Listen...

Public speaking is ranked as one of the top fears of adults in the whole world. I think something like heights or snakes is up there also, but talking in front of a bunch of people: that scares people. This concept is very funny to me. Because the majority of people I know love to talk. They are all about telling you where they’ve been or what they’re doing or why they are wearing brown shoes with black pants or the dream they had that Johnny Depp was in a taxi with them and they drove to the shoe store together. People do it, they talk. We are social creatures: it’s in our blood, through our diaphragm, on our chest, then out our lips.
And I think it is beautiful, completely and thoroughly incredible, that humans can communicate so effectively and so complexly. However, I think it is common to forget something with a mouth full of words. We forget to listen.
Starling’s Backpackers Lodge was the name of the hostel that some friends and I stayed at during this long weekend. And it was like most hostels that you picture when you close your eyes: wooden bunk beds and thin mattresses and an incessant dripping noise in a room with no sinks. But this place had something a little extra: a room with a fire and some couches and a place ideal for, well, for listening.
I sat and listened until late, late, late on those nights we stayed at Starling. I heard as a man told adventure stories of how he base jumped for fun and sky dived for a living. The waitress who lived nearby told me of her dream to find a way for the youth in her hometown to travel, and to experience the world. “Because,” she said, “if they see how awesome this world is, they will try harder to rise above their circumstances.” There are really, really interesting people out there. And I think they are more willing to be that kind of interesting when they know someone is willing to listen. Not just the quiet or the absence of my speech. But real live hearing: the kind you do when you think that what the person says is important.
So I came home from this excursion with my hair smelling like smoke and this idea in my head that I wanted to do just that: intentionally give off a listening vibe and see what happened. And I heard ideas. Good ideas.
Moses journeyed to America a few years ago with nothing more than $300 and a good attitude. Sometimes that’s not enough though, and he ended up living in the projects of New York, with no job, no money, and a new realization that maybe America has its problems, too.
Mr. T. wishes people were more like elephants. If one gets orphaned or left behind, another elephant family will help him out and adopt the lost elephant. They just accept the lost one and let him be part of the family. “Why can’t humans do that?” was his question to me.
Now, I usually go to class and I try and take notes, but my real learning hasn’t been sitting in those desks in a lecture hall, wondering if the teacher will count me off on my paper for not using the British spelling of “color.” My true learning has been through the thoughts and ideas of people around me. And all I have to do is listen.