Going Deaf

Chil­dren have selec­tive hear­ing. It is a gift from God. They hear only what they are devel­op­men­tally ready to hear. They become more open to the stim­u­la­tion bar­rage of sights and sounds (mostly elec­tronic), but retain the abil­ity to hear only what they want (and usu­ally need) to hear. They can look at you and appear deaf (maybe you are not say­ing any­thing worth hear­ing). The same is true with adults. Selec­tive hear­ing is a sur­vival art. You can hear your boss over the sounds of loud machin­ery — not because he is louder — but because you know his voice and want to keep your job. We pick through the sounds to hear what we need to hear.

Being “over-aware” will keep you worn out. You can be crushed in the infor­ma­tion avalanche of the cur­rent era. Sooner or later, as an adult, you will need to con­tact the kid inside to re-groom the art of selec­tive deaf­ness. I have been work­ing on that lately, and here is what I have found: music is supe­rior to polit­i­cal argu­ment; wind beats the sound of whin­ing; a child’s voice is supe­rior to the lat­est fran­tic “news” from some hys­ter­i­cal media reporter; birds chirp­ing have a lot to say to the soul; ocean sounds are like God’s heartbeat.

As a coun­selor, I was trained to lis­ten between the lines. What a per­son is not telling you is what he or she is try­ing most to tell you. You have to get a feel for it. They are dying to be heard (some­times lit­er­ally). Hear­ing how one feels is supe­rior to hear­ing what is being said.

I am going deaf. I do not hear what I used to hear. These days I hear the house creak late at night when the tem­per­a­ture drops or the wind changes direc­tions. I hear squir­rels run across the roof but not the boom-box sound sys­tems of the cars at the traf­fic light. On a summer’s day I can hear the sun shin­ing (even if it is only in my imag­i­na­tion). Lis­ten­ing is indeed an art. Pick­ing out what really needs to be heard can save your soul (tun­ing into what is worth your soul’s atten­tion will keep you sane). I am becom­ing deaf to cul­tural noises but pick­ing up on the most sub­tle sounds of nature.

Spir­i­tual music is the soul’s whis­per within the noise of a self-frightened era. Hear­ing your own thoughts may well be the best thing you hear all day today. The still small voice within will do you more good than any offi­cial announce­ment from some “offi­cial” or busybody.

Go deaf so you can hear!