Deep Listening

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

• Source:
  • Smile Indias; Sources/Interdisciplinary Approaches to Creation & Innovation - Class
  • Jenny Odell; How to Do Nothing (Book)
• Keywords: Cards/permanent notes
  • #mindfulness #attention
• Relevant Notes:
  • Cards/Doing nothing is self-care
  • Cards/You have agency over your own attention

“…‘To hear is the physical means that enables perception. To listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.’ ==The goal and the reward of Cards/Deep Listening was a heightened sense of receptivity and a reversal of our usual cultural training, which teaches us to quickly analyze and judge more than to simply observe.== When I learned about Deep Listening, I realized I had unwittingly been practicing it for a while—only in the context of bird-watching. In fact, I’ve always found it funny that it’s called bird-watching, because half if not more of ==bird-watching is actually bird-listening. (I personally think they should just rename it “bird-noticing.”)== However you refer to it, what this practice has in common with Deep Listening is that observing birds requires you quite literally to do nothing. Bird-watching is the opposite of looking something up online. You can’t really look for birds; you can’t make a bird come out and identify itself to you. The most you can do is walk quietly and wait until you hear something, and then stand motionless under a tree, using your animal senses to figure out where and what it is.”