Hello, student checking in here. I feel that our society is very manufactured and we are trained to follow all these social rules because it's "correct," but I often find myself thinking, "please, can we all just be real?". A bit of a side note but part of the reason why I'm like this is because I'm aromantic (<1% of the population) so I have a different view of relationships and therefore our entire social structure than the vast majority of people. I think also as I am growing into my adulthood, I have stopped seeing professors as these authority figures who are superior in every way to I, the lowly student, and I think of my professors now more as just humans just like me who happen to be in a position of authority, who happen to have more knowledge/experience. All this is to say that I appreciate your vulnerability.
I think "how are you doing?" is a question that is fundamentally good when it is asked genuinely, but it is the societal expectation that it is not asked nor answered genuinely, rather that it functions as a greeting similar to "hello."
In theater spaces when I was a kid, we would say "I'm so glad you're here." I liked that.
I also tend to think that words do not do much though, so when my friends are struggling I always try to provide for them materially, mostly by cooking them food.
Anyways, I'm glad so you're here. I am a better person because I read your blog and because I met you. I appreciate your honesty.
Great piece / peace. Suggestions, please, for a genuine opening that’s better than “how are you doing?” Especially during a time when many of us are checking in more open-heartedly & more frequently on those we care most about.
I continue to admire your capacity to write and, through writing, share your experience of this devastating event.
Your epigraph speaks to some thinking I'm doing, comfortably on the other side of the continent, on character as understood by nineteenth-century writers who were far more conversant with the Christian Bible than most writers today.
Perseverance and hope are very much part of our current vocabulary, but not character. Somehow, it has faded away and been replaced by terms like personality and identity. Yet, when suffering enters the picture, and we ask, "How will we respond to it?" I don't think there is a word better than character.
Thank you, Josh, for helping me think about character in relation to the here and now.
Thank you for sharing an update, Josh. I’m glad that your family can salvage many of your possessions! How can people best help your family and especially the families in your area who lost their homes?
-- it's not only a question but an affirmation of another -"you're still here". An inexact way of expressing solidarity.
-- and also a way of reassuring self - "they're still here". An inexact way of acknowledging, 'wow' and 'whew' and 'now what'.
But it is also, with the best of intentions, a sincere open-ended question. I'm not presuming to know how you feel, or to tell you how you feel, or should feel. I'm not jumping in (yet) to impose my stories over yours.
And, yes, as with so much, society has sanded down the useful edges and made this beautiful expression into a trite commodity, a shorthand way of casual care or of rote convention. Dumbed it down. Added the stupid, even though the recipe didn't call for that.
It occurs to me that if we asked AI to develop a perfectly irritating greeting far removed from its caring roots -- in its seven-fingered way, it would have come up with "how are you doing?”.
Howyadoin doesn't look much like 'I'm happy we're together', but isn't that its foundation? I see you, I'm listening, I'm grateful, I'm ready for what comes next. Let's move together.
Hello, student checking in here. I feel that our society is very manufactured and we are trained to follow all these social rules because it's "correct," but I often find myself thinking, "please, can we all just be real?". A bit of a side note but part of the reason why I'm like this is because I'm aromantic (<1% of the population) so I have a different view of relationships and therefore our entire social structure than the vast majority of people. I think also as I am growing into my adulthood, I have stopped seeing professors as these authority figures who are superior in every way to I, the lowly student, and I think of my professors now more as just humans just like me who happen to be in a position of authority, who happen to have more knowledge/experience. All this is to say that I appreciate your vulnerability.
I think "how are you doing?" is a question that is fundamentally good when it is asked genuinely, but it is the societal expectation that it is not asked nor answered genuinely, rather that it functions as a greeting similar to "hello."
In theater spaces when I was a kid, we would say "I'm so glad you're here." I liked that.
I also tend to think that words do not do much though, so when my friends are struggling I always try to provide for them materially, mostly by cooking them food.
Anyways, I'm glad so you're here. I am a better person because I read your blog and because I met you. I appreciate your honesty.
Great piece / peace. Suggestions, please, for a genuine opening that’s better than “how are you doing?” Especially during a time when many of us are checking in more open-heartedly & more frequently on those we care most about.
So much to say… but I’ll just say thank you. Take care
I continue to admire your capacity to write and, through writing, share your experience of this devastating event.
Your epigraph speaks to some thinking I'm doing, comfortably on the other side of the continent, on character as understood by nineteenth-century writers who were far more conversant with the Christian Bible than most writers today.
Perseverance and hope are very much part of our current vocabulary, but not character. Somehow, it has faded away and been replaced by terms like personality and identity. Yet, when suffering enters the picture, and we ask, "How will we respond to it?" I don't think there is a word better than character.
Thank you, Josh, for helping me think about character in relation to the here and now.
Thank you for sharing an update, Josh. I’m glad that your family can salvage many of your possessions! How can people best help your family and especially the families in your area who lost their homes?
“how are you doing?”
Asked sincerely and with open hands and heart --
-- it's not only a question but an affirmation of another -"you're still here". An inexact way of expressing solidarity.
-- and also a way of reassuring self - "they're still here". An inexact way of acknowledging, 'wow' and 'whew' and 'now what'.
But it is also, with the best of intentions, a sincere open-ended question. I'm not presuming to know how you feel, or to tell you how you feel, or should feel. I'm not jumping in (yet) to impose my stories over yours.
And, yes, as with so much, society has sanded down the useful edges and made this beautiful expression into a trite commodity, a shorthand way of casual care or of rote convention. Dumbed it down. Added the stupid, even though the recipe didn't call for that.
It occurs to me that if we asked AI to develop a perfectly irritating greeting far removed from its caring roots -- in its seven-fingered way, it would have come up with "how are you doing?”.
Howyadoin doesn't look much like 'I'm happy we're together', but isn't that its foundation? I see you, I'm listening, I'm grateful, I'm ready for what comes next. Let's move together.
Thank you for listening to my thinking out loud, inspired by your gracious and vulnerable presence. Your students are so fortunate.