Thoughts on Listening
http://www.deeplistening.org/pauline/writings/quantum_listening.html
This is not so much an essay as it is some thoughts on listening. So my response is my own abstract thoughts on listening.
HEADPHONES
I listen to music with my headphones all the time. Why? The obvious reason is that I love music, but a deeper reason is that the context of audio through headphones creates a sonic "bubble" of space around me. I can go anywhere and have my experiences played out with a soundtrack. My walking has rhythm, the environment I move through has pulse, the people I encounter have energy, and my mind is alive. Although alone in my "sonic bubble." I am more engaged and in tune with the world than if I were to walk in silence. In silence, I "space-out." I do not pay attention to my surrounding so much. I become very self-centered without a meaningful focus on my thoughts. Through my headphones, I look at details and feel them. I am sure that the song I listen to dictates my relationships, but that is inconsequential. What matters is the engagement at all.
Perhaps if I walked through my life paying closer attention to all the "natural" sounds of my environment, my headphone experience would be mimicked. I would start to hear the patterns, the rhythms, the pulses of the actual landscape instead of imposing false sound of recorded music over them. The experience would be different, but no less focused and engaging. Emotional connection would be the greatest difference I imagine.
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ACTIVE LISTENING
"Deep Listening is active."
Listening is a skill like drawing. Drawing we are learning to see. Listening we are learning to hear. We all perceive our surroundings differently -- different levels of sensitivity, different interests, different physical strengths -- but no matter what our levels of perception, we can always get "better." Training. Practice. Focus.
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INACTIVE LISTENING
"For audiences the greatest gift is rapt attention."
At some point though, I do not want to think about what I am hearing. I want to be so involved that sound lulls me to sleep...into a state of absolute silence. I do not mind letting myself go. It is not boredom, it is acceptance and release.
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META LISTENING
"The Quantum Listener listens to listening."
We listen to the listening of listening to sounds. BLAH! Ok, but seriously, whenever deeply engaged in analyzing our own analysis of an activity or thought, we are running ourselves in abstract circles. And hopefully finding information buried far beneath the surface of the obvious activity. As this goes further, so do the interpretations of sound, our experiences with sound, the ideas of sound design, what we as people should consider in the sound around us, and we end up with statements like this: "Is sound intelligent? Does sound have consciousness?"
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SPIRITUAL LISTENING
"Listen to sound disappearing. This meditation that I practice takes one to the border of reality and virtuality. When do you stop hearing the sound? When does memory begin?"
After listening to my headphones, listening to the sounds of life around me, sleeping to the background of sound, and thinking about the listening to the listening of sound... I pause. I stop listening. I feel dense with memory. Sound sculpts my space more than any physical object. It's presence fills my body and I don't know what to say.