Are you listening?

Are you listening carefully?  Are  you concentrating . . . hanging on my every word . . . giving your mind wholly to what I'm saying?

If you are, I can guarantee that you'll be rewarded.  My output, my very thoughts, will be refined and enriched by your attention . . . we'll both benefit.

No, I'm not joking.  I mean that quite seriously.  As any actor will tell you, his or her performance is heightened in direct relation to the involvement of the audience.

Listening isn't a passive activity, listening is an art.  Listening demands a great deal of the listener.  It asks for an open, receptive mind, a steady level of concentration and, above all else, a willing involvement with what the speaker is saying.

A listener is a vital component in what is, in effect, a double-act with the speaker.  What's more, when the listeners are multiplied to form a group or audience, the power of their participation is magnified accordingly.

But we mustn't overlook the skilful tricks of a bad listener, tricks to which I frequently plead guilty.  One of these is to appear interested when, in reality, you are barely hearing what the person is saying.  You are convinced that there's no need to listen, that you know exactly what's being said . . . and you don't agree with it anyway.  What you are waiting for, waiting with a barely concealed impatience, is that moment when a downward inflection indicates that the speaker is going to pause and provide you with the opportunity to interrupt.  You are ready and poised, your arguments are lined up.
"I know exactly what you mean," you burst out untruthfully, "but . . . ".

There is, of course, that other form of bad listener who doesn't even pretend to be listening.
Have you ever tried to make a point to someone whose mind was wandering, and whose attention rarely if ever centred on what you were saying?  If so, you know exactly what I mean . . . it's like trying to shine a light through a thick fog, or struggling to make progress through a sea of treacle.  Your words are bouncing back to you, unaccepted and ignored.  Your voice eventually dies away and you abandon the effort.

What a difference, though, when you are talking to someone who is interested and receptive.  You can feel your thoughts refine in response to the attention.  The precise words come just when you need them, you develop a eloquence you didn't know you possessed.  It's as though the listener is actually feeding you with the material you need and the output is a join effort.

It struck me once that all good verbal communication takes on the nature of a triangle.  You have the speaker and the listener, but, in addition, there's the all-important third point which is formed by the inter-connection.  Not only is this third point one of inter-connection, it can also be fertile.  The listener doesn't need to give voice to a response for the speaker to gain inspiration from the power of that vital link.


Could this, I wonder, be just what our over-heated, noisy world needs?  Not more articulate, committed speakers, but a profusion of equally committed and willing listeners?
Listeners who will enable speakers to hear what it is that they are really saying, listeners who will be the conciliators, the peace-makers, the unifiers.

And the lovely thing about being a good listener is that it's a role we can all play.
How about it . . . ?  Or do we all know exactly what I mean, but . . . ?

Work in progress

Until comparatively recently it must be admitted that I knew very little about football.  Even now, although my knowledge has expanded considerably, there are still deep pools of total ignorance.  But, coming to football later in life has meant that, like a stranger in a strange land, you ask basic questions.

I was taken aback by the fierce loyalties of football team supporters, and by the degree of commitment a supporter gives to his team.  However, I was also puzzled by a more basic question . . . what is it that constitutes a team?

Professional football players are commercial commodities, they frequently find themselves playing against the same team that they represented only the season before.  So, if that's the case, it can't be the players who constitute the team.
In much the same way, the manager of the team is on a slippery slope if his team loses too often.  With a few well-known exceptions, managers come and managers go.
Could it be said that the owners are their team?  I don't think so.  For all their power to hire and fire managers they, too, are no more than a transitory part of the long-term structure.

Then, what is the answer?  What is a football team?

Thinking about this, I was reminded of a story of a famous cricketer.  With great pride he would recount the story of his treasured bat.  It was, he said, an historic bat.  It had been his staunch ally during many Test Matches and yet was still in use.  True, he agreed, it had had four new handles, and, true, the blade had been replaced on several occasions, but there was no denying that his was an historic bat.

If the cricket bat didn't constitute its parts, and a football team doesn't constitute its owner, its manager, or its players . . . how can we make sense of such a conundrum?

It struck me that we human beings fall into this same problematic category.  We are not the food we eat, nor the air we breathe, and our cells are in a constant state of replenishment and renewal.  In physical terms, I am no more the child I once was than that cricket bat could be mistaken for its youthful counterpart.

So what is it . . . what is a football team . . . what is an historic cricket bat . . . what am I?

I don't know how you would answer this question, but I came to the conclusion that it all rests in the name . . .  the essence.

Surely it is the name of the football team that endows it with its unique character?  It doesn't imply anything fixed, but, whilst remaining constant itself, allows ample room for change, growth and improvement.

When a player joins a football club he takes on all that the name of the club implies, he absorbs its essence, he grows with it.
In much the same way, if I cut my finger the cells will rush to repair the damage, repairing it with cells for the finger, not cells for an ear-lobe by mistake.

We are all of us, whether a football team, a cricket bat, or you and I, no more and no less than a work in progress.
We are a work in progress contained within a name . . . and I'm sure that's a concept with which any fervent football fan would whole-heartedly agree!