I am a decent talker although I am not an excessive one. I can usually express myself without stuttering, lisping, snorting, choking, cracking, lisping or making obscene gestures. However, when it comes to listening, I am mostly a skilless individual. I usually can hear clearly enough but my retention abilities are mostly absent. I cannot remember most of what I hear and usually forget the fraction that I do hear immediately after hearing it. I blame my miserable listening circumstances on my position in the family. I had not only parents giving orders but an older brother and sister who fancied themselves senior enough to give me orders. I also had a younger sister but we were very fond of each other and got along very comfortably. I did not feel comfortable acting as her superior.
Early on I rarely felt the need to interject my opinions, comments, likes and dislikes and any other tidbit of information in which they might or might not be interested. I find it amazing that there are people who can talk almost without stopping from the time they awake in the morning until they retire at night, if indeed, they do retire at night. I wonder if their sleeping hours are silent or if they continue talking throughout the night. I had a friend once who, if he spied me in the hall, he would begin talking to me and continue talking as we passed each other and on down the hall until we were far out of hearing distance. I do not know if he continued talking even after we were long separated.
As a youngster I engaged in frequent conversations with my friends about many subjects: comic books, hiding places, sports, other kids, games, ghosts and various other topics. One of the favorite topics was the “Facts of Life” as narrated by one ten-year-old boy to another ten-year-old boy. Of course, since none of us had any experience with the content of these “facts” nor could we check the authenticity with any responsible adult, we had no way of knowing whether there was any truth to the knowledge imparted. It did not matter. We were armed with the information and anxious to pass it on to others of our acquaintance. It was extremely disarming to find out that the others already knew about our precious information. It would be several years before we became fully familiar with the corrected information. The updated knowledge would turn out to be worth the wait.
Our teachers at that time were nuns, who had an uncanny ability to determine what was going through our pre-teen minds and would choose those exact moments to deliver a lecture on the dismal fate that awaited anyone who entertained what they described as “impure thoughts.” Although we were terrified of the hideous fates that awaited us it did not motivate any of us to attempt to alter our unseemly thoughts.
As I have aged my speaking skills have improved marginally. I can often make myself mostly understood and have managed, on occasion, to get my ideas across. My listening skills on the other hand have not appreciably improved. Often, when I try to listen to someone my thoughts are deeply occupied by some other, equally deeply irrelevant topic. I sometimes catch a word or vacant phrase that they say but most of the discourse fails to register in my brain. I do not do this on purpose but that rarely matters to the speaker, especially if the speaker happens to be my wife. Now my wife is a wonderful person who, I sometimes fear, did not marry terribly wisely although her husband certainly did. It’s not that I don’t try. But even though I hear what she says, my forgetting skills, which are highly developed, kick in immediately and the content of her conversation has been forever lost. Sometimes, it’s no fun being me.
I tend to blame my hearing difficulties on my listening inadequacies. But I must admit that this is only partially true. I also happen to be a careless listener. It’s not that I don’t try. Honestly, dear wife, treasured friends and former teachers, I put forth great effort. But, for some reason, it doesn’t help. In spite of this staggering disability, I have managed to live a rather full and richly rewarding life. I am quite happy to celebrate the foggy lot that fate has dealt me.
747 words