June 2005
Intermediate to advanced
216 pages
3h 37m
English
Falstaff: “It is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.”
2 Henry IV, Act I, Scene ii by William Shakespeare
Breathes there a man or woman who has not accused or been accused by their significant other of not listening? Highly doubtful. The opprobrium of not listening ranks high among the causes of failure in all human communication; spanning interpersonal, business, political, and even international relations. To the perpetrators of what troubled Falstaff, listening is merely a matter of waiting to speak.
For the reductio ad absurdum of this universal truth, think of a time when you were in a restaurant where you have given your waiter explicit instructions to exclude ...