How Are You Doing? What Are You Doing?
Recently while out of school on a weeklong break I traveled back to my old hometown to pass the time in suburban surroundings that have by now become entirely disassociated with the work and stress I’m used to. I spent several days doing nothing at all. On the last day there I decided to track down an old friend and perhaps convince him to go out for a drink or two with me that night. Nothing at all multiplied by alcohol can always be relaxing. Last time I had seen my friend he had moved out and was living in a modest apartment towards the center of the city. He always seemed to be visiting his parents when I was around, however. I walked down the street toward his parents’ house on the chance that he would be there. Sure enough his truck was parked out in front and the lights were on inside the house. I rang the bell. Dogs began barking inside and I heard footsteps approaching the door. His mother opened it wide and excitedly said hello. She invited me in, all the way into the room by the kitchen, the room where Americans do their nothings. Her husband and oldest daughter were seated in front of the television and looked pleasantly surprised.
“How are you?” they all asked.
“I’m good.” I explained. The mother rose and walked around me toward the kitchen asking if I wanted anything to drink. I replied no, and tentatively - not knowing why but sensing caution - asked “so how’s… doing. Is He around?” It stopped the mother in her tracks and the room quieted for just one fraction of a second. Even the television seemed to slow in pitch and pace.
In a worried tone his mother said, “He’s going through a rough time right now.” She explained that he was in jail, had been in jail for several days, and would not get out for several more. I didn’t ask about the crime, I didn’t need to. We danced uncomfortably around the news talking more about myself. They repeatedly asked how I was, how my parents were, how I was doing in my new home far down South from here. They wanted to know how everything was.
All of the how questions sparked something in me. I remembered earlier in the day while sitting downtown in a crowded area, a man approached two women sitting not far away from me. He said hello to them. Apparently they knew one another. Then came the ritual exchange:
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, how are you doing?”
“I’m good.”
Variations on the theme soon followed:
“How’s so and so?”
“Good, yeah. How’s your uncle?”
“Oh, he’s great. How’s this person? Do you ever see him anymore?”
“He’s good.”
I recalled other exchanges that I had overheard earlier in the day:
“Hello, how are you these days?”
“I’m good, how’bout you?”
“Fantastic.”
“How are you!? It’s been so long!”
[Friends embrace]
“I’m doing wonderful, and you?”
“Same.”
We all do it; the how ritual. Asking one another how we are doing is so commonplace, so mandatory, that it often even carries sanction if we do not follow the script with those we encounter. We feel obliged to respond to the question with a reply of, “fine. How are you?” that is, unless we catch ourselves habitually blurting out the “how” question first. Everyone, it would seem, is obsessed with how everyone else is.
It is such a well known ritual that I wonder if ever there was a time when people greeted their old friends, family, and acquaintances differently. Perhaps not, one could surely dig through age-old literature and find characters “howing” back and forth in turn. But was it such a prescribed ritual in people’s happenstance encounters? And did it always carry the same meaning, or rather, did it always omit the same information? People ask one another how they are doing when they haven’t seen one another in some time, when they want to catch up. Usually the more time that has passed in separation the more likely they are to ask how the other is.
What do we really mean when we exchange this question? Does our answer even mean anything at all? Does the question actually convey any meaningful information about a person’s health and happiness, or is it nothing more than the glossy film, the shiny or shoddy aesthetic appearance of a person’s health? The most serious problem with the question, “how are you doing?” is that it does not in fact ask anything of any substance whatsoever. Answering the question with “good” or “well” makes even less sense. Packaged as the how ritual – “How are you?” “I’m good, how are you?” “Fine thanks”- the exchange is about as meaningful as window-dressing or a book cover. If one were to seriously answer a question regarding how they are would look something more akin to this;
“How are you doing?”
“First step is breathing. Can’t get anywhere without taking in a breath, and releasing it. And you’ve got to do this over and over, but don’t worry, in time it’ll come naturally. Second step is water and food. These nutrients go in the mouth and nourish the body. The brain is the nerve center, the bones the frame, the muscles make movement possible. Now combine all these elements with sleep, language and culture, basic laws of physics, and the flow of energetic sunshine upon the planet’s surface: that’s how.”
