I read recently that The Dalai Lama says the best thing one
can do to improve the world, even if you can’t do anything else, is to listen.
In the last year or so I have also being trying to live more in line with the
dictum ‘you have two ears and one mouth so listen twice as much as you talk’
but it’s hard. Especially as you get older.
What I never understood is that if you are halfway
intelligent and live 50 years or more you are likely to have learned quite a
bit. You have taken in and processed vast amounts of information, seen
countless movies, read hundreds of books and articles, participated in probably
thousands of conversations, and simply observed people for half a century or
more. You see patterns repeated; you’ve seen what works in situations, and what
doesn’t. You have been mulling things over for at least 50 years, and ipso
facto, you probably know more about life and human behaviours that someone who
is 30 years old because you simply have much more data to base your conclusions
on – more conversations, more perspectives, more concerts, more songs, more
travelling, more heartaches. So you feel that you know more than people much
younger than yourself. And you want to share what you know with them. But in
one of life’s strange twists of irony, no one really wants to know, especially
those much younger than yourself, for they are busy discovering their own
path and realisations about the world. And so they must.
But what does the halfway intelligent older person then do
with all this insight? Just listen???? Just learn some more??? Apparently so
according to The Dalai Lama.
Something else happens the longer you live: your standards
creep imperceptibly higher. If you’ve heard 10 songs, watched 10 plays and 10
movies the chances of you coming across another song, play or movie that is
better than these 10 is very high. If you have heard 1000 songs, seen a 1000
plays and movies, those chances are much smaller. Through long term exposure to
many fields of human endeavour you develop a keen awareness of what constitutes
excellence – quality of life, of relationships, of artefacts of entertainment,
of a sunset, of a view, and in a very real sense you become spoiled. You have recognised
magnificence in life – of architecture, of art, of writing - and learned that
it is rare. So I can go along and listen to a band and I will enjoy it, but I
can’t help but subconsciously compare it with the music I have heard in years gone
by and it is way less likely, though not impossible, to be as enjoyable as
music heard at concerts in the past because my standards have crept up. I am
now harder to please. It is harder to be moved by music, by the spoken word, by
a spectacular view – because you have already experienced true magnificence in
these aspects of life, and know how unlikely it is that you will experience
better.
I guess one of the
keys to a successful older life is, despite all the wonderful things you may have
enjoyed in the past, to treat every day and every new experience as if it could
be as good as anything you’ve ever enjoyed. To go into each new moment
unfettered by expectations based on past experiences. And listen 😊
