Kayan (4/26) : Listening Is an Act of Love

This is a book of excerpts from the StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.

Here's the concept:
- StoryCorps sets up StoryBooths across the country.
- You reserve a time slot.
- You bring someone - a friend, your grandma, the janitor you see everyday but to whom you've never said hello.
- You interview that person in a 40-minute session. The conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home. Another copy is made for the Library of Congress.

What I love about the concept is this: It is built on the belief that ordinary people embody extraordinary stories. In fact, the stories themselves do not have to be out of the ordinary to be extraordinary. The (in the case of StoryCorps) American experience is not about the newspaper headlines, or celebrities, or politics, and definitely not reality TV. The American story is instead told and enlightened by the human strength, character, and bond shown everyday, between family, friends, neighbors, sometimes strangers. In fact, in many of these stories, the history takes a backseat while the human experience is highlighted. Instead of the shouts of the civil rights movement, we hear the humble voice of a black woman who fought for her right to vote in the south. Instead of the protests of Vietnam, we hear the sobs of a veteran who is still haunted by the memory of his buddies dying in combat.

Dave Isay, who came up with the idea and picked this over medical school as his life's work, points out that something distinctly magical happens when two people sit across from each other behind a microphone. Participants know their recordings will live for years in the Library of Congress, accessible by strangers for generations to come. And yet, in the quiet privacy and security of the booth, barriers and veils are magically lifted. Emotions and secrets, bottled up for years, all of a sudden come pouring out, in the confidence of a trusted listener.

I love the title of this book, because every person has a need to be listened to, to be understood. And while StoryCorps' initial goal was to record stories and experiences that represent the American story, I think it surprised even Dave Isay himself that StoryCorps ended up encapsulating and honoring the innate human need to be heard.



Listen to some stories.



By the way, this is the perfect book for me. I have short attention span when it comes to reading, and this is just one satisfying supershort story after another.