Anagrams

As part of my morning routine, I do a lot of puzzles to help ward off Alzheimer’s, to keep the synapses firing and to continue building more dendrites in my brain. Plus, it helps me wake up and face the day.

I like a variety of them; various word puzzles, Sudoku, Blockdoku (a Sudoku/Tetris mashup), Solitaire-which is technically a game, not a puzzle, but depending on the specific game I do have to strategize. 

I have always enjoyed playing with words, maybe it’s the writer and linguist in me. When I taught sixth grade, I tried to bring in word structure whenever I could by teaching my students that the meanings of various prefixes, roots, suffixes and endings could help them decode and comprehend unfamiliar words. I tried to share my enthusiasm with wordplay but by sixth grade some students are just a bit jaded. I can only hope I planted some little seeds in their fertile little minds.

One particular wordplay I enjoy is anagrams. That’s where the letters of one word can be rearranged to form a different word.

For example, act is an anagram for cat.

One of my favorite anagrams involves the word listen. Its letters can also form the word silent. Go ahead, check. I’ll wait.

Got it?

Good.

I love this point so much, I had a poster of it in my classroom for many years.

As I’ve blogged recently, I grew up in a home where I didn’t feel heard and therefore, valued. My opinions didn’t matter. Therefore, I didn’t matter.

This brings me to the question. What is the difference between hear and listen?

We often use them interchangeably, but they are not. Simply put, one is passive and the other is active.

We often say we listen to music when in truth we are hearing it. But, maybe this is an odd example.

A strange sound occurs and we ask “Did you hear that?” It just happened. Hearing is passive.

Then we pay more attention to try and identify it. We now have an intent. Listening is active. (If we were truly listening to music, we’d be trying to identify the instruments, the lyrics, and maybe some various musical themes. Was that an oboe or a bassoon? Or perhaps we are indeed listening because it’s something familiar we want playing in the background while doing something else, like driving, vacuuming or washing the dishes.)

Right now I can hear the hum of the humidifier in the background. I know the sound because, well, I bought the humidifier a year or so ago. I am not focused on it. It’s there, just running.

I’ve noticed we often hear people without understanding what they are saying. We think we are listening, but I’m not sure we truly are. Often, in a conversation, we catch something that triggers us and we feel the need to interrupt and possibly press our point. Politics and religion are such big triggers for us because we have placed our faith and trust in these institutions or individuals and we rely on them to take care of us, governmentally or spiritually. We feel we are right and others with different beliefs are wrong simply because of our own faith, trust and belief system and therefore we don’t want to believe we have misplaced our trust. Or, those institutions have let us down and we no longer have faith in them and question why anyone would. We need others to see our ways for our own validation. Our ego has spoken and loudly.

I do understand that if we are truly listening to someone they may say something of interest which sparks a question in our mind. So, we become curious and want to ask in order to continue the dialogue to try to understand where the individual is coming from or even learn something new. But, if the original speaker is already defensive and misinterprets the tone of voice then voices can get raised, emotions get aroused and an argument can ensue.

The other thing that can happen when voices get raised is the original speaker just shuts down. No one actually ends up saying anything. No one gets to express their point. Feelings get hurt.

I also see this on social media. People misread or partially read a text or comment, go on the offensive and then get defensive when their point isn’t taken seriously. Often, these conversations devolve into name-calling.

I often find myself struggling with this. I know my journey is my own, as is everyone else's, and mine has taken quite a different turn away from what society considers the "norm."  On this path, I’ve had experiences I can’t explain without using the words “intuitive”, “psychic”, “other worldly” or even “statistically or logically inexplicable” and I can get defensive when others question the validity of my experiences and therefore, don’t validate me. I realize I need to validate myself or seek those who can understand at least part of my journey. I’m also learning sometimes it's best just to keep my mouth shut.

All this reminds me of a line from the song The Sound of Silence, “People hearing without listening” which in turn suggests people are talking without speaking, which is also a line from the song.

We have become so disconnected from each other and ultimately ourselves I often wonder if we can even reconnect.

Perhaps if we were silent more often when we listened and then spoke with more compassion, we could reconnect with others.

And ultimately, with ourselves.

Note: The video below is a cover of the Simon and Garfunkel song, "The Sound of Silence" by the band, Disturbed. I find this cover to be a very powerful rendition of the song. I hope you enjoy. -JB