Are You Listening....?

In a philosophical discussion about people not truly listening, my friend

JULIE WROTE:

...it often occurs to me that we rarely listen (I mean truly listen) to
what others have to say

And another friend, RESPONDED:

True. There is a flip-side, though, that being that oftentimes, what
other people have to say isn't really very interesting, or it doesn't
give back something to the encounter. I had a friend in college who
had a particular aversion to the elderly (I never was sure why).
Someone was talking one day about venerating the elderly, because they
have a great deal of wisdom. His response? "Yeah, but you have to
wade through a bunch of crap to *get* to that wisdom."

Takes all kinds to make a world....

--
Sir Tomas

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I have to say that old people do have a bunch of wisdom. This year, recently, my husband's ex-mother-in-law passed away. She was dear to us and closely linked to my Cuban ancestors. I guess some people would call her stories "a bunch of crap" one has to wade through to get to the wisdom, but it is in the stories that the wisdom lies and if you truly listen you will come away with enlightenment.

Old people tend to repeat the same stories over and over again, and this old lady friend, used to tell the same stories over and over again, but I didn't think they were a bunch of crap. For one, being that she was from my mom's same town in Cuba, she knew everyone in on my mom's side of the family tree. She even gave me an old picture of my great aunt (one of my grandfather's sister). This lady and my great aunt were in the same high school class of 19--. I heard the same stories over and over again, but each time they had a different twist. So you got some new insight. Each time, I took away some little wisdom from her life that pieced together pieces of my past.

My favorite quote of her is
"Cada persona es un mundo" --Emma de la Cruz de Serrano

In sum, if people only would listen, truly listen, they would discover pebbles of insight. But it is true, many people rarely truly listen and I don't discount myself from the many. I am at fault, too.