Over the course of history, man's intrinsic gift to effectively listen has come to be known by several different definitions. Some have come to label the ability to hear as, "selective-hearing". Others' have defined it as, "having too much wax in your ears". Both of these highly technical definitions work in my case, but I would also like to add a third possibility, what I have come to refer to as, "slurred-hearing". As of this current writing, my speech has not been greatly affected. But how would you really know if that's true, since your reading my words and not listening to them? You will just have to trust me and take my word-for-it, or in this case, my write-for-it. By slurred-hearing, I mean that one of the current affects of my SCA that has developed over the last several years is my inability to hear myself correctly. More specifically, my body's lack of ability to hear internal mandates clearly. Random shuffling of the feet is often caused because of this occasional slurring. A constant string of orders to the legs to pick up the feet during the engagement of walking will in general be heard correctly, until suddenly, when the legs' hearing process will become slurred, and they will hear something along the lines of, "Okay, listen up! Because as of this moment we are going ice skating people, so start skimming the ground like you mean it." Sometimes the best way to keep them out of trouble is to just find a nice bench and give them some time off for behavior, (sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad).
All three of the former definitions can be assigned to me, but not every one of those definitions can be accurately applied to every member of my body. Do I really think that my legs might have wax in their ears? No, probably not, BUT I do think that they, besides their slurred-hearing, have also exhibited from time to time some very selective hearing. I clearly will give them a direct order that has come straight out of headquarters, and they will ignore it. Of course, they think that I don't notice, and that they are getting away with this, as they whistle and attempt to nonchalantly walk away. But the headquarters have eyes and are always watching. Except at night that is, when the office closes and everyone goes home for six or seven hours. But, again, because they were selectively-listening, and didn't hear the end of the day call, occasionally the legs will attempt a breakout during these quiet times by making a sudden and violent move, I guess towards what they perceive to be freedom. This usually sets off a painful proximity alarm and wakes everyone in the system up. Searchlights snap on and begin crisscrossing the ground like there has been a seriously massive breach in the containment system and all escaped members need to be found, and found quickly. The headquarters instantly becomes a flourish of confused activity, as everyone involved is trying to shake the cobwebs out of their own headquarters, and to resolve the crises as quickly as possible so that the main office can be closed again. No matter how quickly this may happen, though, the damage has already been done, and although the lights at the main office have been turned off again, and everyone has returned to their homes, all does not return to the peaceful quiet of before. There will usually be a mouse, a random thought, or a situation that is currently happening at the executive level, that will choose this time to begin running and bouncing around, successfully keeping the headquarters abuzz with activity. All because of that darn selective hearing.
My legs may not have wax in their ears, but my ears apparently get wax in THEIR ears now and again. I don't know how else I can explain why my hands don't always seem to respond well to my ceaselessly-positive self-talk. This would seem to be the explanation, as the only middle-man between the sound coming out of my mouth, and my hands, are the ears where the sound enters back into the system, and then travels to the intended appendages. The wax in my ears will effectively stop the forward progression of any verbal commands. However, sometimes this backfires, sometimes the commands are internally stored there until a successful un-blockage can be accomplished, usually by way of the Q-tip. The saved message will then surge quickly through the system, causing the hands to fly up in what appears to be a sudden random and completely unprovoked manner. If this happens to you, as it does to me, all I can say is that the observation of this phenomenon by others, and their interpretation of this event, will greatly depend on the location that you are in when this whole thing goes down. Of course, it does seem odd to me that anyone would choose to clean their ears anywhere other than the bathroom, but hey, I am not here to judge, and you just go right ahead and clean where you gotta clean!
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| I am standing for your right to free clean, er...I mean free speech. |
So, at this point I have established that the act of "hearing" myself is more or less a hit-and-miss proposition, a process that I am still working on. Now I would like to move on to a related topic, one that for me has come to be known as,"what?' For most people, this would be more commonly known as active-listening. I try, I really do try, but between the faulty short-term memory that I admitted having in my last blog, the selective-hearing, earwax, and the slurring when I hear, I don't stand a chance! That doesn't mean that I don't keep trying though! This means that not only do I have to hear what I am trying to tell myself, but I have to act on that information. I have learned this the hard way and want my experience to save you from potentially making the same mistake. If I approach uneven ground, then a voice of reason tells me that I should not attempt to walk there. If I don't immediately stop, but hesitate to act, and say, "what?", then I am probably already taking a step ahead. This usually never ends well, and this could have been avoided by actively listening to myself. Do you see what I mean? Were you even listening? What?
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