Jason Kottke pulls the quote below from Brenda Ueland:
I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk, to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: ‘Tell me more. This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically to talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive.’
Excellent advice… I, too, need to do more of that.
This sounds ridiculous whenever I ty to articulate it, but I really do believe that the Internet is making a better listener out of me and, just maybe, out of all of us. Of all my communicative arenas, it is in the digital realm that I take the time to listen – to read, literally – the ideas of others. And the more that I do this, the more my NetBehavior becomes a part of my own behavior and thus the more I’m able to haul those new behaviors into real-world social situations, where I have a heavy predilection towards playing the part of the annoying pedant.
What a beautiful thing… that is what I aim to practice doing better… we are too caught up in our own little world that we tend to hear instead of listening.
If only we could get rid of our own background noise & just be : )