Photo: Ron Mader, Clark County Museum (Some rights reserved)
Happy listening.
There is great value listening to the natural and cultural worlds. To be immersed in birdsong and symphony elevates our higher senses. Better still when we understand what we are hearing.
If communication is to be more than a bullhorn, if there’s an actual conversation / dialogue unfolding, we need to sharpen our listening skills, comprehension, and empathy. True “We hear you.”
On a technical matter, we are learning how to create and share playlists, find podcasts, select audio books, and learn new skills on our devices.
Quotes
When you know you are listened to, everything changes.
– Conversation
You are not listening to us.
– Aboriginal tourism operator to government officials
It helps when you can eavesdrop in multiple languages.
– Conversation
Listening is the new reading.
– Audible.com promotion (2018)
Who do we need to listen?
– World Bank official, cited in Reflections from the World Bank
The question of where the money goes is, of course, one of the hardest to pin down with hard, reliable figures because vested interests are either trying to prove it does indeed ‘trickle down’ and benefit everyone in the local community, or that it most certainly doesn’t. But from just talking to many low-level tourism workers around the world – the chambermaids, the taxi drivers, the waiters etc – I must report that the latter seemed to be much nearer the truth. Improving the quality of the data available will clearly help to better answers all of the questions you raise about tourists having the knowledge to book the ‘right’ holiday, or for communities to make the best decisions about how the manage and nurture their destinations.
– Leo Hickman
We know that tourism creates serious problems — environmentally, culturally, politically — so we immediately jump to conclusions: ‘this is bad so let’s make it right.’ And because all the ‘sustainable tourism’ initiatives come from the more powerful to the less — as usual — we enforce our solutions. Often with the assistance of the World Bank, the European Union, USAID and the rest of the powerful donors – who also come from the ‘patch it up so our show can go on’ mindset. But do we really understand the problem? Are we really prepared to listen to those on the ground? How deeply are we prepared to understand our hosts REAL needs and accommodate them — their way? This may be the only way that new tourism can emerge, and we certainly need it!
– Valere Tjolle
The symphony of natural sounds within our national parks is an important natural resource and a critical component of the ecological communities that parks seek to preserve. Understanding the role of sound and acoustics in a healthy ecosystem is critical to their effective management and protection.
– World Listening Day, National Parks Service
It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.
– The Simpsons
Everything changes when you know you’re being listened to.
– Hugo Antonio Santiago
Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
– Francis Bacon
You grab with your eyes but you receive with your ears.
– Anthony Magen, Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology
soundcloud.com/anthonymagen
liquidarchitecture.org.au/artists/anthony-magen/
Listening is active @DavidjHendy on Late Night Live
@RadioNational @LNLonRN @PhillipAdams_1
Stray Observations
- Listen to this story
- We need friends to recap what they heard.
- There’s great value in listening to people with something to say.
Planeta