Thinkingdog Publishing

Here's what I'd noticed: when someone asks "how are you?", we mostly answer with a verbal shrug. Oh, you know. Tired. Busy. Surviving. And then we nod at each other, having successfully confirmed that being alive is a lot of work and neither of us wishes to elaborate. Because — and I say this with love — nobody actually wants the download. Answer that polite little question with a four-minute report on your car's mysterious new noise and your neighbour's judgmental dog, and you can watch the light leave a person's eyes in real time. They asked out of habit. You handed them a monologue. But. And it's a glorious, magnificent but. Walk around genuinely smiling — not the frozen caffeine grin, but a warm, I-know-something-you-don't smile — and suddenly everyone is desperately curious about you. Like you've strolled in holding a mysterious little box, and the whole room wants to know what's inside. So naturally, I ran an experiment....