I think my emotions play a large role in determining my style of listening. However, the structural rules of the conversation are significant, too. Let me just give a couple of examples.
When I am threatened, I tend to get defensive. When I’m defensive, I respond to perceived threats rapidly. So if my wife starts to behave in a way that implies a criticism of me, or says anything that I interpret as critical in any way, it’s hard for me to hear her any more. I get scared that we are going to have an argument, and if we have an argument, how will I keep my temper, and in any case, is this going to be the beginning of the end.
So I’ll try to head off the conversation. Perhaps I’ll complain about her. Perhaps I’ll act scared. I don’t know. I don’t do these things on purpose. It’s hard to do anything on purpose when you’re anxious or scared. You’re running on adrenaline then. I have an excess of adrenaline in my system, I think.
On the other hand, if I’m feeling calm and un-threatened, I can listen to anything and I do. Having been around for more than five decades, I’ve had my share of communications classes and workshops and individualized training from therapists.
I’ve found that I prefer to be in situations where everyone can speak their minds in full. I like it when there are structures that encourage that kind of discussion. I’ve learned a variety of techniques to make this happen. I think that all these techniques have something like the “talking stick” technology at their root.
When you use a talking stick, only the person holding the stick (or any other symbolic item) can talk. That person can talk as long as they want, and no one else can talk until the stick is given to someone else. In some groups, the person who has finished talking passes the stick on to another person of their choice. In other groups, the stick travels around the circle from one person to the next.
What using this technique does is it allows people to listen. So much of the time we are competing for air time. When you know you will get your chance, you don’t have to compete. When we do compete, then we have to stomp on the ends of other people’s sentences or else someone else will get there first. Not only that, but we have to think about what we are going to say even as someone else is talking, so that if we get air time, we are prepared to say something quickly and clearly. It might be the only chance we get. This means we aren’t listening to anyone else. We are just listening to ourselves.
When you are operating under rules where you know you will have your turn and you don’t have to be the loud, aggressive talker, then you can listen. Better than that, you can listen without thinking about what you want to say. Every time you think about what you are going to say while someone else is talking, you miss something. You can’t help it. I don’t care how good you think you are at multi-tasking, you’re deluding yourself. Minds can not think two things at once. They don’t do well shifting back and forth, rapidly, either.
In talking stick conversations, you really aren’t supposed to think your own thoughts when someone else is talking. You are supposed to put your full attention on the person who is speaking. You aren’t supposed to worry about what you want to say. Rather, when it is your turn, you speak from your heart—the words you mind pushes forward in that moment, not something you’ve planned. This is supposed to be more truthful, and I agree that it does have a kind of truth that comes when we don’t have time to think up dissimulations.
I’m a big fan of these kind of conversational rules. I like to listen. I like to be in places where this kind of listening and this kind of conversation can happen. fluther is such a place. I also belong to many other organizations that use these techniques. When I teach a class, I also try to incorporate these ideas. The point is that we can learn as much, if not more from listening to each other than we can listening to supposed experts. And of course we learn more listening to others than we do when listening only to ourselves.
Online, in a place like this, you can answer in a way that refers to the question very specifically, and that is the predominantly accepted mode here, I think. However, there are other rules of conversation that take advantage of the way things happen when you listen to people who speak before you. Instead of responding directly to the question, you build on the total conversation—or as much of it as you could read.
Hardly anyone reads every word written before they got there, and I am no exception. I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t have the time to read, and wants to jump straight to what they want to say. That’s fine. However, I am always glad when there are people who actually read every word of every comment, including those as long and dreary as this one. I’m sure they are very few, but I am always appreciative when someone does take the time to hear me out, even when I have written a novel.
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