You're Not Fine

"Because I know myself very well, it is difficult to say who I am."

-- Taiso Eko (Second Zen Patriarch)

Walking down the street you encounter a friend.

"How are you? they ask.

"Fine," you say, "how about you?"

"Fine," they reply.

And the conversation moves on to other topics. Or you both walk on with barely a hitch in your stride.

Harmless social banter, you say. Perhaps. But beneath the surface there maybe a whole lot more going on. In fact you may not feel "fine" at all at that moment, but you know that nobody really wants to hear a play-by-play description of your lousy day. "How are you?" is not meant to be taken literally.

But what if you did take it literally and deeply, how would you answer? If you know yourself as well as Taiso knew himself, the question "How are you?" might be as difficult to answer as "Who are you?" They both call upon you to boil down a massive amount of information into a short, verbal description.

We say we are "fine." We say we are a mother or a father, a student or an attorney, a blogger or a singer. We have all kinds of words to label and describe ourselves, but the better we know ourselves the more inadequate they all seem.

Sometimes when people ask me "How are you?" I want to say "I don't have the foggiest idea." Or when I'm at a networking event and a new acquaintance asks me "What do you do?" I want to say "Just a bunch of random crazy shit."

The fault really lies in the questions themselves. They really are not rational. They ask us to put into words what can only be experienced. Sure, they're well meaning, or at least semi-functional, but in reality they're meaning-less. And, worst of all, they condition us to think that we really can describe ourselves or our current state of consciousness with a well chosen assortment of nouns or adjectives.

Face it -- the better you know yourself, the less you can describe yourself. The more you understand the changing nature of thoughts, felling, and emotions, the less willing you are to describe your current state because you know that at any given moment it can change.

Who are you?

Hell if I know.

How are you?

Don't have a clue.

Welcome to reality.