Hear what you understand

You would think that listening is a passive thing to do but so much more goes into listening than just the sound of words going through the air and into a person's ear. It's obvious but I'll still say it, people have brains and they use it no matter how much of a fool you think they are. What you're telling them they'll listen but it is filtered through what they know, their experiences, their educational level and opinions, and their own personalities.

All of these things I just made mention of influence what they pick up on in a conversation.

Someone could say something that is true and could change your life and you could miss that entirely not because you weren't paying attention, but you lacked the mental framework to understand that as the truth and the life change that could come with it.

Have you ever reread a book and found a passage that somehow you have no memory of it being there the first time you read it? It was actually there, your mind was just not on the point being made. That is the case when people are having a conversations.

You just decide to throw words into a void for the sake of being thrown into the void. It is not your fault and it is not the person's fault. Your experiences have shaped your understanding of the current conversation. Anything that seems out of context either gets disregarded or goes completely unnoticed. It is also the same thing for you. When you are having a conversation with someone and they are speaking, you have a mental framework into which you try to categorize what they are saying and if it does not fit, your chance of ditching it is very high.

It's really how people are. You process information and that information is filtered through the lens of what you have already determined is possible. The sad truth is that most people don’t realize they’re doing this. As they go through life they feel open and they feel like they’re listening and for real, they really are. They’re just listening to what they already understand.

The challenge you'll have is to grow beyond good information and the bigger challenge is in what a person is capable of fully understanding. How would you sit with ideas that look like foreign wisdom to you, will you just dismiss them without giving it a second thought? I see confusion usually as the beginning of understanding. The understanding has to come otherwise the words just pass through your ears.

Original source of the image from Pixabay but edited by me

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