I have a vivid memory of listening to my father and grandfather talking around the bed of the latter’s truck. The active verb for me was listening. I’ve never been a person of many spoken words and this was no exception. At some point of me listening in fascination to whatever the hell it was that they were pontificating about, one of them turns to me and asks me what I think. Of course, I’m 6 or 7 so my thoughts on the matter were trivial and I shrugged.
In an attempt to tease me into speaking, they prodded and pried and asked me to speak. At this point I was feeling belligerent and getting anything out of me would have taken a herculean effort, but they prevailed and I simply said, “I prefer to listen.”
Why I said this, I cannot say but it triggered a thought process in my 7 year old brain that lead me to the realization that there is something about not speaking, but listening and learning from those around you. And mostly the fact that I am not smart enough to articulate my thoughts when asked, but would rather listen and when I have something to say I will speak.
Kahlil Gibran in his book The Prophet wrote,
And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
As a society we get excited when our children learn to speak. They begin with their babbling and move onto more articulate babbling. We applaud them when they say mama and dada, but do we ever teach them to listen or do we applaud them when they do? More importantly do we make an effort to teach them to distinguish between the time to listen and the time to speak?
Ideas are like opinions, everyone has them. Sometimes it’s best to let those ideas ferment within the cage of your mind, influenced by what you listen to before letting them out. A well hatched idea is worth a million tons of brain vomit. Let it incubate and find the right time and place for it to come to life. Don’t force it into the cage of words before it knows how to take flight.
Sometimes I wish you would all just shut up for a minute…
P. L. and R.