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To Hear is Not to Listen
Forty years of marriage, taught me to listen.
Listen a hundred times. Ponder a thousand times. Speak once. — proverb
There was a quiver on her lips as I discussed the theater piece we had just watched. I turned to my ever-patient partner of four decades and noticed her lips had no such quiver. I tried to stay focused on the point I was trying to make, but I knew what was happening. The person I addressed was riddled by her own urgency to express herself. My partner’s eyes were fixed and were consumed with a patient desire to drink in what I was saying.
Was that just the love of four decades, or did she possess that rare quality, an ability to listen?
Of course I did not finish my point. I was cut off and over run long before the point was made. I stopped pursuing my point, there was no reason. I had a vision of gladiators whipping around inside the coliseum and my words were the track, hammered down, around and around. Even if in agreement, even if in support, I just wanted to finish my sentence.
Is this a by-product of our voracious need to digest information at an ever increasing rate? Perhaps, but it may be fueled by a more sinister source — insecurity.