Listening like an elephant

I have never liked my ears. From early childhood, or at least from the time in human development when a child first looks in the mirror and feels self-conscious, I have found my hearing devices to be too big, too obtrusive. They fold out instead of back. They attract attention versus blend in. And so, ever since my parents stopped making me get crewcuts at the barbershop, I have let my hair grow, to cover a pair of anatomical imperfections that were not responsive to reshaping beneath the futile molding efforts of my dissatisfied fingers. Fortunately, in support of my purposeful cranial camouflage, my scalp has consistently produced an abundance of active hair follicles.

The natural world does not display a similar auricular neurosis. Aside from the fictional Disney character named Dumbo (my favorite boyhood story character), ears are celebrated in the animal kingdom, along with other sensory appendages that bring both evolutionary and daily benefit. Look at elephant ears. Drapes of sensitive skin cover a thin span of cartilage suffused with tiny capillaries capable of cooling the temperature of the massive mammal quickly and efficiently. Elephants signal and communicate with their ears, able to tell a threat to stay back as well as speak with a friend or family member across long distances. Each ear is distinctive and unique, like a human fingerprint. They are miracles of nature, elephant ears, features to be lauded, even revered. I’ve never had the opportunity to stroke an elephant’s ear but apparently it feels like touching soft velvet.

Why are humans so pre-occupied with our appearance? My nose is too this, my mouth or ears too that, my head something else entirely. We use our eyes to judge ourselves rather than focusing attention on the world outside, the environment in which we live, the people and the myriad of biology and species with whom we share the bliss of being. My dog has nice ears. I’ve never caught her examining herself in the mirror, however, noticing their differences. She doesn’t seem to care if the hair behind them sometimes gets a little matted. Her ears are much smaller than an elephant’s but they get similar use: listening.

Self-awareness is not all it’s alleged to be. The routine hum of our minds, whether we are allegedly awake or asleep, seems more like a continuous noise machine than a reminder to notice, to try to understand, to help guide us to be useful. I exist! the mind shouts. Ha, look at me! I’m here. Look at me. Look, oh, wait, look here. This part of me is odd, not as nice or perfect at it could me, just another example of how insufficient I am, how imperfect, how, well, so very, uh, human.

It may not be lost on you that the words “hear” and “hear” sound the same, despite having different meanings and word origins. Listening to the language of elephants makes me wonder if those words really are so very different. When I hear you, I am right here doing so. When you hear me, you are right here too, even when you are there.

“Why grandmother, what big ears you have!” says Little Red Riding Hood, in the well known children’s fable. “The better to hear you with, my dear,” replies the wolf, disguised as Little Red’s grandmother. The moral of the dark tale is that children should not trust strangers (and maybe specifically strangers with big ears). But how are we to learn about each other if, from a young age, we are taught not to trust people who are new, unusual, or different?

Unlike fairy tales, elephants don’t judge strangers by the size of their ears, noses, or mouths. They listen – with their trunks, ears, and other senses – to learn intent but more importantly to greet and to remember. They focus their diverse hearing skills on what is right in front of them, what is happening in the present, what is happening in the distance and yet is still here, now, in this moment. Their memories are prodigious, yes, but perhaps only as ways of boosting the current experience of here based on the previous use of hear. Thus, they embrace, grieve with, and rely on each other, often with gusto. They are acutely aware, it appears, of their interdependence. They use their senses as inherent features of that intertwined social existence.

There are possibly a million and one ways that I, as one human being with ears smaller than an elephant’s, could listen better. Near the top of that list may be learning to turn my sensing tools outward, toward the world around me. That’s the direction my auricles of sound detection are faced, after all. My mind has its hands full dealing with all the racket generated by its own operation. My ears can offer me gentle respite from the cacophony of the interior. I should be thankful they are shaped to extend from my skull, instead of being pinned closer to it. Their prominence enables me to better hear to be here.