How to Listen In Our Simulated World
For many of you, this is a busy week of last-minute shopping, holiday meal planning, and following up on year-end closings. Many of us will not see our relatives in person this year, which makes it even more important to be vigilant in our communications. When you speak with family, friends, and neighbors this week, listen. Really listen. Release all expectations of conversation and just listen and feel the presence of those you speak to. Do not multi-task while communicating. Do not make yourself the center of the conversational storyline. Do not think about how you will respond to what they are telling you. Just listen.
The world in which we live is simulated. What we watch on television is abbreviated, edited, and curated. What we hear on the news is abbreviated, edited, and curated. What people post on their social media feeds is abbreviated, edited, and curated, and thus the comments we make back are abbreviated, edited, and curated. In fact, most of the conversations we have are abbreviated, edited, and curated exchanges of words between two people who have garnered their information, ideas, knowledge, and truth, from abbreviated, edited, curated (ie simulated) realities. The world in which we live is simulated. It is an abbreviated, edited, curated version of real, and thus it is unreal. But, that is not to say that there is no realness beneath it all. In fact, it’s that tiny smidgeon of realness where you will find beauty, grace, love, truth, and hope. Wouldn’t it be cool to get a little bit of that this holiday season?
Beauty, grace, love, truth, and hope – the realness of life – these can be found by listening. When you really listen to someone, they are bound to expose hints of this realness in their communication. It requires one to listen veraciously. We must use our ears to chip away the shell of the simulated world. By listening intently and truthfully, we will uncover sentiment (feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia). And when we can unearth sentiment, we develop more of our own. Sentiment, the feelings and emotions incased in our beings, are the lifeblood of humanity. Sentiment is the being of being. When a conversation moves from words to sentiment, you are now communicating on the level of emotion, truth, and reality. You are experiencing the actuality of being human. And this is not possible without really perfecting your ability to listen.
Dive into the art of listening this holiday week. Don’t worry if it’s hard at first. It takes practice, as nobody ever taught us how to listen to one another (in school, listening is confused with following, submitting, and complying). The simulated world is designed to make it hard for us to listen. However, if you shut out all the distractions, communicate with the intent of just hearing what is said, and prepare yourself to be present and conscious of the speaker, I can promise you that you will begin to uncover something magical. Who knew that the real magic of the holiday season would unveil itself to us simply by listening?