Listening

I would like to be a better listener. I've been thinking about that for years, but I often forget. A good conversation stirs up a ton of ideas in my head, and I want to talk them out. This helps me develop, sort, understand those ideas.

Listening is sometimes difficult. It's difficult for a number of reasons, but the one that stands out in my mind right now is this: after listening intently to someone, he expects you to say something when he's done talking. But sometimes when I truly listen (I'm more likely to do this if it seems the topic is really important to the other person), I don't know what to say. Sometimes the topic is so ... "big" that my mind hasn't had a chance to process it. Other times, the speaker's comments give birth to emerging ideas, I want to talk them out, and it seems like I wasn't listening. Maybe I wasn't. It's hard to tell sometimes. You think you know what someone was saying, but then you find out you don't. Did the person speaking even know what he was saying? What if he was simply developing the ideas as he spoke?

I will try listening more. When I don't know what to say in response, maybe I'll just say "Let me think about this some more. I can tell you what I think after I sort through some ideas." I've done that a few times in the past. I sort of felt like thinking about the issue(s) for a while would breed some sort of enlightenment. I don't think that really happened ... I just had something more substantive to say. I guess that is a form of enlightenment.