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In 'Stumbling on Happiness' by Dan Gilbert, he alludes to a bit of psychiatrist humour where two psychiatrists pass eachother one morning and one says 'You're fine, how am I?'

Arguably there should be no humour in this joke because if the profession is valid a person should be able to accurately deduce the state of mind of another human being. Except we know it's not the case, at least partially, somebody can't know about anothers state of wellbeing without information to inform our conclusion. Thus we normally ask 'How are you?' and respond 'I'm fine, how are you?'.

Infact if you go see a counsellor they will usually ask you how you are, if they are particularly deductive/assertive they may ask 'what's wrong'

The artform of being a human being is knowing what information actually is. That is every day after school in my highschool days my dad and I had the following conversation:

Dad: 'How was school?'
Me: 'Good.'

Now obviously, I had good days and bad days not a consistent stream of good days. In turn, it's entirely possible that somebody who tells you they are fine are in fact not. There are also a whole heap of valid reasons to lie about your state of mind.

In fact* erecting a facade is the norm, in a constantly changing environment this facade allows some consistency that makes life functional. Similar to the efficiency wage theorem that explains why wages are not perfectly negotiable, employers AND employees like to fix wages into contracts so they have some degree of certainty and can thus plan for all the other uncertanties rather than expending time and energy renegotiating the market equilibrium wage rate every day...

Lost? I have lost my ability to percieve what is common economic literacy so I might drop the analogy. I like most people have ups and downs. Generally the worst thing is when there's a high degree of variation. I'd prefer long alternating low periods with long high periods than a week where I feel up and down 7 times a day.

The variation is typically disruptive of my facade that is forming the identity of the moment. I feel most people can see through whatever facade I have, eg. if I'm acting particularly obnoxious or arrogant they can tell I'm pretty insecure etc. I don't mind that so much as I'm happiest when I forget there IS a facade and thus have a strong sense of identity.

I can get away with the facade because it's very rare for anybody to ask anyone as direct a question as 'what do you think of you?' and seldom do we have to confront the illusion.

Some days though I kind of crave being asked this question, not just as an opportunity to narcissistically talk about me, but just so I can admit to somebody that I have no idea who I am or what I am supposed to do.

I think on that front though, I've managed to pass the critical point of no return on my lonesome. The revelation that I don't have any intrinsic meaning or purpose and that I have to define myself. That part was really difficult, going to the effort and doing the work is much much harder than that. But I know I have to do it.

But I kind of hope that people can look at me and say 'you're not fine.' or at the least 'you're not there yet. How am I?' because I certaintly don't believe my own facade.

Surprisingly the 800m training has been good for this. I tried to invent an alter ego to run it for me. One that wasn't scared, just obsessed with winning. This perplexingly lead to frequent mood swings and an eventual breakdown. Where I was confronted by the fact that nobody was going to run this foot race except me, only me. I don't really know who that is or what he's capable of, but it's what I have to work with. I can't just make me up.

*I have not actually checked my facts.