“Listening is the secret to discover great stories”…Fyrefly London
(Hi) story
I am a diehard fan of
best-seller works of fiction and their motion picture adaptations, especially
the ones that have a unique twist of strange and unknown history to their
story. Great examples are ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’, authored by
English writer, poet, Philologist and University Professor J.R.R. Tolkien
(1892-1973). Tolkien had amazing literary prowess in creating a rich fantasy
world.
Also heard of the Legend
of the Seeker? Well it’s a television series based on novels in the series
titled the sword of truth by Terry Goodkind. As you progress into the story
you’ll find out that certain people possess supernatural powers such as extra-ordinary
strength and mystical powers ranging from psychic skills close to magic and
even powers as strange as the ability to listen to people’s thoughts, a
non-consensual invasion of privacy I’d say, how rude.
Perhaps only God can and is permitted to do that as our thoughts could almost drive us crazy right? But another movie takes listening to the next level, ‘Heroes’ as it is called, here the story tries to convince us all that there may be a tiny possibility that humans will eventually be able to fly, possess super strength like the incredible hulk, heal up with great speed and among other fantastic special abilities, listen to the thoughts of people and also predict the future. But it’s all fiction right?
“Listen with your heart, you will understand”…Pocahontas
Heart
Ever heard the saying ‘live fast, die young’? Well it’s kind of a code, a watchword which some people usually use to put a check on themselves so that they don’t stray off a chosen path. A school of thought says it’s a guiding light which helps people stay level headed even when in the midst of easy looking and overbearing luxury and opportunities, makes sense to me.
Visualizing it’s upside,
perhaps it makes even more sense when one realizes that considering the saying
that even nature isn’t in a hurry, it is however imperative for us to take time
out to enjoy and appreciate the peace and serenity of life, unleashing the
powers of heart, allowing to see, feel and love more.
“Most people do not listen with the intent to
understand, they listen with the intent to reply”…Stephen R. Covey
According to Stephen R. Covey (OBM) the best-seller author of the 7 habits of highly effective people, in the same book described one of the habits as seeking first to understand before being understood. Here he emphasized the importance of emphatic listening, an emotional exercise which genuinely seeks to take burden away from the person being listened to. The book helps us to understand the powerful effect of listening which in its subtle way is an emotional intelligence.
“The world is giving you answers each day, learn to
listen”…Woody Allen
The Moment
I believe life is
extremely awesome, if you took out time to feel it by closing your eyes, taking
a deep breath and listening, you’d perhaps magically taste the beauty which
constantly abounds around us.
This is well represented
in good music and other entertainment such as art which usually requires more
than talent, but being in harmony with the elements of life. Speaking about
good music, try listening to Jazz, and feel your soul invigorate. I personally
recommend Terry G’s ‘The Moment’.
Ironically, each and every
day we all instinctively get better at whatever we do, making mistakes and
learning from them and slowly etching towards a perfect world. All these
reflect through our discoveries and inventions which are actually necessities
for our survival perhaps through adaptation.
As I mentioned earlier,
and well I reiterate that I am a great fan of smash hit movies, and you
probably are too, who doesn’t love to watch action that gets you at the edge of
your seat, and thought-provoking drama about other people’s business and
personal lives without you being in it.
Anyway, Hollywood got you
covered when it comes to great content, picture, sound and special effects, I’d
kind of say the same for Indian movies you know, you should agree that their
emotional story lines and choreography blows the mind.
The main point here is
that, they try to capture the moment which strikes a code in your soul, mind
and brain at the same time, reminds me of the term ‘tripling’. Well, some would
call it a punch-line, you know when the unexpected twist to the story suddenly surfaces,
causing your countenance to sharply contrast, your heart skipping a beat, your
head swelling from goose pimples, but of course you know that feeling of awe.
You definitely have to listen to catch the moment.
