Listen and Learn
The world is ever-changing and people continue to morph, constantly struggling to adapt. One such change, however, has troubled me…the ever-increasing focus on ME. Me as in me, myself, and I…a focus on one’s self as if all conversation was a series of selfie’s.At a recent holiday party, I found it a little mind-boggling to walk around overhearing conversations, return several minutes later and hear the same speaker in a non-stop continuation, grabbing a breath in fear of losing the floor, the listener now glassy-eyed, unable to extricate himself. I found myself in similar situations during the evening with people I’d just met as well as people I’d known for a long time.
“I was here…I did this…you should have seen, me, I…and then…the mind of the listener goes blank as words continue into the listener’s frontal lobe ad nauseum, the speaker in attack mode. And all without asking a single question of the other person, or evincing the slightest interest. No ‘what about you?’ or ‘what do you think?’
There is a famous adage: God gave you one mouth and two ears so you would listen twice as much as you spoke. That homily appears to have disappeared along with the Dodo bird.
Girls, still in that frustrating dating age, tell similar stories. Their date may well spend the first hour or more talking about himself and then stop. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been talking all this time about myself. Let’s talk about you. What do you like about me?’
It’s unclear whether all this is just plain rudeness or bad manners, or is it what Freud called the ‘ID’…the way a person sees himself…all important, the center of their own world.
Each year I, as others do, receive Christmas cards with letters folded neatly inside describing in excruciating detail the sender’s detailed history of his year’s events. ‘Jodie graduated kindergarten at the top of her class.’ ‘We visited Paducah, Kentucky, and we were lucky enough to add to our salt & pepper collection.’ ‘Mary got the flu while we were on a cruise to Cabo.’
Now I’m not criticizing getting updates from friends who no longer live nearby, and in the past the letter might read ‘Dear Carole,’ or wish me a happy holiday but now there is no greeting. Letters arrive without a greeting, more like a ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ and without even a personal sign-off. Just a “ME” letter. It’s all rather sad. And it certainly hasn’t been helped by our incestuous relationship with our phone, our omnipresent appendage that encourages us to share the inanest trivia as we search for more and more followers. It’s as if the person with the most followers wins some special prize…instant recognition!
I’d like to think that a simple new year’s resolution might work. A promise to be a better listener. A promise to sincerely manifest an interest in another person. A promise to share the joys of your life with the joys of your listener. It won’t change the world but a smile and a friendly ear might improve yours.