Translator: Sara Fazzini Reviewer: Carolina Bucalo
(Singing) How many roads ...
must a man walk down ...
before you call him a man?
How many seas ...
must a white dove sail ...
before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times ...
must the cannonballs fly ...
before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend ...
is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times ...
must a man look up ...
before he can see the sky?
How many ears ...
must one man have ...
before he can hear people cry?
(Singing stops)"How many ears ...
must one man have?"
"How many ears must one man have...
before he can hear other people cry?"
I always focused on this line while singing "Blowin' in the wind."
I think the author focused on it too
when he sang this song.
How many ears do we have? How many ears must we have?
"If gods gave us two ears ..."
a philosopher said,
"and just one mouth, maybe there was a reason."
Instead, we think that we have to train in order to speak and write.
All the speakers you will hear today did their best, I'll grant you.
But we think we can just stay there in order to listen.
"Ascolto" (listening") is a difficult skill.
In order to listen, you need to focus, to commit yourself. It's like flying.
You need to lift and move.
You need to go somewhere else. You need to be willing to change.
Since "Ascolto" has seven letters, as you can see from the dots ...
maybe you can guess that I'm going to create a pun.
I'm a linguist, so it was predictable.
I'm going to give you seven tips.
They will be marked up by the seven letters of the word.
They will help you to listen in an efficient way.
First tip.
"A."
Listen in order to listen and not to reply nor to judge.
Well, think about Bob Dylan event.
I know that starting from Dylan isn't the most popular choice these days.
But, did anyone ask him what was his opinion?
Did anyone ask him why did he behave like that?
No, nobody did.
After an initial silent phase, we were all ready to label him.
He is overbearing, arrogant. Who does he think he is?
Then he stated: "Thank you, sorry, you're very polite ...
but I can't, I have things to do."
So other arguments broke out.
You answer that way when they invite you to a school classmates reunion.
You say "I have things to do."
It's not fair.
Who knows, maybe he doesn't feel up to it.
I don't know. We didn't ask him.
This is what we usually do.
We listen very little.
We listen as much as we need to put a label.
I think you are doing this, we all do this.
"Ah, look how he is dressed."
"Ah, what about the guitar?"
"Ah, that Milanese accent."
"It's not all that difficult."
So, whatever happens here ...
we label very quickly.
Alternatively ...
we listen as much as we need to reply.
Think about a business meeting.
One speaks, then the second and then the third.
At a certain point I flip out.
I start preparing my answer.
I don't listen to the others anymore.
Or at a conference, when they say:
"Later there will be time for the questions."
I prepare my question, I don't listen to what they say anymore.
Just listen in order to listen
This is the first exercise that I recommend to you.
Then there is the "S" in the word 'ascolto'.
Do we listen exclusively to words?
There are many elements that help us to listen.
There are three channels through which we express what we have inside.
Words.
Verbs, nouns, adjectives, and so on.
Then there is the phonetic channel.
Well-read people call it prosody.
The sounds.
The timbre of the voice and its loudness.
If your timbre is like that of Gassmann, Proietti or Gruber you're lucky.
If your voice sounds like that of a political leader ...
you may flounder.
Or like Mario Giordano.
With that voice you need to make a lot of efforts.
But if I have a Gassmann-voice, I start speaking with this tone ...
I go on for ten minutes ...
everyone would fall asleep.
Sometimes you need to speak louder. Other times you must keep your voice down.
Sometimes you need to speak faster in order to draw attention.
Other times people speak more slowly.
Sometimes we make ...
some pauses.
Think about that hole in the stomach ...
when your doctor checks your blood test results.
And at a certain point ...
You start to feel ...
very anxious.
You could employ your lover or your friends ...
to try this experiment about the effects of a pause.
You should take this person out of the blue,
shake her and ask her:
"Tell me the truth!"
"Do you love me?"
And he or she could reply:
"Yes!"
But what did you feel before hearing the answer you expected?
And then there is the physical side.
Dressing, smile, posture.
Think about the gestures.
If I say, "We have a great opportunity."
I say "great" but with my hands, I make a little gesture.
How much does it excite you?
"I am very happy to be here at TED today."
You wouldn't believe me.
If I say: "I'm very happy!"
You could believe me.
So, this is the second exercise.
We listen not only to words but also to many other elements around them.
"C." This stands for "certain words."
It is appropriate to listen to certain words. Which ones?
We have a huge amount of words in our languages.
185,000 words are contained in that big dictionaries.
The richest dictionary has 465,000 words.
It's made up by six or seven volumes. I don't remember.
It contains both common words and words deriving from "DIS."
DIS means Special Italian Dictionaries.
DIS are related to specific fields: medicine, law, insurance, banking, sport.
Think about the language of computer technicians:
Zip, drop, backup, upload it.
Download, print, flag, re-upload it.
Among them they are fluent, they understand each other.
What would happen if I said a word in my DIS and you read it in yours?
Let's take the word "prize".
I meant the cup because I am a sportsman.
You meant the payment of the insurance policy.
In this context 'positive' and 'negative' mean what they say.
"How was TED?" "Very positive." You must be happy about that.
In the context of a medical analysis 'positive' has the opposite meaning.
It's not a shade of meaning.
Next week, if we vote, we will vote 'yes' to say yes and 'no' to say no.
