Stranger 17: Listening

I think everyone does this to a certain extent, but even so, I feel like it’s one of those things I shouldn’t admit to doing. The problem is that it happens all the time. Sometimes I do actually want to hear what the person is saying, and yet I still find myself thinking about the exchange rate of gold, or which brood of cicadas are due next summer, or, as in this example, how close the nearest Super-Target is to my house.

“The appearance of listening is more important than actually listening.”

At a young age, I learned that the appearance of listening is more important than actually listening. People don’t care if you listen; they care about being heard. I sat through countless classes, sitting at rapt attention, following the teacher’s every movement across the front of the classroom, learning nothing. This is opposed to sitting in class doodling and learning nothing, which is clearly not allowed based on the number of times I got in trouble for it. It doesn’t matter how much you learn, only that you appear to be paying attention.

The same thing goes when someone is talking at you. As long as you’re staring at the person, and throw in a nod or “uh huh” every once in a while, you’re free to contemplate more important things. When it aggravates me is when I end up contemplating random things anyway, but I really am interested in what the person has to say. Then I have to ask for a repeat of information which was just given to me a few minutes ago, and subsequently, I look like an idiot.

It’s not that I can’t concentrate. I can work for eight hours straight editing video or tweaking a composition without a problem. It has something to do with talking or sensory input that creates a massive cascade of thoughts in my head, like how adding a little bit of water to those plastic pellet things unfolds a complex animal shape. (Does anyone remember those? Do they still exist? They were kind of fun.) I can’t help it.

All that to say, my intent is not to be rude, I just have a very large number of things to think about. If I can continue to get away with that while still appearing to listen, well, it’s probably not going to change.

-Pulsar