The initial shock of having lost so much karma was the only time I felt I really "lost" here. I notice that karma loss does more to infuriate than actually punish, and that it has the potential to hurt the site more than me, by nullifying my ability to reach a larger audience when I have something important to say. When I see a rule I don't like, I tend to ignore it, not that doing so was my intention here. My problem wasn't that I lost karma, it was that I was accused of wrongdoing which I did not believe myself to have committed.

(That said, you are probably right about learning to lose. One of my biggest problems has been that I find escalation of conflict fun after it reaches a point where I cannot possibly win. I'm very popular with authority, as you could probably guess.)