Referendum usually works the opposite way.
Among this huge amount of ambiguous words,
we have around 250 special words.
They are called "hot words"; words that warm our heart.
And among these, around 50 are named "key words."
Key words can open our heart or they can lock it.
It must be happened to someone named Alessandro, like me.
When we introduce ourselves: "Alessandro." "Me too! Great!"
But the first thing that comes to your mind is you, your children,
the people you love.
If I could see some white-haired heads among you,
I'd know that the word "Fornero" maybe can change your temperature.
So, it's useful, while listening, to recognize the words that give energy;
strength, love, health, honour, freedom.
The words on which people put emphasis.
Let's recognize them and treat them with the utmost care.
"O."
"O" (or) is a word that creates a crossroads.
Do you eat this or that?
Do you prefer staying here or there?
Disjunctive conjunction.
When we hear a story told by someone, are we listening only to the story?
Or is our listening influenced by our perception, prejudices and representation?
Put here three things.
Here there are the facts of life.
A football match, a war, an act of love.
Here is my perception.
Here there is what I say to people about that topic.
There are people confusing these three levels.
There are people who believe they always think the truth.
There are people who think they always tell the truth.
There are people who think they always say what they think.
Many people say:
"I don't mince my words. I say everything I think."
If you are like this, you have to go to a Pacific Island,
throw away the keys and don't cause trouble.
When you were about six months old you could say everything you thought.
Think about six-months-old children. After their meal, they are taken,
put on the shoulders, and cuddled.
Mum gives little pats on their back.
By doing so, the child can show the world his happiness.
And when he shows it, his mother says:"My sweetie, love you burped."
By the time this child is 14,
he should have filtered what is said, shown, or heard.
So, let's distinguish the reality from thoughts about reality
from its linguistic representation.
Let's weigh up these three levels.
"L" stands for logic and logical structures.
What is logical analysis?
It is the analysis of the sequences of words in a sentence.
One day, in a convent, a novice asked his prior:
"Father, can I smoke while I pray?"
He was reprimanded as the worst of sinners.
After a minute, another novice asked the same prior:
"Father, can I pray while I smoke?"
He was praised for his devotion.
This story may seem stupid but smoking while praying
and praying while smoking is totally the same thing.
The difference lies in the perception of the other.
There are people who, before telling you something, have to explain their premises.
Those who say:
"I have something to tell you.
But let me explain my premise."
I don't care. Tell me the fact!
Or vice versa.
There are people who call a spade a spade.
You may need to know the causes of that effect.
If a doctor says to his patient:
"Mr. Mario, Giovanni whatever the situation is pretty serious.
Luckily we got in in time.
We are optimistic for the future."
Or he says: "Luckily we got it in time, we are optimistic,
but the situation is pretty serious."
It's the same reality, isn't it?
What changes is the perception.
So, the logical sequences: cause and effect; effect and cause.
Past, present, future; future, past, present
are the meaning that people give to what they have to say.
Let's listen to them, without judging. Let' recognize and appreciate them.
Second to last exercise.
Listen to what lies between the words.
"T" stands for "trans".
Trans means "beyond."
Between and beyond the words.
For example, mums are very good at reading between the words.
"How was school today?" "Mmm."
So, from that, "Mmmh", mum starts digging up.
Does "Mmmh" mean that you failed, that you skipped it,
or that the teacher wasn't at school?
In their investigations, mums are moved by love.
Detectives investigate too, but with police and coercive methods.
Psychoanalysts investigate too.
We should go through and beneath the words in order to listen.
We could help the speaker by asking good questions.
Let's take the sentence: "I'm scared."
What scares you? How long have you been scared?
How are you scared?
In which way?
Where did you feel that you were scared?
The question: "Why?" is not always a good question.
"I don't want to go out with you." "Why?"
"Because I said no!"
The question: "Why?" often provokes a closure.
By facing the issue less directly, you could go under, inside, around words.
This way, you can bring something important to light.
And now there is the last point.
The "O" of "ascolto" requires doing a weird thing.
I ask you to read this sentence backwards.
It is like when, landing after a flight,
you think about the journey and about its starting point.
Read it backwards.
"Once upon a time."
"C'era una volta."
"il était une fois."
"Había una vez."
Almost all tales start in this way, with this formula.
It is the narration of the narrations. Tales are stories par excellence.
And people tell stories.
We listen to the stories of people. They are not just the facts.
They represent the value that people give to that fact.
If I had to tell you something about this pen,
I would tell you that it's plastic with some metal.
I would tell you the fact.
If I told you what this pen represents for me,
you could get an idea from the fact that I keep it here,
in my pocket not in my pencil case.
It's its value, it's the person who gave it to me.
It's the value I give to it.
People don't make love or war for facts,
but for the meaning they give to these facts.
So ...
there are people who tell you about their medical exam,
or about the film or TED they watched.
Other people tell you stories that they would like to live someday.
"I have a dream."
Martin Luther King described his goal in the form of a dream.
A dream is a story in the past.
The power to move between past and present is a typical feature of all stories.
Let's listen to people's stories with love.
This is the biggest act of love we can perform to someone.
Just listen to their stories.
And given that I have the sensation that you've listened to me.
Just let me say:
Thank you.
(Applause)