39. Hard at Hearing

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. Musing Interruptus is a podcast for sharing thoughts and stories and enjoying idiomatic phrases. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode; click on continue reading to open a Google Doc with the complete transcription. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. The background music is called Two Pound by Blue Dot. I can’t hear you! La la la la la la! Sings the girl child as loud as possible to drown out her older sister’s voice. A few years down the road, she is blocking reality through her earphones, blaring her favorite song. This one is predisposed to avoid listening to anything that may cause dissatisfaction or discomfort. A lot in the world might deserve to be tuned out.  Disconnecting from the world has its appeal, without a doubt. Traveling without the interference of others' input could be just what the doctor ordered—until it isn’t, especially when it comes to blind spots. There is a time for inner dialogues and a time to let the outside in and connect.  In Spanish, a litany says, I can’t hear anything, I am made out of wood, and I have fish ears. I remember a child who repeated it enough times for me to remember it 25 years later. Although a typical turn of phrase in Spanish, I had never heard it. I liked watching that child march about repeating those words. My school had a student music group called estudiantina, in Spanish. That afternoon they had their first practice of the year. The band leader had a son. I assume he told his son not to talk to strangers; however, he let his young wooden child with fish ears loose around the high school grounds. I was just sitting on a bench reading and waiting for my friend to come out of band practice, silently witnessing the one-person demonstration. I recall my mother took my sister and I to rehearsals, too. So, I understood the meandering child looking for ways to entertain himself. I learned early on that a book is easy to travel with and as entertaining as any toy I had. I wonder if little Mr. Fish ears ever caught on to that. I wonder if he still shuts the world out.  There are harsh realities that I would prefer not to know about. Then again, knowing is always better on the off chance that something could be done to fix it. Receiving constructive or otherwise criticism can be a pain in the neck or a swift kick in the ego. However, not learning what needs to be corrected can bring about issues in your social circles and even with yourself. Learning how to listen, even when we are hard at hearing, is a task that requires humility. Learning to recognize there is something we need to listen to attentively in the face of our greatest resistance is a task I have taken on with caution. There are a great many voices that fill the airwaves with harmful, hurtful, and even unethical intentions. Yet another reason why it is vital to cultivate an active critical apparatus. Has this ever happened to you? You are writing an episode for Musing Interruptus and you are interrupted with the news that serves as a perfect example of what you are writing. As luck would have it, I was notified, in no uncertain terms,  that there is a fake friend in the water. Like a shark who smells blood and is finding the moment to attack. It is his nature to be a shark and I love him all the same. My intuition altered me to this, and I paid no attention. My family and close friends alerted me to this, and again, I couldn’t hear them with my giant fish ears.  I did no