Let a smile be your ontology.

At last, the final liberation. I no longer have to be "emotionally correct." I'm old enough now to reclaim all those unfashionable emotional responses that are frowned upon by the establishment.

Like what for instance? Well, in the circles I frequent you're thought to be stupid if you're too enthusiastic or too happy. Gravitas and high seriousness signal "meaningful" intellectual discourse; the lighthearted are assumed to be lightheaded. Gay is fine as a sexual orientation but not as a temperamental style.

The iron law rules. Pessimism trumps optimism, detached-cool trumps hot, and tough-minded cynicism takes every trick on the table. Eruptions of volcanic rage run amok, a la Camille Paglia, may sometimes be admired, but the deck is definitely stacked against the cheerful.

Soon there will be Pollyanna Anonymous groups mandated for the gladhearted. "Hi, my name is Sidney and I'm an enthusiastic optimist. I'm addicted to making the best of every situation-powerless to resist the urge to direct my feet to the sunny side of the street."

In Pollyanna deprogramming, I'd also be forced to publicly confess to regular bouts of bubbling chitchat. Indulging in a high-spirited bender again? Sober up. Spreading sunshine is not appropriate behavior among solemn analytic types, nor will it en dear you to certain feminists.

Well, so what? Away with these confining emotional corsets. If I'm coming out of the closet and accepting myself as I truly am, I can give up the shadow life of pseudo-personas. If I'm naturally "bouncy," "perky," or even. God help me, "sweet," it's O.K. Hell's Bells, I was brought up at Southern cocktail parties, adored June Allyson, and spent a goodly part of my formative years twirling and curtseying through army-navy dos. My kind of womenfolk aim to please; they can soothe any man, woman, or child that strays a cross their path.

Why must the tenderhearted be considered softheaded? Can the excessively polite people of the world help it if there is a mismatch between cultures? Who has ordained that women, Southerners, and other exuberant simpatico tribes must live by the temperamental laws of white Anglo-Yankee males?

In the present system you have to learn to play the game around the conference table. Even I have mastered professional "seriousspeak": Deepen your voice, enunciate loud and clear, turn passionate convictions into tentative hypotheticals. Don't cry, don't laugh. Briskly organize your presentation into three parts, each having three subheadings.

Women who can assume command have learned to sound mighty serious, as well as look the part. (It helps to be tall and/or solid--like Barbara Jordan or Bella Abzug--weightiness from weight, and so on.) I learned these lessons my first week at Bryn Mawl where I'd arrived with flowered taffeta party dresses, purple sweater sets, and bouncing curls. They, or those leaders who counted, wore grey wool, sleek straight hairdos, and simple circle pins Please, no loud colors or clinking jewelry. How I wish I could've known then that African-American Womanists would come to defend the color purple

Then there were those first encounters with Ivy League philosophical gatherings, where solemn male persons sat around in silence (!), smoking pipes and waiting for the emergence of a topic worth dissecting--at length and in detail. Please, no playful verbal pirouettes or embarrassing personal asides.

Every immigrant eventually learns to decode the rules and conform. In graduate school before crucial encounters with my mentor I used to go into the bathroom, throw cold water on my face, and work at lowering my temperature. Take deep breaths. Remember to slow down and be restrained: appear to be surprised by nothing and mildly interested in everything.

Ah well, good-by to all that. Freedom is just another word for "nothing left to lose." Go ahead, be eager, breathless, and hopeful as you want. Make everyone feel good. Pour oil on troubled waters, charm the birds off the trees. Stop trying to work up fits of indignation if it just isn't you.

If friendly colleagues drop references to hypomanic states, counter with new theories that show that historically manics have served the species well. Retell the story of "The Little Engine that Could": She (obviously a female) pulled that impossible load up the long, long hill by repeating, "I think I can, I think I can." When pressed to the wall by deeply serious pessimists, don't retreat. Be excessively kind and gracious as you inform the grumpy Eeyores and Billy-Goat-Gruff "realists" of your acquaintance (mostly male), that we must let a thousand flowers bloom. There's room for every temperament on God's holy mountain; the glum shall lie down with the glad. As an optimist, I of course believe this good news to be true.

I'm not trying to trample on the tragic view of life. I understand that mildly depressed persons can churn out work and achieve like crazy. And they can obtain holiness. Forget that Baron Von Hugel was so disturbed by Newman's sadness of spirit that he questioned his sanctity. Look at what Newman had to put up with. Even if he did have a supersensitive, touchy temperament, he overcame it.

Well, you get the message. Whatever natural endowments you receive in the genetic throw, and whatever the imprinted style passed on from your kith and kin, you can be appreciated and improved. Once you're conscious of the ups and downs of the emotional weather, different temperaments can coexist. As long as we all don't have to be cool and freeze to death. Surely when the saints go marching in, every beat and pace in the book will be represented, from the stately stride to the dancing two-step. A requiem, however, it's not going to be.