Listening as a Service

And Worthlessness as a Virtue

Oysters at Verjus in San Francisco, CA

I break the silence at the dinner table with a laugh and my boyfriend looks up at me. We’re in a restaurant - maybe in New York, but probably in San Francisco - and the tables of two are close together. The faces of the couples beside us are moonlit by tealight candles, and they all talk freely and loudly, hands gesticulating. I’m laughing at what the couple next to us is talking about - what they’re going to dress their dog up as for Halloween, the woman’s deranged brother-in-law, the man’s distaste for his girlfriend’s friends. I forget now what they were even talking about in this specific instance because this has happened so many times. But anyways, it doesn’t matter what they’re talking about. What makes it funny is the fact that I’m listening and encoding without their knowing. That’s what elicits the laughter.

My boyfriend looks up at me and furrows his brow, puzzled. I want to tell him that I’m laughing at the conversation of the people beside us, but I don’t know how to do that without letting the couple know that I’m listening to them - these tables are really close together. I glance my eyes over to the left repeatedly, like a blinking arrow, but he doesn’t understand. “I’ll tell you later,” I say.

We try to resume our meal. My boyfriend serves a funny hypothetical question to me, and I attempt to volley a witty answer back, but I’m too distracted by the conversation of the couple sitting next to me. I’ve pried open the door and now their words keep flooding my brain. “What?” I keep asking. “Sorry, what did you say? It’s so loud in here.” I keep trying to build a mental dam and can feel my brain overheating. Perhaps my boyfriend notices the steam coming out of my ears because we end up eating in quiet for a little bit, head bobbing to the music, and I’m semi-grateful because now I can focus on the conversation happening beside me. When we walk out of the restaurant later, I’ll try to retell the whole thing to him but it’ll be like trying to retell a funny part of a movie to someone. He just won’t get it.

This tendency of mine is only getting worse with age. My listening skills are completely eroded in loud, public spaces. There’s an Instagram-chic wine bar near my apartment in San Francisco that everyone keeps telling me to check out. But every weekend, I can hear the booming music and chatter from several blocks away. I would be set adrift in there, so many conversations happening at once, my brain might actually catch fire. In December, my family had to leave a Christmas night market in Seattle because the lights were hurting my stomach.

This is all quite ironic because I’m the oldest of three sisters, meaning I’m usually well acquainted with the task of listening. Or expected to be. For the last twenty years, I’ve been a recipient of long-sensical babblings. An enthusiastic attendee of living room plays. I’ve been told about bad dreams through tears and been on the receiving end of hangry post-high school tirades. In February, when I returned from a two-week trip to India, my sisters may have asked one question about my journey before launching into a thirty-minute yarn about roommate drama. I could scale the moon, and it wouldn’t be as interesting as what happened at a frat on Thursday.

The eldest daughter has a staunch reputation as a perfectionist, as being the family glue, and the passive solver of problems. The straight A student, the honorary mother, the stoic leader whose absence is felt more than her presence. But more than anything, she is a sounding board - a wall to bounce words off.

And I don’t mind it. I’ll call my sisters while I’m sorting through my emails, and let their stream of consciousness flood my brain, offering the occasional Hmm, Yeah, or Totally. I’ll usually figure out how I’m supposed to reply based on how they end their filibuster. When they finish with “I just don’t know what to do,” I’ll sort through the facts they’ve presented and flip through my own Rolodex of experience to piece together some gentle words of advice. Interestingly, the problems they face are often versions of problems I’ve faced. Certain life lessons force themselves at certain ages, like clockwork.

Other times, their vent will trail off with an ellipsis, lacking any firm conclusion or direction of where to head next conversationally. It’s instances like these where my brain snaps back into focus, knowing I need to tread lightly. I’ve become skilled at giving Big Sister advice and also letting the words hang in the air, picking out the emotions that are being felt, and placing extra emphasis on validating those. When the conversation isn’t filtered through a noisy bar or the strobe of a million Christmas lights, my listening skills can be Olympic-level.

