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( the apartment )
I did see the newest Doctor Who episode - Listen, and now I understand the posts on my flist and the varying reactions. It was an interesting episode in that it dealt with various things that I've been thinking about lately. But I admittedly had troubles watching it - the commercials drove me bonkers. Every 15 minutes. And I can't fast-forward through them as easily or efficiently like I could with Time Warner. Time Warner had fast-forwarding and rewinding down to a science. Cablevision does not. Each time I try - I skip over the tv show and land on the commercial, when I rewind, I get caught in a loop, where it skips to 41 minutes than back to 44 minutes, then back again, driving me bonkers. Ugh. Tempted to call customer service and ask : why does this function suck and when will you fix it?
Anyhow...I now totally understand why two people thought of politics while watching Listen. Or related the episode to unrelated politics. (The other one was an American female, not a British male, as I original thought). It's due to the message, which is admittedly counter to what you would expect. ( spoilers )
But getting back to why I personally found it to be fascinating, and why it resonated for me on a certain level? Two things - first "LISTEN".The Doctor is told to LISTEN and tells others to LISTEN, but ironically, he doesn't listen. He spends a lot of time talking. Very rapidly. (I used to think this was a British thing, but I think it's just a Doctor thing.) And when he does listen he doesn't quite hear it clearly. He's baffled. I think one of the most ironic things about the information age - is that everyone is so busy talking, tweeting, texting, posting, etc that they aren't really reading or listening carefully to what is actually being said. We are in the age of scanning, skimming, and skipping. Too much information after all. We are distracted, too busy multi-tasking - watching tv while surfing the net, driving while talking on a phone, texting while watching a movie (really wish people would not do this). I certainly was distracted while watching Doctor Who, and later while attempting to watch Rectify (read a magazine, popped on the internet, went to the bathroom, did stretching exercises). And we have all these interruptions. If you are on the phone, someone buzzes in interrupting your conversation or your service clicks off. Or in person, you are chatting, and your friend or your own cell phone rings and of course you answer it - stopping the conversation or maybe during it, you sneak a quick text to Face Book or twitter. I've seen this happen in a lot of meetings. And if you are on the internet, reading this post - how much of it did you really read? I admit, I'm no better - I misread two posts in my scan, one I thought was about Doctor Who, was in reality about Marvel Agents of Shield (embarrassing). I need to stop skimming.
I remember on a fan board way back in 2003, a friend of mine wrote a comment in response to a poster about "writing carefully", and I thought afterwards, reading and listening carefully is equally important. If you don't, and you respond or not as the case may be - much chaos may ensue. We aren't passive when we read or listen. We do affect and change what is being said by our mere act of listening or not listening carefully. How we listen can change or influence what is actually said.
For example? I skimmed over my flist last night. There were several reviews on the Doctor Who episode Listen. I just read the blurbs, nothing beneath the cut, in order to avoid spoilers. Two of the posts I misread. One was discussing Marvel Agents of Shield not Doctor Who. The other stated, Doctor Who and unrelated politics. I went back tonight and read both - and upon doing so, understood better what I'd read. But before doing that, I posted on what I thought I'd read in my own livejournal in which I said two posts related Doctor Who to politics and didn't seem to like it that well - resulting in various comments and criticisms of those two posts - stating how in the heck could anyone link that episode to politics. Now, having watched the episode myself and re-read the posts - I see how not reading them carefully, yet commenting on them - caused confusion and chaos. This is a minor example of how we can screw things up by not listening or reading something carefully. Sabotaging ourselves, the original post, and others in the process - and spreading misunderstanding and confusion.
When we listen or read something we engage in a conversation. In a Slate article about film actors - which I posted about recently, the writer states that actors who listen well - are better than those who don't. They provide meaning to the words being said or a reaction, giving context to the scene and action. ( spoilers )
The other bit that resonated, and can be interpreted more than one way depending on what is going on with you at this moment in time, was the dialogue on FEAR. ( major plot spoilers )
One of the better episodes that I've seen. Definitely the best one this year.
