We know it is not really polite or considerate, so sometimes we apologise as we do it. Interruption of thinking is so destructive, in fact, that what we have produced as a species, however advanced it may be in the animal kingdom, is probably inferior to the achievements the uninterrupted human mind might have produced over those eons.
That means that our decisions are weaker our relationships are thinner. In the face of it, our own thinking barely has a chance to form. We move through our days and years interrupting others and failing to foil it when others interrupt us.Īnd that matters. Certainly, observably, it does not require us to promise not to.Īnd so we interrupt. It is listening that expects us to interrupt. But the instruction is effectively in how to insert, how to tailgate, how to justify the populating of silence with our own view. And those of us who are paid to listen – coaches, therapists, doctors, managers, leaders, teachers, pastors, advisers – have paid for endless instruction in how to listen. Eleven seconds! I shudder when I hear that. In fact, according to the Gottman Institute in Seattle, three years ago the average listening time of even professional listeners was 20 seconds. The one thing we can absolutely depend on in life is that we will be interrupted when we start to think. Where in your circles can you point to a single person who you are certain will not interrupt you when you speak? Who in your circles has ever made this promise to you? And kept it? And have you ever made that promise to anyone? ‘In the face of interruption, our own thinking barely has a chance to form’ Illustration: Phil Hackett/The Observer To stay fully Homo sapiens our minds and hearts need this promise.Īnd yet it is nowhere. Our brains needed it to keep forming when we were infants, almost marsupially.
In fact, says the science, we were born expecting it. Every day, in every interaction, vital or trivial, we hope for the kind of presence that lets our brains and hearts find themselves. We long for that gentle, rigorous expanse that produces felt thinking and thoughtful feeling.
We all long for this, the promise of no interruption, the promise of interest, the promise of attention while we think, the promise of this much respect for us all as human beings. And because you in turn promise not to interrupt me, I open mine. And because you know I will not interrupt you, you will want, when you finish, to know what I think, too, even if we disagree deeply.
0 kommentar(er)