As such, I’m often more comfortable listening than having others listen to me. An experienced ballerina can watch Black Swan (2010) and point out all of Natalie Portman’s technical errors - flubs that would be imperceptible to a novice dancer. Similarly, it’s quite easy to tell when people aren’t listening to me. The eyes will dart. The stare will turn glassy. The head will nod throughout my speech, reserving no gesture for emphasis. The reply will be some kind of generic sentiment, not validating anything or adding to what I brought up or asking for clarification.

When I can tell that the person listening to me is just waiting for their turn to speak, uninterested in what I’m saying, I’ve learned to wrap the conversation up quickly and pass the reins back over to them. Some are flowers and others are gardeners; some are listeners and others are meant to be listened to. And I must stink of the listener gene because that’s usually where you can find me at a party - in the corner, head bobbing, eye contact steady, receiving the life story of a stranger.

I don’t think you can be a decent writer without being a decent listener. Both practices involve seasoned introspection. Good writers can sort through clunky, abstract thoughts and impulses and translate them into something grammatical - ideally something that inspires thoughts and feelings in others. Good listening also involves a lot of mental sorting. As I listen, my brain flags details with Post-it tabs, marking the points that I’ll request elaboration on, the points I’ll refrain from pressing on, and the points that I’ll reserve specifically for myself, for my own reflection later. Listening is a great time to scavenge for meaning.

I also don’t think you can be a decent relationship partner without being a decent listener. Many of the clichéd remarks made in romantic, familial, and friendship fights reference the other person’s inability to listen: You’re not listening to me and Can you please listen to me? and the disgruntled I am listening! as a retort. Active, genuine listening tells a person that they are worth attempting to silence the outside chatter for, that they’re worth the mental sorting. When someone you care about listens to you, it’s as if the whole universe pauses and faces you with an open heart. Every bird stops chirping and every bee stops buzzing to make way for your speech; your thoughts, and feelings, and worries - all flecks in the universe’s scale - get a moment of focus. Listening is one of the truest acts of service. Being on the receiving end can feel indulgent, and even quite selfish, if you don’t experience it that often.

I recently read an Ann Patchett essay about saintdom, which referenced a Bible story from Luke 17 about a servant who does everything that’s asked of him, then joyfully accepts more. The servant occupies a state of loving service so deep that it is all-encompassing - he loses himself in the practice, so much so that he becomes a “worthless servant” (or an “unprofitable servant” or “a servant without credit” depending on the translation). Seeking no validation - no reward for his good-doing, for his helpfulness - his worthlessness, his ego death, transforms into transcendence. “Worthlessness” becomes a kind of achievement.

Unabashed hospitality - good-doing with no expectation in return - has been a theme quietly underscoring this year for me. Avoiding excessive introspection in favor of helping others - whether through random acts of kindness, generous hosting, or weekly tutoring - has been one of the things that brightens me most during dark moments, whether I’m performing the good deeds or having them performed for me. There is no simpler, more readily available way to serve someone you love than to listen to them. But it’s never been more challenging to do so. Constantly encouraged to turn our lenses inwards, to accept and mine for accountability and blame. Being inundated with more pieces of information than we ever have before, expected to hold all of it stably in our heads without cracking our skulls. All of it has made it so challenging to listen. To actively listen, and, importantly, to catalog what actually matters.

This is why I feel so bad, sitting there at the dinner table, watching my partner’s mouth move, but not hearing anything he’s saying. I can actually feel my brain struggling to work, can feel the wheels struggling to turn. And I begin to wonder, there at the dinner table, if it’s always been this hard to isolate meaning from distraction. I doubt it. The people beside me are like a screen recording of Subway Surfers gameplay. They’re my scrolling Instagram while I’m trying to watch a movie. They’re my reaching for my phone while I’m trying to read my novel. The act of my eyes glancing over the same sentences again and again, unable to siphon meaning. It’s never been so hard.

---