Sometimes it just really feels like nobody is listening.
Do you feel it too?
That feeling when you’re talking to somebody, but they’re just waiting for their turn to speak?
When you’re conveying an idea but you can just see from the outset that their mind is made up, that there is no moving them?
In today’s day and age it is difficult for people to listen, their attention span has been withered (or rather trained) to the tune of consuming content with a duration of roughly one minute minimums and five minutes tops.
It is not purely a problem of people having small attention spans, for as we can see when we really take a look, people listen for as long as they care or are interested in what it is that they’re listening to.
It is also a problem of people thinking that they know things, or, rather, aren’t open to things.
People like to think that they know what’s happening in the world and what the world is. This line of thinking allows them security, for true fear only ever lies in the unknown.
In tow with this, they do not like thinking or considering that their view of the world may be, at the very least incomplete. They do not entertain thoughts or ideas outside their own, and rightfully so as they have come to their conclusion logically and based on the data that they possess.
Everyone is the hero in their own story, how could they ever be wrong?
It is not in anyone’s best interest to be sharing thoughts with an immovable/non-opened mind, in the same way that someone should not force their way into a shop if it’s closed or tell the shop keeper how to keep their shop.
People’s ideas are things that they’ve accumulated since they developed their ability to comprehend and organize the things in the world around them. Their ideas are their things/treasures (of their mind), some of these things they have had for a very long time and they have a good reason for every thing that they have picked up and kept.
People don’t like it when you try to take their things away from them, their things are what make them happy. They consider their things as pieces of who they are, and are thus attached to them.
Since people are attached to their things, they don’t really ever appreciate the taking away or giving up of what they are attached to. They like their things the way they are and the way they see it, it is what they know/are familiar with and the way that they like it.
This is why even non-aggressive statements are perceived as an attack and why they feel that they must be on the defensive, even when the statement said has nothing to do with them.
If one were to stand in a room of 100 truly randomly selected people and say something like, “I don’t like [X]”, there would be a small number of people who wouldn’t care, a small number number who would say “ok that’s fine”, a small number who would say “what?? why not? how could you not like grapes? Maybe you haven’t had the right grape”, and another who would say “you’re wrong, grapes are great”. Perhaps you’d have more variation in responses from such a small group that was assembled, but as the sample size goes up the trends even out and more patterns are discernible.
Let’s talk about this in the realm of politics, touchy subject, I know, but it rings relevant and we need to speak about it. Since it is a touchy subject, let’s talk about it in terms of the 1836 presidential election. Let’s also only use two of the five nominees to keep it simple and relatively parallel to what we have in modern terms.
That would leave us with Martin Van Buren (MVB) vs William Henry Harrison (WHH). Democrat vs Whig.
I’m not sure I even need to provide examples for this, I think you can see where I’m going, I hope anyway.
If not, where I’m going is that anyone who was for MVB probably thought that those going for WHH were wrong and vice versa. They probably said things like, “I can’t fathom how they can vote for them?” or “Don’t they know that person is going to ruin the country?”. Some of these people likely didn’t even go to listen/read to what the other person had to say, they just thought what they thought and took anything else as an affront to their thoughts/things/dignity.
This line of thought has only been exacerbated to this day. “If you’re not with me, you’re with the enemy”.
They think and say this, usually, without any regard that they are thinking/saying this to other humans. Those who are just as capable as coming to decisions based on their data available.
The majority of people, are good people, there have been studies shown that typically people don’t go out of their way to do “bad” things if given a just as easy “good” option. And yet people don’t see this.
Let’s say that these people (the ones voting for a particular side) are right, because they very well could be.
If they gave others the benefit of the doubt that they’re not nefarious and just doing what they believe to be “right”, then they would approach it more lovingly and say things like, “How is it that you have come to that conclusion?”
But that question these days is seldom ever asked, the response is, “you cannot see the bad that you are doing and you are on the wrong side of history”.
“How is it that you have come to that conclusion?” is the better and more loving question because if that person truly does not know what they do, then you would want to walk them backwards out of the path that they decided to go down. This is the proper question to ask out of love so long as you are not asking them with the intent to change their mind(s). If you are setting out to change their mind, then that is your intent and focus rather than your intent and focus being on being to understand what it is that they’re telling you.
So long as it is asked from a true place of love, the above question is also the better option because the person you’re asking may very well be able to present you with a piece of information that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, and give you something new to consider.
Now, how does this all tie into why I write?
Well I write because that puts the reader into a position where they are (forced) willingly “listening” to what it is I have to say. A smart person will read everything till the end and then formulate an opinion, those who don’t will fixate on the first point that doesn’t coincide with their ideas/things/beliefs and fixate upon it– maybe even miss a point that comes later and clarifies what they disagree with in a way that they can agree with.
A smart person will comprehend what is written, those who don’t will read into what was said or have a misinterpretation.
What writing does, regardless of how people read or understand, is leave a record of what was actually said so that should somebody have any misunderstanding or misinterpretation (even the writer) others will be able to go and look/discern for themselves what is actually there.
I believe that everyone is smart, I believe most of the smartest people are readers. Not everyone has an open mind, I find most readers to have an open mind.
I believe the cream of the crop are the people who don’t make an ASS out of U and ME (assume) or listen to what others say (they could be wrong) are those who go and find out for themselves; those who don’t judge a book by its appearance, but by the content therein. At that point, if the content is good, it will stand the test of time while others are lost to it.
Wishing you all the best,
FCP 🙃
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