of how I interacted with colleagues, patients, staff, and authority. I learned a lot about hearing people's grief. 

When I listen to other artists I hear a lot of braggadocio, a lot of promotion, insecurity, but underneath it, a lot of grief. Few of us have careers we'd dreamed of (whether we did or didn't go for BFAs or MFAs). We're still artists, even when our career arc is way off track.

"This is a beautiful conversation. L[****]  D[*****] and several of you spoke to me, and I was heartened to see people stick with the spikiness of things. I've painted a long time, squandered some opportunities after my MFA in 86, gotten plenty of bad advice. Coming from a working class background, I've found many steps I should have taken to not be so self-evident and at times since, I've been dirt poor. Things are better now. I'm still painting, drawing obsessively. I'm long past emerging - more obscure and obscuring - which is my problem, my choice. At one opening last year I ran into one of my old professors, who remembering me and delighted to see me, bragged on me no end to the gallery owner - who looked right past me. Such a tough skin I have now. Nice to be remembered."