“The word listen contains the same letters as the word
silent”…Alfred Brendel
It’s so noisy
Have you ever heard of the
story about the frog race? Well, I don’t actually remember reading it anywhere, but I vaguely remember attending to it during my years of blind inquisitiveness that made me perhaps open and even vulnerable to every available folklore.
Anyway, it goes like this,
some frogs had to run a race, and when it began, the noisy crowds shouted at
them. Some parts of the audience chanted abuses and pelted them, and each frog
began to drop out of the race one after the other, surprisingly though, one
relentless frog gracefully completed the race. When interviewed on how he
succeeded, he didn’t reply, only his father came to his rescue and answered
that his poor son was deaf. Moral of the story is for us to be deaf to
destructive criticism.
It’s a new world they say,
and unfortunately our development, evolution and exposures come with a penalty
or several huge prices.
We live in a world where human lives are now calculated in numbers, statistics and pizza –like pie charts and chocolate bars-like graphic representation. The bottom line of fortune five hundred companies has more priority than the possible health hazards caused by constant environmental degradation. Yes we claim to be free, yet we are prisoners in our own minds as governments and the international community continue to do things due to selfish reasons and ulterior motives, classifying all information like the confraternity, secretly wiring propagandas and conspiracies that have spill-over effects by implication diminishing the tendencies of our dear existence.
We virtually live false lives, feigning religion to confuse and distort thing thinking of the innocent, create policies that favour the rich and influential, force a market on large populace to make profit from negatively prevailing circumstances such as creating war in order to provide weapons, which alters the existence of the living, and by implication unconsciously birth terrorism and cause even more senseless and avoidable massacres.
Unfortunately, it’ll only
get worse because most of us are trapped in the rat race, we live in a system
where we are literally placed in containment, monitored to act in certain ways,
requiring super strength to break out of the box.
A school of thought says
that a group of people have got the world figured out, and so keep it under check,
passing the power down certain lines. Perhaps you’ll get a clearer picture if
you saw the movie ‘The Adjustment Bureau’, there really is a lot of noise
distracting us from concentrating on things that actually matter.
Listen
The word listen reminds me
of Beyonce’s song which is usually appreciated when powerfully rendered. It
emphasizes the need to listen to yourself, within you, it bonds you with
yourself, helps you to understand, love and appreciate yourself more, giving
you the capacity to love and appreciate others and even the beauty of life and
the world.
Listening requires a lot
of patience, true love, effort and skill. I was particularly amazed when I read
from Stephen Covey’s best seller, 7 habits of highly effective people, that you
could actually listen even with your eyes, concentration all your energy and
emotion to someone in distress could actually take the pain away. Listening is
so powerful that it does stuff that even money can’t do, which is why you’d
rather spend time with your poor loved ones that hear you out and understand
you than be with snobbish but rich friends, except you’re willing to pay the
price of feigned happiness clustered with silent loneliness.
It is definitely high time
we snapped back to reality and feel the sunshine, there is still no free meal
today, things always come with price tags, freedom is not free, we are all selfish
finding our paths to self-fulfillment but not minding our neighbour’s welfare.
ItThe so called xenophobic
violence presently going on in South Africa is most disappointing to say the
least. This is a country for which the entire world united to help fight
apartheid and idolize her hero Nelson Mandela. Although a school of thought
portends that it’s an offshoot of psychological inference of the apparent war
and oppression which plagued them for decades, suppressing their confidence,
self esteem and will power, making it difficult for them to believe that they
can’t amount to anything worthwhile. By implication other countries recognized
and exploited the void in their system, although improving their economy, they
also chose to make South Africa their home, threatening the existence of their
unprepared lives.
So what’s your plan, are
you going to continue adapting to the present scenario of the world which
requires creativity about how to make a change in the world we presently live
in, or are you even listening?
Thank you.
Sources:
Google
Brainyquotes
Goodreads
Wikipedia
Apisanet
Quotesays
Pocahontas
Time
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