“So you need to learn to become,
unintrusive, unimportant, patient to the point of tears, while at the same time
open to learning any possible lessons.” In Russo’s piece on silence she offers
this quote from María Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman. To me this quote talks to
the culture that we live in where it is believed that the best way to
demonstrate knowledge and power is to tell everyone what it is we have to say.
But when everyone is trying to share what THEY know and think all we get is a
bunch of people trying to talk over one another. To me listening and patience
offer two rewards when communicating. The first is a chance for us to learn. A
Buddhist quote was said in a different class of mine and in this class that,
“if your mouth is open you are not learning.” Everyone in the world knows
something that you don’t or has a different perception of the world than you
do. If we are constantly talking we are closing off ourselves from all the
opportunities for new knowledge that is right at our finger tips if we would
just shut up, step out of the spotlight, and listen. The second thing that I
believe patience and listening offers us is the true power in any conversation.
The listener has the ultimate power in a conversation. If the listener chooses
not to receive and ignore, or not act accordingly to the message being sent to
them then the goals of the sender will not be accomplished. Second choosing to
listen demonstrates to who ever we are communicating that we are confident in
what we believe to the point that we are willing to have those beliefs
challenged. If you are debating with someone and you never give them the chance
to share their thoughts and beliefs then you are giving off the impression that
you are not confident in what you have to say so you do not give the other
person the chance to challenge your point of view. True power lies with the
listener. They are able to gain the most knowledge from any given conversation.
So in a culture where everyone is looking to share what they have to say it is beneficial
to you to learn to become, unintrusive, unimportant, patient to the point of
tears, while at the same time open to learning any possible lessons.
