Very nice post! I would add that it is a useful and nontrivial skill to notice what you’re paying attention to. It may not be helpful to try getting curious unless you know concretely what this means about how you move your eyes and attention.
To give a video game example, players new to a genre have no idea where to put their eyes on the screen. When I told a friend playing Hades to put their eyes on their own character, instead of on the enemies, they instantly started taking half as much damage. I got a lot better at Dark Souls, on the other hand, by staring at the enemies to catch their telegraphed movements and not on myself. Similarly, I had a friend who could not get into Path of Exile because they wanted to dive into playing the game mechanically and was frustrated about my claim that to properly enjoy the game you spend most of your energy staring at skill trees and item builds and wikis. I found that my natural state playing PoE was leaving my eyes half unfocused on the game, spamming my skill rotation while thinking about my next item or skill upgrade on my second monitor.
To listening properly and be curious, I think the main places one should focus one’s attention (in addition to the words they’re saying) are: (a) on the other person’s face and body, (b) on the other person’s tone of voice, and (c) on your own bodily sensations. In other words, everywhere but your own thoughts.
Very nice post! I would add that it is a useful and nontrivial skill to notice what you’re paying attention to. It may not be helpful to try getting curious unless you know concretely what this means about how you move your eyes and attention.
To give a video game example, players new to a genre have no idea where to put their eyes on the screen. When I told a friend playing Hades to put their eyes on their own character, instead of on the enemies, they instantly started taking half as much damage. I got a lot better at Dark Souls, on the other hand, by staring at the enemies to catch their telegraphed movements and not on myself. Similarly, I had a friend who could not get into Path of Exile because they wanted to dive into playing the game mechanically and was frustrated about my claim that to properly enjoy the game you spend most of your energy staring at skill trees and item builds and wikis. I found that my natural state playing PoE was leaving my eyes half unfocused on the game, spamming my skill rotation while thinking about my next item or skill upgrade on my second monitor.
To listening properly and be curious, I think the main places one should focus one’s attention (in addition to the words they’re saying) are: (a) on the other person’s face and body, (b) on the other person’s tone of voice, and (c) on your own bodily sensations. In other words, everywhere but your own thoughts.