“Kiss me … Try to fix it … Could you just try to listen?” —–Taylor Swift

By Jarret Liotta

WESTPORT — There were so many things vying for attention in my lentil-sized brain this week, I didn’t know what to choose first …

The Thanksgiving holiday got me thinking about gratitude … while Taylor Swift’s recent release of “Red” (T.V.) had me contemplating justice, revenge and Jake Gyllenhaal.

In Westport, the return of young adult students — including my own — prompted thoughts of change, nests, recurring goodbyes, and college loans … while general dirty work related to our beloved news site bent my focus toward visions of fear, loathing and precarious interactions with a surly public revved up on the unfurling holiday season.

A Smidgeon of Gratitude

To start, I could fill a college-ruled notebook with a gratitude list.

Just this very evening — aside from the obvious choices (my kids, health, my dashing good looks …) — I’m incredibly grateful for so many more things than I could ever list.

“Opera of the Bells” by Destiny’s Child is the first that comes to mind, along with thick wool socks, coconut juice, limes, pencils, pine-scented candles and the movie “Amelie.”

The list is endless and, at the best of times, arrives back at a burgeoning sense of universal appreciation for everything this demented world has to offer us.

Now Hear This!

But separate of having the list, I’m brightly aware of the innate value of being able to share the list.

The necessity to feel heard is a recurring realization in my paradigm of third-dimensional reality. I see its importance all around me.

Even amidst the often-disagreeable gurgling of the angry, the discontented, the terrified, and the overtly stupid, there lies the insatiable human desire to be heard, understood, acknowledged and — ideally somewhere in the process — appreciated.

Sadly, most people are terrible listeners, so there are never enough to go around.

As a professional listener myself — as well as a nosey buttinski — I understand the value of paying attention to what others are saying amidst that never-ending desire to interrupt them and fix their problems and explain back at them what they’re really trying to communicate.

Let’s be honest — it’s all we can do to take five minutes away from our phones to give someone the floor, so if they can’t resolve the story in the allotted time period, we generally feel compelled to jump in and shut them up with solutions.

Shut Up & Listen!

A good listener, however, understands that people don’t want answers to their problems — they just want to share about them without comment or observable judgment.

(You can think what you want while you’re listening — that’s your business — but it’s important you at least look sincere, attentive, serious and accepting.)

Unfortunately, so often we can’t overcome our own impatience — or deep discomfort — in having to listen to someone in process. It’s a chore, a labor … ultimately it’s a true labor of love, in fact, but it’s still a pain in the neck sometimes …

Don’t Get Any ON ME!

Sometimes as we listen, too, it feels like the problems of others will become contagious and infect us with likewise misery and disarray.

Some people who are really good at complaining have a terrible ability to cause that effect. As soon as we see them coming, the sun seems to set on our good spirit and we feel a need to batten down the hatches in order to endure their storm of sad self-centered storytelling.

Some of them condition us so thoroughly with their recurring complaints that we have to keep up curt walls to stay psychically safe from them and others.

Sadly, in the process, we lose interest in learning how to listen to those we love … or like … or just anyone we might at least be able to help through a short stint of volunteer listening.

What a Bad Listener Sounds Like

Bad listeners are often easy to spot. They’re the ones who usually start talking over you while you’re trying to confide.

If not, then their eyes tend to get glazed because while you’re talking, their mind is elsewhere — either focused on sports, pornography, or more often just thinking about what canned response they’re going to give you when you break for breath, regardless of your topic.

The Bad Listener is always quick to offer solutions and broad statements strangely devoid of compassion and empathy.

“You need to get over it,” they might say.

Or perhaps, “You should move on.”

For me personally — and I won’t pretend I don’t often crave to be soundly, seriously understood by a solid listener — Bad Listeners often lead with remarkably useless advice they somehow seem to think equates to solution.

For instance, when I share about various challenges in developing a new film project, they’ll say something like, “You should just get an agent,” or “You should just get the script to Matt Damon or Paul Rudd.”

“Yes, thank you,” I will jovially force myself to say with a tragic faux grin that makes me look like Carol Channing. “That’s a good idea.”

Problem solved!

All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned from Taylor

But because the need to be heard properly — and understood exactly — is so precious to me personally, I’m ultimately most grateful of all to know that it just doesn’t happen!

Instead, the solution and satisfaction lie in striving to be a real Good Listener to others.

Somehow, when I’m able to truly refocus my attention on some other idiot like myself, my own deep pathological needy need to be heard starts to dissipate.

And like Taylor, by focusing on our creative voice — be it song, film making, photography, writing or just speaking your truth through a homemade dessert, a garden project, or some clever business endeavor — you can be most perfectly understood for who you are.

Who doesn’t understand the magical gift of something you create from your heart and soul?! … Who can argue with it? … And who, short of a deity, has the power to make it any better than it already is?!

Let’s all be grateful we have ourselves to hear! … and Taylor!

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