Seeking Connections
…I’m siting here dumbfounded. I’m feeling annoyed, sad, frustrated. Have I really spent the majority of my life attempting to create a world around me where I can feel “powerful” at the expense of others? Since GetReal, I have developed a relentless awareness of my own complicity in the life I experience. Attempting to meditate everyday, to focus on the sensations of own inner life, bodily sensations, emotions, an observation on the chatter in my mind and an expansion of my sensorial awareness outward, has no doubt helped with this burgeoning sense of complicity. One persistent feeling that has emerged again and again is loneliness. I simply feel like I’m not creating or building deep connections in the relationships in my life. So this week, I’ve been having conversations with people with a very clear purpose in mind: listening.
With big help from AI, I took up the task of becoming more aware of how I am relating to people in conversation. I am not through with this journey, after all it is probably a lifetime project to become and continue to be a great listener. But, here are some preliminary insights:
Monday.
Today I wanted to just allow what came naturally. Every conversation I had today, I simply observed how I listen to people. And, no surprise to myself, I tend to be competitive in my listening. That is, when I listen to others speak I am actively listening for my opportunity to speak, my opportunity to add to the conversation. At root, it’s as if I’m not so much talking with others but talking at them. Furthermore, because I get a large sense of power from teaching, the very reason that I claim teaching as my “vocation,” I notice that when I talk at others it’s usually to demonstrate some kind of superiority through the sharing of what I know, or believe to know. The vast majority of my natural inclinations in conversations are to teach others something I feel they do not know. As a result, I’m not really listening to them, so much as waiting for my opportunity to talk about what I know.
When I realized this, I felt an immediate sadness and remorse. I thought of all the many people, women I found attractive in particular and my relationship with them, that I never really listened to. I felt remorse at what might have been, who I might have known. Once again, I had come to a point that I reached while going through GetReal: the realization that I had caused pain to others because I blamed them for my own inability to connect. I even remember one particular girl in my past who simply once said: “shhhhh….just listen.” (Who am I kidding? This was expressed by more than one girl.)
It is no wonder that I struggle with feelings of loneliness. I am not connecting with people, if all I’m doing is waiting for a chance to demonstrate my own insights, or contributions to the conversation. Interestingly, this also helps shed light on the “I ran out of things to say” phenomena, for if I’m waiting to offer only what I know and if the conversation does not go into topics I’m familiar with, then I will feel like I have “nothing to contribute.” Through this activity, I have realized the limitations of my natural competitive listening for creating a sense of connection with the people in my life.
Tuesday.
Today I wanted to try to listen, that is, to actually listen-to others. Every conversation I had today, I simply wanted to listen for commonalities. To connect at the level of commonalities, shared interests, doings, events, or actions. Recently, I had a brief interaction with girl. She shared about concerts she had attended, how she cooked brownies from scratch, and her struggles at work. I shared about the concerts I had attended. I shared my own stories about my cooking (in fact, because she was in my home at the time, I even allowed her to sample my cooking). And, I shared how I handled similar struggles at work. (One again, if you notice, that last one reveals a bit more competitiveness, as I shared how I handled a similar situation as if to assert superiority…ugh, I can’t get away from this competitive listening).
It felt good to really attend to the words of others, to listen to them, to connect at the level of commonalities. And, certainly it helps me feel less alone, it does not quite “scratch” that lonely itch. If all I’m doing is connecting at this level of commonalities, there is a general lack of vulnerability on either side. The conversation remains surface level, yet hinting at something deeper. It is a kind of foreplay, but one that never allows itself to progress. This was difficult to do, this listening-to. I found myself listening so closely for commonalities that I would actually miss them and have to comeback to them in the course of the conversation. Through this activity, I have realized the limitations of the surface level conversations for cultivating a deeper sense of connection that I crave.
Wednesday.
Today I wanted to listen through, that is, to listen for deeper levels of feelings and emotions accompanying the words of others. The idea is that connection with others amounts not to contributing more topics to a conversation, nor simply connecting at the level of similar experiences, but to be able to share similar experiences of various emotions. Listening through means asking others to share not just what they may have done, said, or been, but to share how they felt whilst doing, saying, or having those experiences. This makes a lot of sense. I cannot connect when I’m competitively listening, especially when I have nothing to contribute. I cannot connect deeply when I only listening to others because the conversation remains without vulnerability, lost mostly in sharing of surface level commonalities of events, actions, beliefs, or things done. But, at each of those levels, there is also an accompanying feeling. And, feelings are something we all share.
Today I met a student. As I greeted him, he reciprocated with: “how was your weekend?” There was a shakiness to his response, the kind that hints that he was seeking more than a simple “greeting-greeting” routine. I put down the book I was reading and told him: “I’m hanging in, you know?” (listening-through). He asks me how many years I have left in my program. I tell him “two.” He asks what my plans are after I graduate. I mention that one of the things I want to do, is perhaps move to Spain. Then it happened. He tells me how his life is a struggle. He shares that he is feeling alienated from his friends because he has developed some unpopular opinions and feelings about America and that leaving the country is something he has thought of (listening-to). He tells me how he has been reading and observing the mass media of the states and has felt a strong sense of dissatisfaction and powerlessness. He called it, “sketchy.” He felt as though his whole world was turned upside down, no longer could he simple live in the world “blindly.” He shared how his friends do not see what he sees and furthermore think that he is something of a conspiracy theorist. He shares how he dislikes being labeled that. I asked him about a singular moment that stood out in his mind, a moment when he “woke up,” and how that felt (listening-through). He described it as exciting but also mind blowing. His voice also gave away this frustration and nervousness, knowing that he may have to find new friends (listen-through). I asked him “what is that like?” (listening-through). And, in that moment, I felt compelled to share my own feelings of dissatisfaction and powerlessness that come when you have come to see yourself and the world differently than many of your friends (or hell, most people). We connected on more than a superficial level. We connected at the level of a common experience, an emotion, of frustration. I did not dominate the conversation, and the conversation was not superficial.
Listening-through is certainly on the way towards developing connections that I desire. Or, to be more precise, listening-through is a communicative competence I would like to cultivate more because of how it allows myself to out of my own head and simply listen to others on their terms. This is a long time coming.
What I have learned already a week in to this journey of listening is that I have a natural inclination to literally gain a sense of power through competitive listening. I have a lifetime of making others subordinate to my own thoughts and expressions in conversation. It is no wonder that “connecting” has been the most difficult to achieve since GetReal. But this is changing…
There are more days left in the week. And I have yet to go deeper into listening, and, well, the deeper listening with women is still on the horizon. But, I thought I’d give this brief update on my seeking of connection…stay tuned.