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Writing as the Art of Listening

Jul 02, 2012
by Caroline Miller
consciousness, Dr. Mark Allen Sircus
0 Comment

A friend sent me a blog recently by Dr. Mark Allen Sircus.  He was writing on the importance of being a good listener.  By that he didn’t mean to sit quietly.  Sitting quietly allows the mind to go on speaking to itself.  No, he was talking about being open to ideas that are foreign.

                        To listen is to suffer because we do not want to listen to anything that might require a change.  To listen is to change.  We cannot change without listening… We need to                               change just to listen.  (HeartHealth)

I confess, I’ve been guilty of sitting quietly, following the thread of my thoughts rather than hearing another person’s ideas.  Worse, if the thoughts of the speaker are repugnant to me, I close my mind and can’t wait until my opponent stops for a breath so I can dive in. These are the times when sitting quietly is to engage in the deceit of listening.  

Of course, I can deceive myself as well as others.  Sometimes, I try to avoid my thoughts, too.

The written word is another story.  There’s no escaping it.  Words scrawled upon a page or thrown upon a screen can expose my inner world as clearly as a mirror can reflect my outer one.  Written words do not disappear into airy thinness like spoken ones.   Once hardened by ink,  these words refuse to allow pretense.  I can’t claim I’ve been misunderstood.  That’s why writing is important to me.  It is a way listening to myself.  That, too, can be an opportunity for change.

girl in the mirror

                                                           Courtesy of www.mypinkytoes.wordpress.com

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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