How are you?

     I wonder how many times a day the question (or some version and language of the question), "How are you?" gets asked by us human beings?  I know I ask it a lot and it gets asked of me as well.  My observational guess is that my personal experience with "How are you?" can be multiplied a few billion times at least.
     I also wonder how many times the answer to this question is some version of "Fine.  How are you?"  Yet, I often observe in myself and others that the answer "Fine" rarely describes one's actual experience.  Which is fine because in most cases the person asking doesn't truly want to know how you are beyond "Fine" anyway.  It's obvious that on a superficial level, personally and collectively, all of this "How are you?  Fine.  How are you?" a few billion times a day is understood and agreed upon as a rhetorical question with the socially acceptable intention of egos passing-by as quickly as possible.
     Nonetheless, I suspect there's much more going on here than a careless greeting in the process of passing-by.  In fact (more about "fact" later) I am now compelled to think that human consciousness, ego, persona and the personal unconscious are constantly making an attempt to reconnect with others and otherness (the collective unconscious) on a deeper level via this simple greeting.  That being so, my claim in this blog is that the question, "How are you?" is ultimately the collective unconscious addressing the core of one's personal story - discovery, expression, connection and meaning - with the intention of awakening self-awareness.  I also claim that self-awareness and SELF-awareness are revealed and reflected through purposeful behavior in the context of otherness and the present moment.  And all purposeful behavior, conscious and unconscious, reveals and reflects one's current awareness of the potential, relationships, experiences and perceptions of being alive.  So, (obviously) I am convinced that the ubiquitous  question, "How are you?" demands an answer far beyond the careless reply of "Fine."
     Penultimately, who, what, why, where, when and every other inquiry pales in comparison to the examination of "How I Am."  This blog, therefore, will address the conscious and unconscious complexities and mysteries of "Being Human."  And to finish my initial posting I want to first present the personal and collective context that is, always and everywhere, shared by us all: biological birth - psychological birth - the experience of being alive - biological death - psychological remains.  Ultimately, what's presented from this point onward will be a collection of ideas (none of which are mine) that create a free-form dance of consciousness, challenges, choices and changes in answer to the deepest of all questions, "How are you?"