Are We Listening to Our Elders, or Just Hearing Them?

TRUE RESPECT BEGINS NOT WHEN WE HEAR OUR ELDERS SPEAK, BUT WHEN WE TRULY LISTEN WITH HEART, WITH HUMILITY, AND WITH THE INTENT TO UNDERSTAND

- MUKHTAR AHMAD QURESHI

I tend to sit wordlessly beside my mother, now in her seventies, as she knits in quiet contemplation. Occasionally I share murmurously society. I’ll wander her eyes about her childhood, her pleasures, her tragedies, her fantasies. And most frequently of all, I nod, half inattention, half distraction. It struck me one day I Am I listening to her, yes, but am I truly hearing?

In a race speed world where speed is extolled and wisdom is outranked by technology, our parents and grandparents are slowly disappearing like the soft-hued music in a defining lull, as we catch their whispers during dinner time, during festival season, during snatched up moments but do we ever really pause to hear?

Listening and Hearing:

There is a whole lot of difference between hearing a person and listening to him. Hearing is passive. It’s simply sound going into your ears. Listening, though that’s a decision. It’s presence. It’s eye contact. It’s slaking in, feeling, and responding with the heart.

Our seniors don’t talk just to fill up silence. Often their words pack decades of experience, suffering, joy, curiosity and culture. But too many times we are with them stop short, change the subject, or glance at our phone in the middle of a conversation, we lose a moment that might never return.