Listening (The Fabric of Self)

[riff]

"When we listen to another through the filter of our prejudices, opinions, and beliefs, we are listening only to our own thoughts; we do not truly hear the other. What we hear instead is the image of the other that we have created, and this image is in turn a reflection of our own self-image."

 

[Dillinger]

Exactly! We cannot percieve others except through our own filters - we never perceive another purely as they are without the colorings of our experiences and sense of our own selves.

Additionally - languange and geography affect our interactions to a great extent. We all inhabit very specific "reality neighborhoods."

Every group of men and women is a separate reality-neighborhood: the Neapolitans create one reality-city by talking in Neapolitan words and concepts, the Spanish create another by talking in Spanish words and concepts, the English have a third reality-tunnel, and so on. All reality-grids were created by people talking to each other. They make their history out of forgotten poems. -- Vico

 

[Dillinger]

"I have never experienced another human being. I have experienced my impressions of them."

-- Robert Anton Wilson

 

[riff]

Makes one wonder about "cultural" listening. The filters and prejudices and such are a product of culture. When our culture listens... we listen/see we are doing so through our collective.....

 

[Dillinger]

"The self or ego is a malign growth, virtually a cancer caused by the society of other humans. I think it is contagious, and language may be the medium by which it infects each new generation."

Yet another Wilson quote from the book "Nature's God (The Historical Illuminatus)" speaking through his character, Sigismundo Celine. (Definitely worth reading!)

 

[riff]

Culturally speaking, we are all under the influence of a collective delusion, I think.

 

[Jimi]

Experience: Does it preclude hope?

While some say to me that I am not discriminating enough, I have to believe that Life is not a Zero-Sum game. Mistaken identities are everyday occurrences.

Experience tells me that those impressions of the Other may be at times flawed, but that my perceptions are heightened by the variety and richness of that which I've garnered from other human beings.

In the end, if I am patient (not an easy job! ), I am rewarded with yet another friendship.

 

[riff]

Jimi6996

I think all of us could pay more attention to "how" we listen vis-a-vis "what" we listen.

If we can only listen to ourselves and we do not like what we are hearing, then giving how we listen is something we need to do. And it is a lifetime process, I think.

Day to day, we interact with illusions. On the other thread, awareness was addressed.

In order to learn to listen, we have to be aware that listening and hearing work together.

 

[alexandraaah]

If I subscribe to any theoretical framework in the work I do, this would be it, riffer. I think you'll find it interesting. Hope it's a link to the right place.






http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock//virtual/narrativ.htm

 

[Hamletmaschine]

[*whispering*] I hear dead people. [/*whispering*]

 

[Private Vasquez]

well I hope they're grateful...

 

[freescorfr]

If I subscribe to any theoretical framework in the work I do, this would be it, riffer. I think you'll find it interesting. Hope it's a link to the right place.






http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock//virtual/narrativ.htm

Alexandraaaa, darling, I love you

I had to re-format my hard drive and lost all my links. A lot of my work is using story in work with alcoholics and other dependencies and I'd loads of links.
One was on recent research in prisons - in Maryland(?) - on using story with prisoners. Another is a book, I've not yet got hold of published last year by a GP on use of story in General Practice.

That's a great link. Thanks

 

[sunstruck]

Putting aside your thoughts an opinions and simply listening to what a person has to say isn't instictual. It's something that has to be learned. I've been working with teenagers for about 8 years now, hell I was still one when I started, and it's dificult not to allow your views on how others should think and behave to cloud what they are saying.
But it is possible, and after enough time you realise it's the only way of really helping people. Pep talks and judgements do little if anything. Sometimes just knowing that another person really HEARS you is all you really need.

 

[alexandraaah]

You should find lots of stuff on Narrative Therapy just doing a Google search. Really, the books are great.

If you want names or any other info., pm me.

 

[riff]

[*whispering*] I hear dead people. [/*whispering*]

/whisper: I hear them too....

 

[Jimi]

Jimi6996

I think all of us could pay more attention to "how" we listen vis-a-vis "what" we listen.


In order to learn to listen, we have to be aware that listening and hearing work together.

Two excellent points. And sunstruck's practical extension of same is also worth noting...

 

[heterotic]

So what you're saying is that all I perceived was my probably flawed image of you wishing me a happy birthday, instead of what you truly wished to communicate by saying "happy birthday, dude?"
That'll keep me in thought for a while...

