Is anybody listening?

A few years ago, I read of a poll of dog owners, 25 percent of whom said their pets were better listeners than their spouses.  Cat owners came in at 14 percent. How can a married couple not listen to one another?

Why is listening so hard for people to do?  Why do Republicans in Congress right now not listen to their constituents, and to reason and common sense, and vote for a real trial of Donald Trump?  Why do they listen to his endless lies and cover-ups?  And what about listening to the inner voice of conscience that says laws have been broken?

Politics aside, paying attention to one another in a busy, noisy world of self-promotion is an important issue.  A great deal of the problem has to do with the ego and the habit of caring mainly about ourselves, not caring enough about the person we are with to put aside our own agenda and just pay close attention before responding.  This is a habit that must be learned.

If I were to give a class on listening, I would use Erich Fromm's book, "The Art of Listening," in which he lists some basic guidelines, which I summarize:

1.   The first step is the complete concentration of the listener. He or she has to banish all thoughts and be free and receptive.
2.  The listener has to be imaginative, able to put himself in the shoes of the person who has something to say.
3.  This means the one who listens well has some empathy: "to understand another means to love him," says Fromm.
4.  If understanding and loving are separate and not linked, he concludes, the door to real sharing, communication, and listening is forever closed.

The door has often been closed in many of the lunches and dinners I have endured in the past few years. People anxiously talk about their experiences and have little interest in asking questions about my experience or ideas. When I speak, they hear me but just continue talking....So to Fromm's list of essentials I would add patience, humility, and inner peace.  And I would add silence: the good listener silences his mind as well as his cell phone, and on this foundation is ready to give full attention to another. Such attention is a form of love.

Understanding your audience

Understanding who makes up your audience is fundamentally important for any writer or speaker. I was reminded of this today in an otherwise boring talk on a topic far from boring (Sherlock Holmes) because the speaker read, verbatim, to an audience of non-experts a lecture designed to be read by scholars. It was written to be published in a journal, not delivered orally.

This practice is all too common at academic conferences. Instead of talking in clear language, scholars generally write a paper that is really an article in disguise, full of long sentences and abstract language ("narrative strategies deeply informed by hermeneutics....") that seems designed to put people to sleep within fifteen minutes.

The speaker's problem today was that he had no idea to whom he was speaking. He wanted to sound impressive, I suppose, and ending up wasting our time, or at least mine.

The lesson is something I always consider in communication. I cannot write without deciding, Who will read this? Where can I send this (for publication)?  If I picture certain readers I know, or imagine someone like myself as the ideal reader, I have an audience, and the communication process works. I have a reason to write.

Without an audience of readers, I am lost as a writer, unable to do anything.

Consider this blog: Who is my audience? I get only hints since so few readers ever leave comments.  The fine people at Goog'e BlogSpot give me a tally by country of those who have clicked onto one of my posts, and I am amazed to find readers in China, Russia, Europe and the U.S. (rarely in Canada or Australia, for unknown reasons). 

Beyond location, I know nothing much about these readers except that certain topics elicit more attention than others. I have to imagine who they are since a writer's audience is always a fiction, as Walter Ong once wrote n a famous article.

Just knowing taht at least one or two people "out there" in cyberspace might read what I write gives me the motivation to communicate. So I remain grateful to Google for this service and to the presence of unseen readers who make possible what I do on Writing in the Spirit.