I have the String Quartet no. 36 in b flat major by Joseph Haydn put in my iPod shuffle, a tiny little electronic device in which you can “stack up” lots of music. These kind of devices were in fashion at the beginning of the 21st century in many countries around the globe. No-one would have told Mr Haydn that two centuries after his death someone would be listening to his music while walking, jogging or doing any other activity, and this without disturbing anybody else thanks to another great invention from the 20th century: the headphones. You can literally put any kind of music into your ears without the need to go to a concert hall or to have any musicians in front of you. Haydn himself would be astonished with that! Although I don’t know if he would become even more astonished with the fact that, after being dead and buried, someone would cut his head off and that his skull would be around for 145 years before “meeting” his body again! While I’m writing these lines, I’m listening to the above mentioned string quartet, but the piano Sonata no. 16 by Franz Schubert is on cue.
If you stop and think about it, the “power” a person can keep in such a tiny device is huge, even though we seem not to be aware of it -maybe because we don’t give music the importance it really has. The number of songs and the amount of music you can collect in those little tiny devices surpasses by far and large that one of a person could listen to in their entire life a hundred years ago. That’s why I used the word “power”, because it’s not only music -I mean, songs- what you can have just by pressing a little button, but also any kind of sound record, which of course includes the human voice, storytelling… that is, knowledge.
However, “stacking up” knowledge -having it- is no use if you don’t season it with wisdom. To me, wisdom goes together with the listening and the observation. I’ve already spent a number of years to train myself in the listening, because I strongly believe that listening to music leads you to listening to people, and listening to them better. In other words, training your ears musically -I’m not talking about becoming a professional musician- helps you to “read” people more easily.
But knowing you are a better “people listener” doesn’t suffice, because it really doesn’t help much to know you can listen to the others if they don’t feel they are being listened. It happened to me a number of times that I could listen to (“read”) a person quite well, but they didn’t feel listened. This is where the empathy comes on the stage and plays its role. To make it short, being a good listener is not enough: you also have to look like it! You have to listen to people for them to feel they are being listened…
Thus, all that “power” we can keep in tiny electronic devices, all that power we “stack up” in our minds, is useless without understanding, without observing, without the empathic listening, without the wise and serene use of knowledge.
Michael Thallium
Global & Greatness Coach
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