How is your listening?

Did enjoyable learning while reading this week which I’ll share

“Escuchame con tus ojos,” a boy says to his papa. Listen to me with your eyes. Because he knows what it looks and feels like when he is being fully heard, when his father is giving him directed presence. It’s a desire shared by most if not all of us: a longing to receive undivided attention. “Divided” being shorthand for anything less than total contact, an authentic and reliable fusion. Yes, you matter to me more than anything else, right now.

Eyes can give it away, in, they can reveal that the listener is at least partly elsewhere, maybe pretending to listen while glancing sideways, as if wishing you were transparent or not there at all, an obstacle or an inconvenience, a stand-in for whatever else might be nearby or on its way. Voluntary or involuntary, this scattering of regard can feel as distancing as one step out of the room. Come back, you might say, with your voice or with your own eyes, pulling and pleading. I’m here, I’m right in front of you, what could possibly be more compelling?

Elizabeth Rosner, Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening, Counterpoint, 2024, p 53.

How is your listening?

And Rosner has a nice ability to find quotes. Here is one from her that makes me smile:

Oscar Wilde defined nature as “a place where birds fly around uncooked,” p 187.

  Thank You for reading, JoAnnLordahl.com    

[My apologies: Reading, Writing currently consumes most of my dwindling energy.]