There’s more of course, but you get the point. If people are really interested in how other people are doing the answer would be as simple as a basic course in physics and maybe some elementary biology. After all, science has plenty of answers concerning how things are done. But this is not the answer we’re looking for when we inquire as to how others are doing. Nor is the point of the question to assess how well or skillfully one does whatever it is they do. We know this because of the absurdity of responding as follows;
“How are you doing?”
Professionally,” or “with much skill,” or “disciplined.”
Or to reply based on the earlier more fundamental response; “My bone structure is holding out just fine. However, my pulmonary system is not functioning as it was designed to. Perhaps it is time for me to quit smoking?”
The question’s actual intent based on the ritually prescribed answer (one’s holistic health) is not to understand how one is doing what they are doing, or how well they are doing whatever it is they’re doing, but rather how one is feeling. The question probes for health, emotion, especially for a barometric sign of happiness. In asking one another “how are you?” we are asking those we encounter to affirm their happiness or to give us a sign that things are not so good. Unfortunately, we are still chasing one another’s tails, too affixed on the immediate, the shallow state of feeling, ignoring the more temporal, the deep state of being and doing. We exchange;
“How are you feeling?”
Great” or “I’m ok” or “Not so good.”
It makes very little sense as a question. It is an obtusely polite way of asking how one is feeling. It prompts answers bereft of any meaningful content, and even when one might respond with accompanying reasons to explain their state of health these reasons often take the form of afflictions, bad luck, excuses, or miracles.
What is the value of asking someone “how are you feeling?” if all they respond with is a meaningless “good” or “bad”? A person’s holistic health can usually be gleaned from non-verbal communication, so why bother asking about a person’s immediate state of feeling if we can see it written in their facial expression, and their posture and composure? If we’re digging deeper than this, if we want to know how they have been feeling for some time then the how question can only serve as a ritualistic entryway into a conversation with more actual content. We must ask more than how, we must ask what.
Most answers to the “how” question that tack on reasons why never get to the real matters at hand. It’s as though the original intent of the question, inquiry into another’s emotional health, blacks out all of the real content, the real reasons why we take (or should take) interest in one another’s feelings. Shallow obsessions with one another’s emotional health is emblematic of preoccupations with aesthetics and the pressures of acquiescence. People want to know that their friends and family are doing well because they know that this is the way everyone should feel, indeed deserves to feel. We need to know this. And when a person says otherwise, when they let slip that they don’t feel “great” excuses are sought out to account for the discontent. Excuses are the bad luck, rotten days, the ill fortune, the happenstance of shit that in this modern scheme of blind aesthetics will be wiped away in no time, and the person will return to feeling good.
Rather than asking one another “how are you doing?” it would make more sense to ask; “What are you doing?” Asking the “what” question might not have the same easygoing flow. In fact, it might even come across as abrasive in the wrong tone, tempo, or context, but it makes more sense. Consider this;
Friend! What have you been doing?”
"Slaving away in a job I really despise while trying to make my rent. I’ve been drinking too much also. How about you?”
"Much the same, I’ve been working like a dog, watching my bills increase, and vegetating in front of the television.”
Not only is there no longer a need for these friends to inquire into the holistic health of one another, for they are both obviously not doing well, but they have entirely circumvented the pointless “how” question and gotten to the point. What they have been doing has not been good for their health, thus they are not feeling fine. Now consider this;
“Long time no see! What are you doing!?”
Striking my friend! Yes, striking and organizing the Mega-Mart where I work so that I can pay my rent and afford the college tuition for my children. How about you?”
“Much the same. I quit my old job at the shit factory and have taken up my passion: photography! Let me recommend a good book to you….”
It may seem innocent enough to ask how one is doing, rather than asking what one is doing, and it may often just be a ritual exchange with a harmless effect. However, what we least question is worth interrogating the most. Mundane rituals we share with one another can be windows into larger systems of obscurantism and acquiescence, just as they can give us a view to systems of elucidation and inspiration. The “how” ritual is both, but perhaps as it is now invoked on the street it is more of the former. We will always want to know how one another feels for we are human beings and we care about each other. But the question as it is presently thrown about in daily encounters has lost all meaning and insight to a point where it actually seems to black out the substantive issues of health and life. In blurting out quick “hows” at one another we fill the air with superficiality. If we really want to know one another, if we really want to catch up quick and answer all the questions worthy of our humanity we should be asking what our family and friends are doing.
