Are you hearing me or listening to me??? What??

Listening describes an intentional activity. When you are listening, you are actively trying to hear something.
In contrast, hearing is something that happens without any intentional effort. You can hear something even when you don't want to hear it and don't try to hear it.
Hearing a function of the physical and listening a function of the mind.

Many a time, we hear but dont listen.  We hear sounds being emitted from someone's mouth and we think we know what they are saying, but we really listened to what the other person said, why was there a miscommunication?  Why did we misunderstand?
Or did we misunderstand? and we are reacting because we really listened and didnt like what we heard. The utterer of the words, just assumed that as usual no one really pays attention, and relieved himself of his feelings, hoping to cause an effect to the listener.
Have I managed to confuse you?

I didnt mean to cause confusion, just to get you to listen ;-)
Have you noticed that many a time, people response to each in non coherent ways - to find examples, check out social networks on the internet.  It may be to do with the fact that many different races, speakers are all trying to communicate to each other in one language medium; and some people dont have a good grasp of that language.  It can be quite amusing to see what people are saying to each other and how they response to each other. On many occassions I had to laugh to myself, it was that funny.  What is remarkable however, is the patience and forgiving nature of the co-respondent.  People make allowances for each other and politely respond, even if they are confused by the less able speaker.  
People are wonderful on the whole and very generous dont you think.

However, there are instances, when emotion gets in the way and then listening takes a different path.  When we are emotionally wound up about something and we discuss it with someone, we usually dont hear their words, let alone listen properly.  We usually are governed by our own feelings and we only hear what we want to hear.  During such times, we do not listen.  It is a shame, for thats' how create more hurt for ourselves and for others.

On the other hand, why is it that we sometimes, chose to listen to negativity.  Are we masochistic in a small way?  When the biatch or ape said that we look fat, why did we chose to listen, when it was obviously malicious. Why did we hurt?  Or correctly, why did we allow such vile words hurt us? Perhaps they had touched a weak spot.  And we all certainly have that weak spot dont we.
But we mustnt let words injure our soul ... they are only words, utterances of different pitch and tone, coming out of another human.  That's all.

The human is a wonderous being, with weaknesses and strengths, lets build on our strengths and not let our weakness rule.
Do Be aware of what the utterer is saying ...  they may just be malicious or they may an ulterior motive but dont misconstrue the words of the well intentioned souls who mean you no harm.  Listen carefully, dont just hear, with listening, you may learn to differentiate the good and well meaning from the harmful and nasty.

The choice to listen is always ours, no one else's.  Listening is a strength, use it wisely, but use it.


Another time, we will talk about choice of words, if you want to read it that is ;-)

Poetry

Who reads poetry nowadays? Who cares about it?
It's only people like me who write the stuff and on occassion read it ... my own I mean. I rather read other people's writings than my own. Once I've spewed all the verbatim on the screen, that's it, I'm done. A little like when you've gone to the toilet ... flush, wash your hands and get out. Relief.  Yup, poetry for me is like that. There is always this strong urge to regurgitate. It's the only release I have to be rid of my feelings.
Then only can I move on to something else.

I tried to sing when I was younger, realised, I was blessed with a low pitch voice that could not stretch to anywhere... and how upset I was that I could not sound like David Cassidy or as melodically moody as Carol king.  I tried to sing but people inevitably asked me to just hum... hum... hum... even when I was 9 and sat in the makeshift tree house, with my friends; my then "boyfriend" told me I was no nightingale.
And then there was a lovely handsome guy heart throb who told me, "you're cute but you haven't got a voice", my mouth shut and my heart fell on hearing him utter such harsh criticism.
Not long after, my mother, in a moment of inspiration perhaps, decided to buy us musical instruments.  Ukuleles, all three of us, myself and two siblings, got a ukulele each.  What possessed anyone to buy such an instrument for children less than 10 years of age. We were not given lessons, just ukuleles.  You can well imagine, a 10 year old, an eight year old and a seven year old, playing completely out of tune on the miniature "guitars".
Yes, we thought we could use them like  Carlos Santana or even Jimi Hendrix.
No, the ukuleles did not last long, before the strings broke, in fact, the whole instrument got smashed in wild moments mimicking Jimi Hendrix.
Oh, We did have our mellow moments, when we tried to "play" melodic "Japanese" tunes.   And then only to have both the gardener and driver bang away at our bedroom window, asking us not too politely, to stop the racket.
It got worse, when I decided to "sing" like a "Japanese" opera singer, my grandmother scolded my mother for encouraging the children to be disruptive (the word she used was : nuisance).
"Children should not be heard, not like that!!" grandmother scolded, "Send your children to bed for goodness sake," and this was at 4 pm in the afternoon.  Yes, grandma, we got the hint.

It was then that I had a revelation, if I can't sing, not in English or even Japanese opera, then perhaps I ought to try writing song lyrics.   Aha!! What a eureka moment that was for me.... yee haaaa
But sadly, I couldn't put any tunes to the words I came up with, or rather I couldn't get any more than one bar.  So, I gave up soon after.  And what do you think was left?  Can't sing, can't write lyrics, now what??
I love words but too lazy to write stories.  Starting was always easy but the carrying on was a hazard to the story, I would bore myself silly after a while and just didn't bother.

I sighed alot then. Loved words but how do I create with words, what can I create with words.
Till one Saturday afternoon, I was invited to "poetry club" at primary school.... what fun that was.   I could write, short lines (I like short!) and all I needed to do was to make them rhyme and add some rhythm... hey, I can do that.  And I didn't need to put a tune to it.  At last, a release for my words.   There begins my adventure into the literary world of poetry.

In conclusion, I'm a frustrated singer/song writer, who had to resort to poetry to give relief to her emotional diarrhea.

;-)