If you're really quiet, you can hear the sound of me listening

Recently my walks to the yearbook room, located in the basement of Pauahi Hall, have been quite eventful.

The highlight of last week happened on Thursday morning. I was in desperate need of a decomposer for my environmental group’s biocolumn project, and I stumbled upon an earthworm on the sidewalk near the plants. It was raining quite hard that day, and I looked quite silly, squatting on the cement, trying to stop the earthworm from getting away. I was wet, had college applications under my jacket, and had homework to do, but I was determined to find a way to capture the worm. Eventually, someone I knew walked by, starring, probably amused, and donated half a zip lock bag to my cause, which was just enough to hold the worm till I got it into a cup. I named him Benny.

Today’s walk consisted of a topic that came to me out of no where. I was just walking along, minding my own business, when the words “hearing” and “listening” popped to my head. Actually, “pop” isn’t a good word to describe how it came to me. I think it more like struck me. And then I asked myself if those two words were really the same thing. I didn’t have time to ponder the question, so I scribbled the words “hear vs listen” hastily on my arm and turned my attention to the first of eight night’s worth of homework.

But because I have to post today, I figure this would be the opportune moment to ponder and work through this idea which struck me so suddenly.

The definitions of “hear” and “listen” according to the Oxford English Dictionary follows:

To hear- To perceive, or have the sensation of, sound; to possess or exercise the faculty of audition, of which the specific organ is the ear. The proper verb to express this faculty or function.

To listen- To hear attentively; to give ear to; to pay attention to (a person speaking or what is said).

To expand those definitions, hearing is a subconscious action, as opposed to listening, which is a conscious effort to comprehend what you are hearing. For example, today when I went to Calculus class, I could hear the murmuring of others talking, but only listened to my friends, Gene and Ian, talk.

Why is this important?

It’s not.

But,

For those that don’t ponder the difference between hearing and listening you could probably use their ignorance against them. If you don’t want to pay attention to what they’re saying, just nod your head and smile, and once in a while offer a supportive “I hear you.” That way, everyone is happy- You don’t have to pay attention, you’re not lying, and your friend can vent all they want with the impression that you’re listening. And if you get caught later, you can always give the excuse “I said I HEARD you. That doesn’t mean I was LISTENING.”

Don’t do this too often as it may jeopardize you friendship. I wouldn’t recommend using it on parents because most of them are all-knowing.

I also find that hearing and listening parallel with reading and comprehending. In sophomore year, I took SAT prep, in which I discovered that reading and comprehending are in fact not the same thing. When taking the reading section of the test, I had to reread the passages twice, because my eyes were reading the words, but my brain didn’t comprehend any of it. The words were running through my head, but none of them were being transferred into information I understood. Try reading an extremely boring passage on bats and you might be able to understand what I’m saying. Maybe you're doing it right now to my writing. EARTHQUAKE GIANT MARSHMELLOW RUNAWAY CAR. That should get your attention. But do you see what I'm saying? Let me rephrase that. Do you comprehend what I'm saying? Do you really? Or maybe it’s just me.