I Am Well

When Doug, a friend of my father who currently lives in England, was on his most recent visit to the U.S., my mother asked, "How are you?"  Doug answered, "I am well."  This is not the response I am used to.  My first instinct was that his grammar was incorrect (having used an adverb when he clearly needed an adjective).  But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it:  I am well.  Even if it is (by some standards) incorrect English, it also suggests that "am" is more than a simple state of being verb.  What a great idea!  Using an adverb there really changes the feel of the sentence.  I much prefer to think of my day to day existence as being an active process rather than a static state of being.  This is why I have adopted Doug's answer to that very typical (and often insincere) question:  I am well.  I am being well.  I am propagating my consciousness forward through time and I am doing well at it.  

This is not to suggest that adverbs should always be used to answer that question.  Imagine it.  I person suffering from chronic depression would answer, "I am reluctantly."  Ha!

One of my favorite conductors, Daniel Barenboim, talks about this sort of thing often when he gives lectures on music.  He points out the difference between static and dynamic "existence" of music.  He insists that "music should never be thought of as being.  Rather, music should always be thought of as becoming."  When talking about a piece called "Till Eulenspeigel's Merry Pranks" he asked:  "What IS Till Eulenspiegel?  The answer is that it doesn't exist.  It existed only in Richard Strauss's brain when he created it.  And then he took pen and paper... put black dots on white paper.  THIS is not Till Eulenspiegel.  Till only exists when, somewhere in the whole of this world, people in an orchestra come together and physically bring Till to life.  THIS is Till Eulenspiegel and THIS is how music becomes."

In other news, I have a wicked sunburn.