La Voz de Galicia – September 13, 2024 →
Sometimes I wonder how curiosity is cultivated; the “desire to know, to learn, to discover new things”, as defined by the Royal Galician Academy. And if it’s something innate, I also wonder at what point we stop being curious, and why. I suppose it’s because I spent half my life immersed in social life as part of my previous profession, but I’ve always been fascinated by how people interact with other people and whether or not they are curious in those contexts. There are some who, when meeting new people, tend to talk, to talk about their own things, in their own way, without much concern for whether the listener is interested in the conversation. On the other hand, there are those who simply listen, serving as a “sounding board” for those looking for someone to hear them. And among the many other ways to be with people are those who can’t stop asking questions, driven by curiosity to learn more about that person, that culture, that profession, that idea, or that way of life. I think that at some point in our lives, we all walked through these three ways of being with others, but for some reason, it seems more difficult lately to come across people who are genuinely curious, people who ask, speak, and listen and, moreover, have the desire to learn through conversation.
The idea that “silence is one of the great arts of conversation” is attributed to Cicero, and to William Hazlitt, “the art of conversation is the art of hearing and being heard”. And that’s where I’d like to remain always, because for me, at the heart of listening lies curiosity. What would happen if each day we made the effort to “hear and be heard”? How would our society change?
