Listening: The Human Factor

This little essay is about writing and reading, two of my favourite pastimes. When I’ve written and posted a Book Review without listening to our book club’s discussion, I find I have more difficulty with organizing my thoughts. This despite reading book reviews on line. Those reviews are very helpful, giving me different perspectives to consider. Discussion among friends is somehow different. Maybe it’s just the laughter, coffee and goodies that are marvellous accompaniments! But somehow I don’t think so. In this world of instant everything, we have access to many, many opinions, online chats, information, various forms of markets and games. What is not immediately accessible is the human contact of….you guessed it….laughter, coffee and goodies. The human dynamic that is the joy of listening and learning about books we read, the movies we go to, a shopping experience or a weekly walk with friends. As I write I see that this little essay is about more than just writing and reading, but about the human experience that touches all of our five senses, as well as our sense of spirit. 

But neither is technology a bad thing. This laptop, cold to touch, holds the photo of my great granddaughter on the screen. It  fills me with a glorious cheer, reminding me of her soft little hand touching my wrinkly old face. My pen, with black ink, and my journal, with soft cover and lined pages, are mere objects. Yet when my hand takes them up each morning, I enter a private space for exploration into my thoughts, ideas, worries, solutions and sometimes even a to do list. Then I take some bit of my writing to the electronics of my laptop and onto my blog site at Standing Still Slowly. To write in my journal or on this electronic page for even a grocery list I have had to listen. To listen to myself and the ideas and experience of others. We can allow technology to disconnect us in annoyance, or use it as the useful tool it is meant to be. Whether electronic or good old fashioned pen and paper, they are all useful tools for writing, for reading and maintaining human connections. By the way, I was introduced to my present walking group, book group and a circle of new friends from an online search many years ago.

Listening is a human factor felt through all of our senses infusing our hearts and spirits with the context of life. Our surface intellect tends to censor what has been heard, sometimes with too much evaluation. When listening is as invisible as the electronics of this computer, the details will be at our fingertips in whatever we do.

“Writing too, is 90% listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you

 that it fills you up, and when you write, it pours out of you.”

~ Natalie Goldberg,  Writing Down the Bones (pg.58)