for goodness sake

i want a tattoo

BREAKING NEWS: Kanye west just interrupted Patrick Swayze’s funeral to let everyone know that Michael Jackson’s funeral was better!

We may not all be so different in the end.  We all have triumphs, failures, and mishaps. In fact we all know when to be sad when the mood is down, or when to be happy when something good has happened. But what makes us all the same? Is it the way we wake up in the morning wondering what the day holds for us or wondering if things could ever be different or maybe just the way we wait secretly for that certain someone to acknowledge our presence.  No matter what it is or the way we go about things, we are all alike. We share the same feelings, ideas, dreams, stories, interests, longings: all physically and emotionally. It may not be noticed by all but its’ there. It all starts by listening.

How does listening bring us all together and prove that in the end we are all alike? How does it connect perfect strangers at the sound of a familiar noise? How does listening quickly twist the mood from a loud roar of a crowd to a dull whisper?  Listening is something that some of us see as a good quality, while some genders see it as something they would rather ignore and not take part in. However, we all listen the same. Whether we want to or not. We listen. We may listen intently or vaguely. But we listen. It may be critical that we listen or even not our part at all to be listening to certain pieces of information. However, we can’t help but listen.

Listen to the way we get out of the car, shut the car door, situate our belongings, breathe, walk away from the car, and into the house. Those sounds… are they good sounds, familiar sounds, or important sounds? All of the above is what they are, some beg to differ. But they are comforting and familiar to all, even in the most uncomfortable of situations. Take this scenario:

 You find yourself driving on an empty street at night. It is pitch black in the car besides the dim lights of the electronics on the dashboard.  It is a major street but it is so late there are no cars besides the one way far ahead of you at the point where the lights are so tiny you can’t even measure them with your fingers if you were to hold them up to the light. You’re just listening to your car moving swiftly across the pavement and anxiously wondering what that little squeal is when you tap the brakes. But it soon leaves your mind. And for a quick moment you suddenly get frightened. Not because you saw something but because you heard something that reminded you of a scary movie you saw and how someone was driving by themselves and someone popped up from the back seat. So you quickly wonder if you should turn around but you then hear something again and start to slowly panic, then without thinking you quickly turn around to look but it is so dark, you see nothing. Then realizing the light must be on, you put your hand up to turn the light on while still worrying if that’s a good idea. But you do it anyway and once it is on you turn around again and you just see an empty seat. It’s an odd feeling. Perhaps it could just be because you have been staring at a moving road for awhile and now you’re staring at a still, empty seat. But that is exactly what it is like when you listen to even the smallest of sounds and you really listen. It is almost surreal to the fact you wonder if it really happened.

Listening is like staring at a still, empty seat when in fact you are not still at all; you are in a moving car. You even forget that you are driving and become unable to locate your sense of direction and know if you’re going straight or backwards or up or down. It is that odd of a feeling that allows us to connect with anyone simply by listening.