%%Originally written on [[Day 6 - Listening - JD 30 Days]]%% [Published March 8, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/listening). An essay on one of my long-time weaknesses that I’m working on turning into a strength. I think it’s worth it. I hope you enjoy it. --- I've never been a great listener. When I was younger, I was terrible at it. I struggled to pay attention, sure. Most kids have attention issues, especially in the modern era. My bigger issue was not zoning out, but interrupting. Interrupting comes from thinking you're listening when you're really looking for an opening or a jumping-off point to speak. It's a selfishness that tricks you into feeling like you're giving your attention when you're not. My brain works like a matrix of overlapping trains. New ideas and thoughts come and go constantly, each a cue to another. Typically, if one train intersects with another, there's a brief moment to hop on. If I don't change, the opportunity window closes and it's hard to come back to the thought -- not because it's impossible to remember the shape of that thought, but because the idea was, above all else, rooted in the connection between where I was and where I might go. This is why so much of my youth and adolescence was filled with interactions where I'd unconsciously hijack the conversation. I experienced much of this as involuntary. It's a bit like when someone is talking to you and you see something amazing happening over their shoulder: _I'm so sorry to interrupt, but that dog is walking that man, look!_ I now have more maturity to realize that I was selfishly assuming any novel thought or connection leaving the station in my mind was precious. Of course, it had to be more important than what someone else might be saying (or be about to arrive at). That's the insidious thing: hastily interrupting doesn't just block out what a person is saying in that moment, it precludes whatever might come next, from them or anyone else in the conversation. The train we were on together may have been going somewhere great; I just didn't realize it yet. We're not all operating with the same tempo, and people like me can be tricked into thinking that the faster or newer thought is better. This isn't to say that interruption or fast-paced conversation is all bad. I don't think there's anything quite like the rush of yes-and'ing back and forth, when it's mutual and your paces match each other. The water rises underneath you. But as I've matured and spent more time searching for and reflecting on presence, I've realized that all attention is not created equal. As many have said before me, listening to respond and listening to understand are radically different modes of operating. It's pretty unbelievable how much people will say if you let them. [Kevin Kelly says](https://www.neil.blog/full-speech-transcript/68-bits-of-unsolicited-advice-by-kevin-kelly), _"Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love, keep asking them 'Is there more?' until there is no more."_ In another conversation he suggests a rule of three: ask, "_is there more?_" twice to make sure they have three chances to say everything. Sometimes these things take time and patience. I probably didn't realize it until halfway through college, but I'd spent much of my life simply assuming that plenty of people had _nothing_ to say because if they didn't speak within 1-2 seconds of a gap in conversation, they weren't going to. In reality, they just needed ramp-up time: to consider and structure their thoughts. And why did they need more time? Perhaps, because they were actually listening. I'm working on having fewer expectations when I listen. Trying to _predict_ less. I find myself trying to fill in the gaps or finish the story (in my head, or even verbally) before people have arrived. Or, I come into conversations focused on _fixing_, on finding a solution. Annette Bening's character in [_20th Century Women (2016)_](https://letterboxd.com/film/20th-century-women/) on this: > “Men always feel like they have to fix things for women or they’re not doing anything. But some things just can’t be fixed. Just be there. Somehow that’s hard for all of you.” I've written much about presence and where to find it (flow, meditating, walking, running). Listening is another tool to induce presence in surprising ways. Recently, in a group writing session, we split into groups of three. The assignment from the host was to take turns, with one person sharing what they wrote about and the other two listening. After, one listener would say what they heard back and the other would ask a question about it. R went first, and I didn't know whether I was going to be the mirror or the question-asker. It was astonishing: that ~60 seconds may have been the most present state listening I've ever experienced. It's a trivial example, but because I didn't know which role I'd end up with, I had to listen in preparation to say what I heard back _or_ ask a relevant question. The result was that I had no choice but to simply listen, rather than choose a path. I had to resist my default reaction and keep those mental trains stationary. That's what real listening is. Undivided, clear-minded attention. _Please, fill up this space with me. You have the stage._ My friend J shared this romantic excerpt from Anthony De Mello's [_The Way to Love_](https://www.amazon.com/Way-Love-Meditations-Anthony-Classics/dp/038524939X): > "Everywhere in the world people are in search of love, for everyone is convinced that love alone can save the world, love alone can make life meaningful and worth living. > > But how very few understand what love really is, and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love. > > **Love springs from awareness.** > > It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves. > > Therefore the first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is. > > And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking, a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this asceticism. When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own? > > So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other."