Blog 1

Quote: "I do not merely hear with my ears, I hear with my whole body. My ears are at best the focal organs of hearing" -Don Ihde

To start I first want to explain the difference between hearing and listening for you to because there is a huge difference between the two. Hearing is exactly what it states, when you physically hear a noise. Now if you hear something, that does not always mean you are listening. For example, you are sitting in class and your teacher is talking, you are hearing him or her talk but, you might not always be listening. You physically hear them, but you could not be listening to what they are actually saying and absorbing the information they are giving to you. To be listening you need to be engaged in the conversation, provide feedback, and give non-verbal signals to show the person talking you actually hear and understand what they are saying.

This quote stood out to me while I was reading for many reasons. The main reason was, I instantly thought of my big Italian family and how we communicate. As many of you may know, us Italians are very loud and use at least seven hand gestures per sentence. This make listening difficult without many hand gestures.

As I stated, we are very loud and use a lot of hand gestures. To be able to actually listen to a relative talk and not just hear words ramble out of their mouth, you need to actively hear them and watch hand gestures, because the noise is trying its best to not let you have a conversation. The hand gestures is the only way you can actually listen. Without them you're just lost in the noise and look like the asshole relative that never talks to anyone, not because you can't hear them, because you can't listen to them due to the noise.

The reason I connected these two things was because listening is not just with your ears, it is 100% with your full body, with the ears being the heartbeat of listening. Hand gestures and movement provide the listening to engage more in the conversation by using their eyes to listen as well. They use head movements and nods to provide feedback to show that they are actually listening and engaged. This is exactly how my Italian family has been since I could remember. And now that I have read this quote it has pointed out to me on why my communication with those relatives is so strong, and why we have the best times of our lives with each other and hate to leave their side. It has proven to me that if you do listen with your full body and not just hear with your ears, communication will be stronger and overall better.

Listen instead of hear and watch your relationships grow all while you are learning a lot more throughout the process. As the Indian Philosopher said, "So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words but also the feeling of what is being conveyed to the whole of it, not part of it."

Trevor Wise