listening

in the last twenty four hours or so, i reread a book by anna quindlen titled one true thing - the book is somewhat similar to tuesdays with morrie, only it's more personal - both are well written, and tuesdays with morrie was very well written, but one true thing touched me more (maybe because it was the second time through - i don't know). suffice it to say, reading the book was emotionally draining (and yes, i'm a fragile young boy recently) - no, that doesn't suffice. in fact, the book is amazing. it is real, it is difficult, it is beautiful, it is painful, it helps me understand my life and my relationships with others, it makes me wonder about what i'll do in the future. it makes me think a lot about my grandfather who died of cancer when i was younger (whom i've mentioned before on this site). it makes me tense up, remember that i need to breathe (thanks tnh and skc), and then marvel at how books and movies can be amazing experiences. and they can be important experiences because they help me experience things before i have to experience them in real life. in some cases, i never do have the experiences, but sometimes i do, and it helps. and if i don't, i have them in my head.

i have them in my dreams at night and during the day. and for some reason, i don't think that tv shows have ever done that for me; video games have never done that for me. movies and books have - real experiences have. music videos have. tv shows have a different purpose, much more like an addictive experience. i'll admit i'm addicted to having cool experiences reading books and watching movies (in some cases, watching the same movie over and over). but i'm not addicted on a daily basis or even a weekly basis to watching some tv show that doesn't help me with anything, except perhaps to unwind. and i guess maybe it would be better if i had an addiction that helped me relax or turn my brain off for a little bit - that seems to be a normal use for tv/cigarettes/alcohol/etc. and it's not obvious that's bad. i don't like what tobacco/alcohol do to one's body - i have a hard time with things like cancer, and it seems clear that some addictions cause cancer, which means the addiction stops being an individual freedom of choice thing.

at any rate, i love the book, and i think that i can identify something that has been getting distilled in my recent experiences of reading, watching, and talking to people: listening. whether it is marveling at how awesome the main character in one true thing (ellen) is when she becomes a psychiatrist/doctor through sharing experience with her mother, whether it's siddhartha realizing that learning to listen to the river is one of the most important things to work at, whether it's watching the lead singer for brule listen to people talking to him and telling him stories after he played music at last summer's arts festival, whether it's realizing that there is nothing i would rather be doing with my time right now than listening to a friend tell her stories of her daily life and of her past - all of these things make me know that what i want to get better at, what i want to practice, what i want to do is listen to others, and as you might surmise, not just other people. i know that my listening will start with my closest friends and family, but it won't stop there.

i've been studying rhetoric for the last two years, and i've learned a lot about communicating, but i think the main thing i've become more attentive to is how important some other areas are - areas based more on reception than on construction of arguments/stories: listening and being an audience and opening up to change one's self/opinions. i think that without that condition (having a somewhat receptive audience), the rest of rhetoric degenerates too much - becomes too much like deception or advertising/marketing rather than the more general formulation of arguments/stories constructed in relation to an audience (where the audience fills in the holes with shared assumptions or alternately where the audience co-constructs the arguments/stories with the speaker/writer). that first way of describing rhetoric (deception/marketing) is hurtful not only to the discipline but to communication in general. on the other hand, thinking only about one's self may be just as problematic.

and this also brings up that in most cases, i don't think that listening is just a one way affair, any more than communicating should be. rhetoric is less dialogic than it should be, mostly because of its historical tradition. and though some aspects of the traditional/conventional model of rhetoric are challenged by any number of scholars, many fewer seem attracted to making rhetoric dialogic - it makes it harder to distinguish who the rhetor (speaker/writer) is and who the audience is - and since that's the main thing that rhetoric feels like it offers as a perspective, that could potentially devalue rhetoric. in my view, it just makes necessary a more complex understanding of the rhetorical communication process. and that can be done.

so listening. what to do with it now. i'm not exactly sure. i'd really like to take a year and spend it listening to people, collecting stories and thoughts. i don't know how i'd compile them - in song or on video or in writing or in telling. probably more likely, i'd love to just work on collecting my own stories. i have a bunch of them - i just need to figure out what to do with them. alternately, i could go academic with this stuff - look into theories of listening and audience-based stuff - in philosophy, in rhetoric, in politics, in environmental studies. there is a lot of potential there. who knows. we'll see.

at this point, it seems unlikely that i will be getting my phd in philosophy - not having an undergraduate degree (or very much coursework) is a powerful worry for programs, and i don't think i'll make it. rhetoric (and english even more so) is problematic because there are few liberal arts schools that have rhetoric so i would probably be forced into an english program (which is fine, except the job potential there is problematic, and i'm going to be much less qualified to teach a variety of english courses relative to someone with an english phd). so i don't know where i'm at right now. possibly still environmental studies. possibly ecology - i know that the area of study i'd be pursuing there is really important right now - and it's very pragmatic, and i have experience in the humanities that can inform my approach to the sciences. i have no idea. but i always appreciate thoughts on this topic if you want to send me your insight.

i thought the following song was relevant to the idea of relationships and anna quindlen's book (though it's two minutes long and not 400 pages so it can only capture one or two small aspects of the book). if nothing else, the song is beautiful and graceful and has one of the simplest but well done videos i know of.

naked as we came by iron and wine

she says, "wake up, it's no use pretending"
I'll keep stealing, breathing her
birds are leaving over autumn's ending
one of us will die inside these arms
eyes wide open, naked as we came
one will spread our ashes around the yard

she says, "if i leave before you, darling
don't you waste me in the ground"
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
one of us will die inside these arms
eyes wide open, naked as we came
one will spread our ashes around the yard