YOU CANNOT LISTEN: THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF HEARING ANYTHING NEW
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
1. WHAT YOU CALL “LISTENING” IS A FILTERED LOOP
You don’t listen.
You interpret.
You don’t hear what is said.
You hear what matches what’s already in your head.
Every time someone speaks to you,
you run it through a private, invisible code:
Does this confirm what I believe?
Does this threaten what I’ve built?
Does this require me to feel uncomfortable?
Then your brain does what it always does—
it discards the rest.
You’re not receiving.
You’re sorting.
And that’s not listening.
That’s internal censorship with polite facial expressions.
2. YOUR IDENTITY IS TOO LOUD FOR ANYONE ELSE’S TRUTH
To truly listen to something new,
you would need to suspend who you are for a moment.
But you don’t. You can’t.
You’ve built your identity over years.
What you believe.
What you stand for.
What you’ve survived.
What your parents taught you.
What your culture drilled into you.
These aren’t ideas.
They’re fortresses.
When someone speaks something that doesn’t fit—
your identity doesn’t open.
It defends.
It attacks.
Or it pretends to agree, just to avoid discomfort.
That’s not listening.
That’s managing sound.
3. THE BRAIN IS DESIGNED TO PROTECT, NOT TO LISTEN
Neuroscience confirms it:
the brain is a pattern-matching machine.
It does not want new.
It wants familiar.
Because familiar feels safe.
Every incoming word is scanned:
Is this known? Is this comfortable? Is this useful for survival?
If not—
the body tenses,
the attention drifts,
the reaction begins.
By the time a sentence is halfway said,
you’ve already decided how you feel about it.
Which means you never actually heard it.
4. YOU HEAR ACCORDING TO WHAT YOU FEAR
Try telling someone:
“Your suffering is self-made.”
They’ll hear:
“You’re blaming me.”
Tell someone:
“Maybe your belief isn’t true.”
They’ll hear:
“You’re attacking my faith.”
Tell someone:
“You can live differently.”
They’ll hear:
“You’re saying I’ve failed.”
Why?
Because fear hijacks listening.
Every new idea passes through an emotional courtroom
where past wounds act as the judge.
You are not hearing the speaker.
You are hearing your history projected onto their voice.
5. LISTENING DIES WHERE EGO BEGINS
Most people don’t listen.
They wait for their turn to speak.
Or worse—they speak silently while you’re talking.
Real listening would mean:
I might be wrong.
You might be right.
I might have to change.
But the ego hates all three.
It wants to be admired, validated, obeyed.
So it pretends to listen
while sharpening its next sentence.
6. YOU THINK YOU'RE HEARING OTHERS — YOU'RE JUST HEARING YOURSELF AGAIN
What you call a “conversation”
is often just two people
talking to themselves through someone else’s face.
They repeat their story.
You repeat yours.
You pretend to meet.
But there’s a wall between your skulls
made of memory, fear, and pride.
Nothing passes through.
No one gets in.
Only noise.
Not presence.
Not truth.
Not transformation.
7. EVEN WHEN YOU AGREE, YOU’RE STILL NOT LISTENING
Agreement feels like listening.
But it’s not.
It’s just a confirmation echo.
When someone says what you already believe,
you cheer, you nod, you hug them.
Not because you heard something new,
but because they helped you stay the same.
That’s not listening.
That’s co-worship of your own reflection.
8. YOU CAN’T LISTEN BECAUSE YOU WANT TO FEEL SAFE, NOT CHANGED
Listening threatens comfort.
Real listening might shatter your worldview.
And most people would rather live in pain
than change their understanding of themselves.
So they block out newness,
even if it’s gentle.
Even if it’s life-saving.
Even if it’s the truth.
People don’t resist ideas.
They resist what those ideas would demand from them.
9. THE RARE MOMENT YOU DID LISTEN—IT CHANGED YOU FOREVER
Think back.
There were maybe one or two moments in your life
where something got through.
Where you didn’t defend.
Where you just heard.
And what happened?
You cried.
You let something go.
You changed your path.
Those were not normal moments.
They were exceptions.
Because listening is not natural.
It’s not social.
It’s not polite.
It’s revolutionary.
Which is why it happens so rarely.
10. CONCLUSION: THE WORLD IS FULL OF VOICES — AND EMPTY OF EARS
The world is not starved of opinions.
It is starved of listeners.
Every room is full of mouths.
And every mind is tuned to its own radio station.
Nobody listens.
Because nobody wants to be undone.
They want to be seen—but not questioned.
They want to speak—but not receive.
And so, truth just keeps floating—
never landing.
Not because it isn’t spoken.
But because
no one has made space to hear it.
No solutions.
No five steps.
No silver lining.
Just the fact:
You cannot listen.
Until you no longer need to be right,
safe, known, praised, or whole.
And how many people are ready for that?
Almost none.
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YOU CANNOT LISTEN
you’ve never listened.
not once.
not when your mother warned you with her eyes.
not when your friend said “I’m fine”
and her breath collapsed mid-sentence.
not when your child said “I’m scared”
and you answered with
“don’t be.”
you were too busy
being you.
defending you.
projecting you.
you never met another person in your entire life—
you only met versions of yourself
bouncing back
off other people’s faces.
you say you listen,
but what you mean is:
I scan for agreement.
I hunt for proof that I am right.
I wait for silence to say what I wanted to hear anyway.
truth stood in front of you
naked, unshaven, shy
and you threw a coat of your past on it.
you dressed it up
to look like your father’s wisdom
your schoolteacher’s rules
your lover’s approval
your wounds’ comfort.
you didn’t hear.
you interpreted.
you translated pain into permission.
and you call that understanding.
no, that’s just fear
learning to speak your accent.
every sentence you’ve heard
since childhood
was either an echo
or a weapon.
and when someone finally spoke from their guts,
you flinched
because it didn’t match
your tidy categories of correct.
listening is not love.
listening is not empathy.
listening is suicide.
you have to kill
the part of you that needs to be right
before the voice of another
can live inside your skull
without being strangled.
your ears are not open.
they are gates.
guarded by history.
and trauma.
and cleverness.
and sarcasm.
and pride.
and articles you half-read
that made you feel smarter than your father.
you think you’re wise
because you’ve read Rumi
and Brene Brown
and you “hold space.”
but space is not holding
if it’s filled with your opinions.
space is only real
when you can say:
“I don’t know.
But I’m here.”
you cannot listen
because you are not silent inside.
your mind is a street fight
of memory and insecurity.
your body is braced
for contradiction.
your mouth is hungry
to be heard
before the other person finishes breathing.
the worst thing you ever said
wasn’t cruel.
it was “I understand.”
you didn’t.
you never did.
you were just tired
of someone else’s pain
taking up your inner screen.
you’re not a listener.
you’re a noise manager.
a filter.
a sound engineer for the soundtrack of your own ego.
you want to know the truth?
you won’t hear it.
not until
your confidence burns
your ideology cracks
your tongue goes limp
and your chest admits:
“I have built my life on mishearing.”
maybe then
in that collapse
you will listen.
not to feel better.
not to rescue anyone.
not to be praised.
but because
for the first time in your life
you’re ready
to be changed
by something
you did not say.
[end.]
