Understanding is a quiet thing

Maria Isabel Garcia

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[Science Solitaire] Hearing and listening can change the way we understand the world and each other

In 1865, there was a cigar factory in Cuba whose workers could not read but had the same yearning as everyone else to understand more, either for purpose or pleasure. So the factory hired readers who would read literature and news aloud as the workers toiled. The workers even contributed their own wages so that the practice would not stop. 

I could not get enough of that picture as I imagined it. That must have been a darn quiet factory that raised the power and pleasure of that one dedicated human sense: listening.

60% of human communication depends on what we listen to but we only retain 25% of what we hear. That is according to Julian Treasure, a sound scientist, when he was interviewed in National Public Radio (NPR).

He has dedicated most of his days and nights to studying sound – how it is made and how it affects our lives. He said that with all the record-breaking technology we have employed to extend our senses, we seem to have failed to fully make use of at least one sense in its “nakedness”: hearing or its raised form – listening. 

One example he cited of the power of sound was when he installed speakers along a main street in Lancaster, California riddled with petty theft problems. The sheriff apparently authorized it, perhaps already at the end of his wits with conventional solutions that were not working.

The sound of lapping waves streamed through the speakers for 5 hours and the bottom line was, crime went down 15%. Treasure thinks that it is because the sound of the waves played a rhythmic cycle that was similar to the cycle of a sleeping human. That makes sense – it will be a challenge to steal things if you are in a “sleeping” mode.

But that demonstrates not just ingenious ways of preventing crime but of how we can create soundscapes that can improve our lives. And why not? If eye-candy and sumptuous food can make your day, why not sound even if it is not blaring in your ear or piped directly to your brain hydrant-style, as is the case with people who are always wearing earphones? 

But he says we have not learned how to fully seize the power that we have, to listen. To understand – we need to learn how to read, write or listen. He rightly observed that we are taught how to read and write but there is no rite of passage in our lives where we are taught how to really listen. 

Many years ago, I was in a car alone with a friend of mine who was driving. I was supposed to be the navigator so I was reading driving directions from a piece of paper. We had been traveling for an hour and we seemed to be doing great as a driver-navigator duo until he said, “So now, we are at a crossroads.”

I looked at the driving directions and said, “Hmm, no. There is no crossroad. There is supposed to be a white mailbox sticking out.”

Then he said, “What mailbox?” I said, “Next thing in our directions is a mailbox, no crossroads.”

Then he said, “You mean that all this time you thought we were talking about the road?”

I said “Ahhh, yes. What have you been talking about?”

Then he said, “My feelings.” Silence. 

I asked him if he wanted to tell them to me all over again. He said, “No.” Silence again. And we never ever spoke of it since then. I failed to listen in a spectacular, glorious way and it hurt my friend. I remember that failure so vividly that it serves as the equivalent of a “ringtone” inside me when I catch myself not listening. 

Treasure gives advice to remember “RASA” to help us listen better.

“R” to make sure we receive the information; “A” to appreciate what is being said; S to summarize what is being said and “A” to ask questions so that we can go to the next stage of this pleasurable exchange: the golden art of conversation.

We all live for two essential sounds in life: our own voice and the other’s. Treasure gave us great insights on how to listen to the other; but for your own voice? What if you literally do not have your own voice? 

Another NPR conversation I recently listened to was with a speech scientist, Rupal Patel, who brilliantly found a way to give voices to those who don’t or have lost them due to illnesses or accidents. 

Patel’s inspiration springs from the fact that “voice” is a very personal thing so fitting people who cannot speak, with uniform voices such as the “robot” voice of Stephen Hawking is far from being “personal.” Hearing oneself is part of “becoming” and no one should be deprived of that. 

So she figured out a way to extract the minimum of the elements of a voice from a voiceless person and use that as the basic ingredient. What comes next is what is so fascinating and supremely inspiring. 

Patel gets “voice donations” – recordings of people who are willing to record themselves for at least 3 hours uttering a wide range of words and tones. Those are then mixed with the basic “voice” of the one who needs it. Patel said that the first words uttered by a child who was given his own voice was “I have never heard me before.”

Listening to these two deeply moving and inspiring talks carried me to a new level of understanding. In order to hear and listen, I needed quiet just as you can see light best when it is dark.  We need to listen very carefully because  “understanding” indeed, comes on tiptoe. 

Here’s to a rich, quiet day. – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, Science Solitaire and Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire. Her column appears every Friday and you can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.

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