“We follow the Rule of St. Benedict,” this monk explained, “and the first word of that rule is ‘Listen.’ That’s the great ethical element of silence: to check my words and listen to another point of view.”

The Field Guide to Typography: Typefaces in the Urban Landscape

Hearing is a physical process involving sound waves and the body. We know about it because it is easy to study; listening, the interpretation of those sound waves, is harder to quantify. “To hear is the physical means that enables perception,” Oliveros continued. “To listen is to give attention to what is perceived, both acoustically and

There’s no reason to learn how to show you’re paying attention, if you are in fact paying attention. —CELESTE HEADLEE

Hein has his students pick a single sound within a song, listen for it, and tune out everything else. Maybe it’s the bass; maybe it’s the vocal. Or maybe this means zeroing in on the chorus and identifying each sound within that. Hein makes his students create lists and diagrams of their conclusions. What instrument or piece of gear produced that

Trickster Makes This World, an excellent book about such acts of disruptive imagination, scholar and writer Lewis Hyde

One of the final challenges—“observe something else”—urges readers to go somewhere (“a park, a mall, a gas station, a café”), sit awhile, and just look. “Pause and imagine what a single person is thinking,”

OOK AT SOMETHING stationary, look away, and then jot down everything you saw. Now look back and see how you did.

Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”