If there was anything that stood out to me in this week’s lecture on sound, it would have to be the concept of ‘hearing vs listening’. Hearing is involuntary, we can’t decide what sounds we hear (with the exception of wearing earphones and listening to music), because even if you’re driving on an empty road to the beach with your music blasting in your car, you can still hear the sounds made by your car, other vehicles that pass you by, heck, even the sea if the waves crash hard enough against the rocks. But listening on the other hand, is more like a skill. You may hear sounds, but you may not actually know what they are unless you listen to them. How many times have you asked someone to repeat what they said because you weren’t listening? Yes, you may have heard them speaking, but you weren’t necessarily listening, hence you don’t know what they were saying.

This now brings me to a point I wanted to make. More often that not, people are not listening to understand, but rather listening to respond. How many arguments or ‘heated discussions’ have you had with others, from strangers to loved ones, and it’s literally just a live and literal version of Scream because that’s all you’re actually doing — screaming? When people are listening just to respond to others, they’re pretty much just hearing the person talk and picking parts they want to listen to. I think if we really tried and put some effort into actually listening to what people are saying and putting ourselves in their perspective, then we would have a better understanding of what they’re actually saying and the points they’re trying to make, and our responses may actually be more appropriate than participating in screaming matches. And maybe, just maybe, there would be less fights in this world.