My favorite murder mysteries are series that star women who investigate and solve complicated homicides. Vera Stanhope and Miss Marple are two fictional characters among many who successfully solve cases that stymie others, active cases and cold, as the official detective in charge or as the nosy neighbor, as the victim's best friend or as the police chief's best friend. On the surface, these female characters have little in common. Look beyond the trench coat, the knitting bag, the jogging shoes, the antique shop, their ages and their social abilities, and the viewer will discover a few traits that make the characters believable and likeable. I wonder if these traits will help me solve some of the mysteries of my life.
The most obvious trait they have in common is their willingness to listen. More precisely, their uncommon willingness to listen. Listening skills are developed early in life, when babies want comforting sounds and focus on whether the sounds are pleasant or frightening, come with familiar or new faces, can be imitated with immediate rewards. Listening is as natural to a baby as is sucking and cooing. Listening is the baby's entire world if the baby is blind. Listening with sight and touch is the baby's entire world if they are born deaf. Listening is learning. Listening is connection.
But babies broaden their worlds when they can use words, when they walk and run, when they turn their attentions to objects they hold and taste. As more people enter the child's world, the child begins to use selective hearing. Although an important survival skill -- the ability to tune out a nearby conversation while listening for the approach of a dangerous animal or human enemy saved lives -- selective hearing also becomes a tool that divides human from each other. The baby who once was thoroughly, wholeheartedly connected to everyone in the family -- as a member who had no contribution -- becomes a person who chooses the voices and sounds they hear, the words and messages that matter, their responses and their behaviors. Listening becomes a means to a selfish end.
My brother shared a video today. His daughter has a baby just four months old. Mom does all the talking and uses her voice to encourage the baby to roll over. The baby laughs and kicks as he listens to his mother. Mother entertains the baby, and he gives her his undivided attention. The rewards for Mom and baby are immediate. This is a gratifying moment in time before baby launches his own explorations. I laughed watching the video because I am thoroughly entertained by Mom's baby voice and the baby's excitement. Those days are precious.
A successful investigator needs superior listening skills. DCI Stanhope in the British series Vera has superior skills. When she visits a grieving family or informally interrogates a suspect, she listens to their answers and their ramblings. She listens for lies, deceit, feelings, suppositions, implications. She asks questions that were prepared earlier; she asks new questions based on what she hears. DCI Vera Stanhope often corrects her deputy investigator's ideas based on what they both heard the suspect say. He hears but, he hears with bias or with incomplete knowledge because he was thinking while listening. He does not hear what Vera hears.
We do this. We sit among folks and we're distracted by other voices, other ideas. We sit face to face and alone with someone but we listen with personal bias, or we listen while thinking about our response. Perhaps we are on our phones, thumbing through emails or texts, browsing Facebook pages. Worse than missing most of the conversation is our arrogance. We assume that the other person is as flippant about the conversation and time together as we are. We assume that our need for distraction is more important than anything the other person could say. We assume that our ideas have greater value, that our responses whether dismissive silence or uninformed ramblings have merit.
Investigators -- researchers, teachers, parents, guests, family, friends, neighbors, old acquaintances and new -- should listen with the whole body like a baby does. Miss Marple solves the murder mystery, not because she is a forensic scientist or a priest who hears confessions, but because she listens. The local police have no patience for people's stories. They demand answers that make perfect sense to them. Any other answers are dismissed. Local police are trained to believe in their innate ability to detect lies and ferret out truths...using their full attention to listen is as good as admitting defiency and fault. Miss Marple not only listens surreptitiously to people's conversations, she seeks conversations and engages her full attention while in them.
What could we achieve in our personal relationships or as a society if we listened to each other? We reply to posts on social media without reading the full post or the linked material. We do not read books -- an activity that requires focus. We avoid conversations that venture into topics we fear or feel inferior to. We avoid face to face conversations that might expose us, our feelings or ideas. We are willing to make others feel invisible to us. We avoid challenges to our biases or opinions. Therefore, our relationships are flimsy and our society is dangerously divided.
I do not advocate leaving social media or hiding away from society like a hermit. I want to witness a kinder, thriving society before I die. The only way to build a kinder, more progressive society or stronger personal relationships is to listen to each other. Listen with the whole body like a baby whose mother is encouraging him to roll over for the first time in his new life.