I did see the newest Doctor Who episode - Listen, and now I understand the posts on my flist and the varying reactions. It was an interesting episode in that it dealt with various things that I've been thinking about lately. But I admittedly had troubles watching it - the commercials drove me bonkers. Every 15 minutes. And I can't fast-forward through them as easily or efficiently like I could with Time Warner. Time Warner had fast-forwarding and rewinding down to a science. Cablevision does not. Each time I try - I skip over the tv show and land on the commercial, when I rewind, I get caught in a loop, where it skips to 41 minutes than back to 44 minutes, then back again, driving me bonkers. Ugh. Tempted to call customer service and ask : why does this function suck and when will you fix it?
Anyhow...I now totally understand why two people thought of politics while watching Listen. Or related the episode to unrelated politics. (The other one was an American female, not a British male, as I original thought). It's due to the message, which is admittedly counter to what you would expect. ( spoilers )
But getting back to why I personally found it to be fascinating, and why it resonated for me on a certain level? Two things - first "LISTEN".The Doctor is told to LISTEN and tells others to LISTEN, but ironically, he doesn't listen. He spends a lot of time talking. Very rapidly. (I used to think this was a British thing, but I think it's just a Doctor thing.) And when he does listen he doesn't quite hear it clearly. He's baffled. I think one of the most ironic things about the information age - is that everyone is so busy talking, tweeting, texting, posting, etc that they aren't really reading or listening carefully to what is actually being said. We are in the age of scanning, skimming, and skipping. Too much information after all. We are distracted, too busy multi-tasking - watching tv while surfing the net, driving while talking on a phone, texting while watching a movie (really wish people would not do this). I certainly was distracted while watching Doctor Who, and later while attempting to watch Rectify (read a magazine, popped on the internet, went to the bathroom, did stretching exercises). And we have all these interruptions. If you are on the phone, someone buzzes in interrupting your conversation or your service clicks off. Or in person, you are chatting, and your friend or your own cell phone rings and of course you answer it - stopping the conversation or maybe during it, you sneak a quick text to Face Book or twitter. I've seen this happen in a lot of meetings. And if you are on the internet, reading this post - how much of it did you really read? I admit, I'm no better - I misread two posts in my scan, one I thought was about Doctor Who, was in reality about Marvel Agents of Shield (embarrassing). I need to stop skimming.
I remember on a fan board way back in 2003, a friend of mine wrote a comment in response to a poster about "writing carefully", and I thought afterwards, reading and listening carefully is equally important. If you don't, and you respond or not as the case may be - much chaos may ensue. We aren't passive when we read or listen. We do affect and change what is being said by our mere act of listening or not listening carefully. How we listen can change or influence what is actually said.
For example? I skimmed over my flist last night. There were several reviews on the Doctor Who episode Listen. I just read the blurbs, nothing beneath the cut, in order to avoid spoilers. Two of the posts I misread. One was discussing Marvel Agents of Shield not Doctor Who. The other stated, Doctor Who and unrelated politics. I went back tonight and read both - and upon doing so, understood better what I'd read. But before doing that, I posted on what I thought I'd read in my own livejournal in which I said two posts related Doctor Who to politics and didn't seem to like it that well - resulting in various comments and criticisms of those two posts - stating how in the heck could anyone link that episode to politics. Now, having watched the episode myself and re-read the posts - I see how not reading them carefully, yet commenting on them - caused confusion and chaos. This is a minor example of how we can screw things up by not listening or reading something carefully. Sabotaging ourselves, the original post, and others in the process - and spreading misunderstanding and confusion.
When we listen or read something we engage in a conversation. In a Slate article about film actors - which I posted about recently, the writer states that actors who listen well - are better than those who don't. They provide meaning to the words being said or a reaction, giving context to the scene and action. ( spoilers )
The other bit that resonated, and can be interpreted more than one way depending on what is going on with you at this moment in time, was the dialogue on FEAR. ( major plot spoilers )
One of the better episodes that I've seen. Definitely the best one this year.