The problem with 'How are you?'

Some people (that is me trying to say "I" as a euphemism?") some people have gone too long and still goes too long without wondering about the 'how I am". So how do you answer "How are you?"

How are you?

Do you care about that - about how you are or do you just be? How do you understand how you are? Why would you need to understand?

Let’s say, it has been one hell of a life and I have dissected it to the quantum realm to understand why it is and at the same time some days I have just said,

fuck how i am, i operate towards and if i can’t, i operate slowly, exhaustedly but towards - even if it is an inch i move. So how am i?

Would I be happy with a “how have you been?” instead of a "how are you?”

Hell no!

How have I been? Really? That sounds like a history textbook with references to psychology class at 2 pm which is mandatory and has an exam; an exam for which you are supposed to study but you are invigorated by a sudden urge to do an accelerated philosophical inquiry.

So how have I been? Have I been? I am still being.

Well then there is the obvious,

“How will you be?”

Damn, that’s a good question to ask. No one answers that without thinking. But no grand expectations. Forbid that being a greeting. Maybe to the mirror if you are one of those “some people” or to actually that ‘some people’ this question will do something.

”Hey… (pause and look into their eyes and read no matter how difficult and then ask)

…how will you be?”

Don’t get sworn at. I am just suggesting.

Question - How am I?

I am however I want to be. I am however I want to fucking be.

I am being and there is no how to it.

Question - How are you?

Well look at me ! This is how I am.

i don’t know. i didn’t think about it. should i think about it? wait, that’s too much to think.

How are you?

‘I am functional.”

I think that is the honest and a more accurate than the answer ‘fine’ if you are resorting to dismiss the question. It is very self respectful an answer too.

I often take instance of a conversation with a specific friend I had in the middle of one night when I just could not sleep and was rambling and complaining. So after I became vulnerable and exploded through the texts about how i am in a rough place and all is going to hell and I cannot do a damn thing about it, if my life depended on it.

She replied -

”So what will you do?”

I was marveled. That was the perfect response for me. That’s where I should be. In the will to do, in the will to do nothing even. That’s it. The how I am was not to matter.

If I cannot do anything, I have to will myself to accept that. Then I do that for a good 30 years. Then you ask me -

Question - “how are you?”

“i have no fucking clue.”

“What do you mean how i am. i am, i just am.”

But i love asking how you are. i love it. i cherish knowing every detail of how you pull it off in your skin suit in the skinless world. I love it. I love it.

So how are you? Tell me like you want to tell me all about it.