 

[T.H. Oughts]

I can not help but prejudice of others,
as you are not as them.

How can words of others matter,
when yours penetrate, not just touch.

Is sleep necessary,
when thought of surrender freshens.

Should I take food for my being,
when your eyes I feed of,
your body I drink.

Is total surrender to drown or survive.

T.H.

 

[riff]

So what you're saying is that all I perceived was my probably flawed image of you wishing me a happy birthday, instead of what you truly wished to communicate by saying "happy birthday, dude?"
That'll keep me in thought for a while...

No- you said that. I said happy birthday. If you find a flaw in it, it probably has more to do with you than with me. See what I mean?

We project ourselves onto the world around us is the same as filtering what comes into us.

More "Listening" meditations to come. These are just meditations I am reading from a book. My understanding is mine, yours is yours.

 

[cymbidia]

Makes one wonder about "cultural" listening. The filters and prejudices and such are a product of culture. When our culture listens... we listen/see we are doing so through our collective.....

We listen as a culture (Western vs Eastern, for example), as differing regions within that culture (the US vs Australia), as differing socioeconomic groups within the region (urban inner city vs rural heartland vs anywhere surburbia, in the case of the US), and the list goes on and on. It's amazing that any of us manage to convey anything at all to anyone else, really, and that they can hear us even the bit they do.

But we're a communicative species. We became King of the Hill in evolutionary terms partially because of our fierce need and honed ability to communicate. Part of communication is the wresting of valuable info from the strings of otherwise nonsensical syllables coming from the mouth (or fingers, in our cases) of the person with whom we're trying to communicate. We aced the comunication test, baby, and we've won the gold in terms of survival skills as a species.

Individually, though, we are essentially alone, just bags of meat and water. Everything we do, everything we are, everything we hope for or dream of revolves around our being able to communicate our needs to someone who might move toward meeting some of them.

So we speak and listen and try like hell to be understood and to understand. We have to. It's part of our genetic inheirtance, this need to listen, to speak, to be known for who we are via our words - and to know others in the same fashion.

Listening isn't so much selfish as it is the stuff of survival - for us all.

 

[Mellon Collie]

From the Principia Discordia...

"The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

Verily! So much for all that."

 

[Svedish_Chef]

Now Dilly before you get too excited, shes MY girl.

 

[riff]

Now Dilly before you get too excited, shes MY girl.

LOL heheh hahaha AHAHAHAHAHA!!! hehehe

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

"When we listen to another through the filter of our prejudices, opinions, and beliefs, we are listening only to our own thoughts; we do not truly hear the other. What we hear instead is the image of the other that we have created, and this image is in turn a reflection of our own self-image."

riff, I was trying to listen to you, but everything you said was being filtered through the vision of a latex cunt and I just couldn't hear you.



But really, of course what we hear is filtered through our brains using ourselves as the sieve. We can only translate another's meaning through our prejudices, beliefs, and opinions. That is the foundation of micommunication. We are our own translator of language, both spoken and non-verbal.
Usually people are so busy preparing what they are going to say, that they do not listen, or they are picking out pieces of what they other person is saying to strengthen or enhance their thoughts.
Listening is a precious skill few care to learn. It is hard, and you have to try to leave your ego behind. Which is impossible, but you have to try anyways.
And listening as the Fabric od Self is an apt metaphor, because fabric can be altered into so many different things. It is versatile, strong, supple; and yet easy to tear and rip.

 

[Dillinger]

Re: Re: Listening (The Fabric of Self)

But really, of course what we hear is filtered through our brains using ourselves as the sieve. We can only translate another's meaning through our prejudices, beliefs, and opinions...

GeG - I don't actually believe this is an "of course" to most people. Most people do not think about these things, in my opinion. And many of the problems that we have in this world is because we go through life thinking people actually ARE our prejudices/beliefs/opinions. If we all made an effort to be more consciously aware of this filtering there would be a lot less disagreements and miscommunications both on an individual one-on-one level and on the level of nations and politics.

This is really not all that different than the discussion we had a while back regarding the word "is" and how it is misused and the trouble it leads too (I can't find that thread, can anyone bump it?) We describe things and people as "being" something... "he IS this" rather than the more correct interpretation, which would be "he SEEMS like this to me at the moment."