“Hello. Welcome to Subway. How are you today?”
I have made (as I have perhaps mentioned before) the words “I hope you are well” a sacred prayer. Whenever I say it, orally or in print, I lower my voice and center my mind on the person I am directing the phrase to. I say it with the same earnestness that I would speak to God with, and I am on my metaphorical knees as I text it. My own ego and sense of self lay prostrate in the acknowledgement of another like me. Of another, beneath the separate experiences and the individual suffering and euphoric joys, that is experiencing life alongside me. In that, we are the same, and it is divine.
And so, it is a holy hope to desire that their unique personhood, that magical something that makes us us, is well. As I’ve written previously, it’s love.
The inverse of this sublime colloquialism is a greeting worthy of the same elevation. “How are you?”
Society (and English/Sociology majors can correct me if they know better) has degraded that question into a polite version of “hello.” As I am also reminded of in the summer job of summer jobs, capitalism certainly has degraded it into a marketing tool.
“Hello. Welcome to Subway. How are you today?”
Check how many times a day that you say it. Check how many times you’re asked, and you give the quick response – “Fine.” “Good, thanks.” “I’ll get a...” Check how little the question means to you. How much you doubt whether the person who asks it actually cares. Check how often you actually, truly want to know how another person is doing.
I’m guilty of bastardizing the question and response myself. In one of our civilization’s Great Miracles, we’ve succeeded in making the disregard of meaning a social reflex. And we convince ourselves (another one of our many divine talents) that it’s acceptable. The world is, after all, too big to be honest all the time. Too crowded. Too little time. Too dangerous. Too impractical.
And, besides, the guy in line behind me is already tapping his foot.
Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone join the happy-go-lucky camp that thinks we have a moral imperative to give a shit. We don’t have to. There’s no 4-hugs-a-day quota in grown-up land. But I know that every time I say the words “I hope you are well” and mean it, something strange happens: It matters. It matters in a way that a cross only matters when it’s a symbol Christianity. Of earnest sacrifice and honest connection.
Implicit inside the holiest of phrases – I hope you are well – is the question – How are you? Just as inherent in the sacrifice made by Jesus was the love of Christ, believe in Him or not. And so, every time a lover or a friend utters the words of an earnest desire, they cannot do so without the attempt at an honest connection. It is in the recognizing this that the joy of the spirits comes upon us, and that we empower ourselves to re-elevate the question to its rightful place beyond marketing, transcending the artificial ideologies of capitalism and democracy and culture. As only love can.
I’ll tell you a secret. There is a secret society of us that know this. Believe this. There is a secret and hidden group of people that recognize that the question “how are you?” is a symbol of a much more meaningful connection then a discussion on how good your breakfast was.
They’re hidden everywhere – in line behind you, around the counter while they make your coffee, walking down the street when you make brief eye contact, even sometimes (I begrudgingly admit) in that needlessly huge truck parked across two spots.
“Hello. Welcome to Subway. How are you today?”
Often the answer isn’t given in words. It’s in the smile or the eye contact that follows. Sometimes it is in the conversation; there are a few brave souls that are that blunt. And when two people in that society meet, everything else fades away. The perfect 6 step process of making a sandwich is unimportant. Making sure the iced latte is made perfectly to standard is little more than a facade. All of those are simply rules – transitory little fads and lusts made by transitory little whims - given meaning and power only by the individual. And when we two meet, eternal and divine, we recognize that it’s all just a game.
Then we really bond. What is it that’s really bothering you? What keeps you up at night, and why is it the same as what keeps me up at night? Who are we, that we are surrounded by so much absurdity? How is it that we are surrounded by others who are so blind to this evident, glowing Truth?
We don’t pretend to be more than we are, or less than we are. We are cogs in a machine that we did not build, but we are cogs that get to choose how and when they will turn. Switches that get to choose whether they are on or off.
Advances in science informs us that light is both a particle and a wave until observed. Advances tell us that our observation of a thing changes that thing. That Schrödinger’s cat lives or dies by our observation of it. Often this is looked upon as a personal limitation of our species – some even suggest that we should cease exploring the universe lest we set it a certain way, simply by looking at it. Or worse, we destroy it. Our observation of something causes it to be less than what it was.
We, in our secret society, know the truth. We know that these advances in science teach us what our hearts have echoed for an eternity. When a human being is observed, then they are. We do not limit the universe, nor destroy it, when we look at it. When we exercise our divine omni-benevolence by observing, we let it really and truly be.
Every day, from time to time, often squished between the guy who doesn’t look up from his paper and the girl who thinks I owe her something just for coming in, I get 2.5 minutes to connect with members from this secret society. 3.5 if they get a complicated sub. 4 if they also get it toasted. Subway thinks it’s a marketing tool to give the impression of good customer service. We’re told to say those exact words to everyone so as to increase customer comfort and loyalty, which will, in turn, increase sales.
We know better.
“Hello. Welcome to Subway. How are you today?”
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