HTBAGDWLYS

Listening: supposedly a simple thing to do, but really it can be oh so difficult. We should know how to do this by the time we graduate kindergarten, but few of us really have. It really is tricky stuff because so often we don’t even think about it. Personally, I know I have conversations where I’m guilty of listening to the person, but not actually hearing them: maybe my own ideas cloud the point they are trying to make or I am already thinking ahead to the next thing I want to say on the topic. I’ll get distracted by random tangents that my mind forms based on what we are talking about. Its a selfish way to carry on a conversation, and something I’ve been consciously trying to work on for a while. Easier said than done.

The version of Beowulf that I read in seventh grade described the hero as having honey in his veins. His greatest virtue was how, when he received his subjects in his great beerhall, he would listen to them- really listen. His eyes and ears wouldn’t leave the speaker for any distraction and they would feel the bees and sweetness and yellow sunshine bore into their soul, and they would glow with the warm, sublime knowledge that they were truly being heard. That description has always stuck with me, while the rest of the story is hazy (they wrestled in a mucky pit and someone lost an arm? Mother was pissed?) and I know the reason is stayed with me was because I wished I could be as great as Beowulf in that way. If listening with honey can make a Scandinavian warrior great, imagine what it can do for a tiny little designer like me.