Listen

There is something I do not understand. Why don't people listen? And when they do listen, why do they loose their sense of humor? Let me give a background of what prompted this piece. I am a graduate student at Penn State University and part of a yahoogroup of the Indian students that attend the school. Every once in a while, the group experiences some fervent activity. There's no predicting what may start the landslide of belligerent emails on the group. One time, it was started by the OBC reservation issue (as expected) but it graduated to so much more. By the end of it, people were fighting about the north-south divide as some hapless/ stupid/ arrogant folk wondered in text about why south-Indians always misplace the letter H in their spellings. Being inexperienced in the affairs of the world, I didn't quite expect the torrent of 20+ emails on the group within a matter of hours. I had thought it was a humorous point of note. I'd never spotted that pattern and had thought - 'interesting'. But apparently, it was not. It was outrageous.
Amidst all these, there was a group of people who demanded that no matter of any consequence be discussed on the group. That the group should be limited to posting for apartment sublets and rides to nearby cities. I then wrote an email on that group explaining why such emails should be there, how they constitute just a fraction of the junk that we receive everyday, and finally how easy it is for someone not interested in them to club such mails with all the junk and delete it.
This time it was a mildly entertaining piece on what a newcomer to US notices, forwarded by a certain somebody who had gained quite a notoriety through an earlier sequence of emails on the group. That again started a verbal conflict. Though not so heated this time, we sure received a threat to quit the group, and finally a few days later the person quit. Interesting!
One of my acquaintances has a proclivity to denounce one and all (barring a chosen few!). Whenever he denounces somebody, I ask 'why' and then may be another 'why'. For quite some time, his reply has been 'I do not want to discuss it with you'.
So why don't people listen? Is it because they get the luxury to believe that they are right? I think it is. Probably I can understand this. At one time, I was hugely upset with someone for shouting at me. When I called this person and listened to the reasons behind the outburst, I was even more frustrated. Thinking from this person's point of view, I felt 'well, may be from another perspective....'. Even though I had done nothing wrong, I had no one to vent my anger at and feel better about it. In fact, I discovered that it had become a habit with me where anyone could say anything and when I'd put myself in his/her position, I'd say 'well, maybe ...'.
I guess this is why some people don't listen. The less they listen, the more it makes them right. The better their day goes.
I, however, think that a better sense of humor will achieve the same ends.