The hidden side of active listening.

There’s a word I saw again recently which has always fascinated me:

Clairaudience.

Not necessarily because I believe in it. But most people are familiar with clairvoyance, the seeing of the unseen, having unusual images, symbols, and experiences. Clairaudience is discussed much less frequently and describes hearing of the unheard. The reason is probably that most of us are more visually oriented than auditory.

This story is not a discussion about whether these phenomena exist, which I leave up to you to decide for yourself (Full disclosure: I’ve never heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, which doesn’t mean it was any less extraordinary, but that’s another topic)

The reason why I bring up clairaudience, though, is the following: we hardly pay attention to what we hear anyway, so why would we want to hear even more?

With that being said, listening to what is already present to anyone who can hear, is, like looking closely, a great skill to practice. Not only because it gives you a more unique point of view, which makes you more creative, attentive, and less influenced by what others want you to notice. It’s also a pleasure in itself.

I once had an assignment for a philosophy class, for which we had to take a pen and paper and just sit for 30 minutes. Sitting, listening, and noting everything we heard. And compared with many other assignments I had to do throughout my life, this was one of the most fascinating ones. Because even though I’m quite attentive to the sounds around me, there were still so many others I had never noticed or paid attention to. And this gave me a new familiarity with my home.

In his course “The Art of Noticing” Rob Walker describes the concept of soundscapes. Those are city maps with sound highlights. The point is to take a (sound-)walk around your neighborhood while you pay close attention to the sounds you notice. And then to mark down the most characteristic sounds of each block and street and create a written record of the most typical and characteristic sounds of your neighborhood. You can also notice the passing of sounds, their function, and why you hear them.

Active listening is always praised highly. And I can only attest to its importance. But it’s often limited to human interactions. Which is a pity, because there is a whole world to gain when you listen to the city or nature that surrounds you. Not only that, but it will immediately make you more present. Because, unlike sights, sounds have the more obvious quality of appearing and leaving again. They only exist as changing phenomena. They come from a background of silence and often soon leave into that background again. As such, listening is a wonderful ground for mindfulness.

Give it a try and let me know what you find.