When did we stop asking, “How are you?”

And meaning it?

Bart's Books, Ojai, CA shot by Jose

I woke up recently with this thought rolling around loudly in my head. Although we’re 3 months into the year of the firehorse, I’m still thinking about the slow-shed of 2025 and all that I left with it as I consider all the practices, rituals, and ways of relating I’m bringing into this fast-moving year. If last year taught me not to abandon myself, then this year I've learned how to be more present.

After finishing my coffee and journaling in the morning, I received a substack notification from Kevin Morby and an email from a company I love called Fat and the Moon. One showcased a beautiful watercolor zine, and another was about the latest single from a new record. Both inspiring, both asking me to slow down. Both required presence. Kevin is one of the first people I followed on Substack, and I genuinely love receiving his updates, so when he dropped Die Young, the next single on his upcoming album, Little Wide Open, I threw it on. Much like his music, Kevin’s musings are always thoughtful and interesting, and they feel very human in that he is clearly offering himself to his audience in the way a real-life neighbor or friend would. I forwarded it to my friend Zach who seemed to enjoy it just as much (bring back emailing your friends cool shit!) and reflected on the lyrics while also considering the ways presence shows up in my own life, and ways I wish it would.

Thank god that we didn’t die young. It made me think again about all the things I got to be a part of and learn this past year because I didn’t die young. I wrote letters with my friends. I spoke up for myself and my needs. I sat with some really hard feelings and got more comfortable with fear. I took a zine making class. I read Animal and Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. I visited the Getty for the first time. I saw Sinners and One Battle After Another, and my personal favorite, Phantom Thread on 70mm. I thought about what a privilege it is to enjoy and learn anything at all. And about how truly experiencing that privilege, my friends and other joys, really requires presence.

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A week before that, my friend Stella sent me this substack article and told me that it made her think of me. In it, I think I found more answers to the question at the beginning of this post, but it also led me to ask more: why would anyone need to ask how anyone is doing if we already feel we know the answer? Do we feel we already know the answer because we’re constantly exposed to each other online? And since online versions of ourselves aren’t reality, is reality just too hard to sit with? And if that's not it, then why? What's different now? (So much.)

The constant sharing (and over-sharing) online has always felt deeply uncomfortable and exposing to me. I'm even doing it now. Yet, I participated like everyone else because of the sneaking and perhaps sinister appeal of illusory connection, and then over the years, what seemed more like aesthetic peacocking rather than true self-expression. It wasn’t until I read Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, that all of it really sunk in. Once I stopped participating, not only did my headspace become clear enough to resume some of my favorite hobbies with more presence, but everything else in my life seemed to straighten out a little bit more, too.

To sit with someone or something, to be present with a person or a feeling, requires curiosity, and vice versa. It asks for our attention, our own vulnerability, our honesty and our patience. And we don’t really need to be interested or attentive if our screens are already doing that job for us, or we’re too busy or overwhelmed or afraid to care. Why would we think about going more slowly if fast and easy is all we know now?

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I’m not an expert on presence by any means, nor am I a perfect participant of life, online or otherwise. But I think, as with most ways of being, true presence is a practice. It invites us to be a part of another person’s real, internal world while also inviting us deeper into our own. And it asks us to get uncomfortable in order to do so, which is the antithesis of a perfectly curated aesthetic or a chipper and succinct answer to “How are you?”, if the question comes at all. Add to that the constant availability for consumption, and all the surface-level updates, we forget and forego the very real parts of those very real people in front of us. Parts like shame. Parts like desperation, anxiety, deep fear. Parts that have Need. 

And it’s not just the Big Bad Social Media Machine and those behind it – it’s what it’s done to how we relate and engage. Even if we aren’t actively following or engaging one another online, we’re also not really checking in. Maybe we could be sharing more meals. Maybe we could help each other fold laundry, or learn how to speak our neighbor’s language. Maybe we could read books in the same room, or gather for a game night. I know how hard it is to show up when it feels like there is so little to give in a world that wants to take and take and take. But maybe we could start there. Maybe we could just start with presence.

How are you, really? Want to come to my place for some tea? Can I help you fold laundry? Want to take a walk? I am interested in you and your inner world, and I'll share with you what I have to give.

💛