Stillness and Open-mindedness

The quality that I admire most in someone/anyone is the ability to remain quiet and open-minded enough to listen to someone’s statement or argument to the end without interrupting.

Then, giving an opinion only when the first speaker is done or an opinion is requested.

Not too many of those individuals inhabit our social spheres — or professional ones for that matter (friends, social media, gatekeepers, ruling elites — in their own minds, etc.).

Most aren’t even really listening, just biding time to relate the arguments they’ve been forming in their own minds while the first speaker was speaking, or repeating rehearsed talking points, instead of really listening and then forming an answer, which is the only civilized and ethicly correct course of action in those circumstances…

–LE – 7/15/25