12th
November, 2016.
I should
be completing my assignment. No seriously, I should put my entire focus on the
gibberish I am going to write which will, at the end, prove nothing, yet will
calculate my mental acuity. But there was much more important a work that
needed my attention. Or I needed the attention, I can’t be sure, it’s vague but
I’ll take it and run.
I say
work don’t I? Work – sounds so important and obnoxious and heavy, obtuse even. Because
maybe it was nothing on my part, maybe I just needed to use the word work to
feel magnanimous? Or just because I feel that way, that this needed my
attention?
The work,
as I put it, was me listening. Listening to people, person, anybody is a habit I
took up. So I was listening.
If you don’t
know it, it the world of magic, there’s a thing called taking perspective – the
magician uses this technique to ‘take’ the perspective of the audience and
shows the trick. Sounds neat and easy? It’s not. Believe me, taking this
perspective to see the world from the eyes of the person you’re not is just
tough as hell. And it will be a false statement to make that I can do that. I can’t.
That’d be ridiculous.
But the
point here is to understand what the other person is seeing and connect. Or just
understand.
Understand and share the space.
So I understood.
Especially when I know what exactly is going on when I can see through the
illusion of words and reach the core where the pain resides I understand. Or at
least I try to, most of the time it’s not easy.
You know,
it is very easy to hear, hearing is involuntary- you hear the faucet leaking,
the fan wheezing the clock ticking, the phone ringing and so forth. But listening
needs investment. It doesn’t matter if you understand the person, if you are
listening, you are invested because you need to make them feel understood. That’s
how relationship works. Any relationship for that matter.
So when
the text said that someone wanted to talk, I had the choices again - to do or not
to do. To invest or just leave. And mind you the word invest is by no means a
small word, no! It is a commitment because at times it is not enough to care
only. I know that I care about a lot or rather a very few people, but at times
it wasn’t enough, it isn’t!
So while
I was at it, I cannot just jump to a response, that’s chatter over the white
noise of a broken radio, how poetic. Listening to my friend needed my time to
process the emotion behind it because ultimately it is not my conversation. I was
all ears.
And at
times it is what you need to be, the ear for a quivering lip, a shoulder for
shaken heart, a warm hand for sweaty palm. Because that’s your commitment, or
mine at least. Because I care, I always will.
And I give
out hope.
I give
out hope as free bills, because I know what’s it like to be without one, to
look empty on a crowded street and hope, that I’d see you.
Because that’s
what listening means, to give hope that they are understood, that they are seen
and not lost in the veneer or random verbose that shouts for nothing, it
imitates a silent whisper that you need to listen. So just listen when someone
asks. Give them hope that they are seen, loved, that they’ll live and go on.
Because someone
gave me hope when I needed it. And I went ahead.
Because I
care, a few times I get angry at my incompetence of not doing more than that
but I try.
So I will
always care, even if the world forgets you. Because that’s a promise.
Fin!
