I’m Rubber, You’re Glue.

There is an old kids playground retort that goes, “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!” that I was reminded of when I read how sound waves bounce off the ocean as if its glass, and it got me thinking that in relationship, we do that too. When engaged in an argument, we often find ourselves entrenched in our position, and we simply do not hear the remarks or responses our partner says. They essentially bounce off you.

If you consider what it actually takes to hear someone you are communicating with, it goes like this between party A and B:

Party A conceives of a thought, they send messages to their head, neck and face muscles, tongue and also their ribcage to turn the thought into the spoken word. Then, they form the word and impel it across the space between A and B. The sound wave they generate has to propagate across the space by air molecules bumping into each other until those sound waves hit the outer ear of B. Speaker A has to impel the sound wave with enough energy for the sound actually reach the outer ear of B such that as B processes the sound, it can be heard. (I am reminded of the soft speaker episode of Seinfeld). Once the outer ear of B redirects the wave into the ear canal, the wave has to be turned into a wave that propagates through water. B’s tympanic membrane, or ear drum does this. The membrane vibrates with the sound wave setting up oscillations in the inner ear bones, which amplify the sound and pass the vibrations on to the oval window of the inner ear. This is an ingenious mechanism designed to cause a nerve impulse propagated in air to be sent to the cochlear which translates the vibrations from air to liquid. In the cochlear, there are tiny hairs called cilia, which are the sound receptors. As the fluid vibrates the movement of the vibration cause the cilia to bend. As they bend, each cilia, which is tuned to a particular frequency or pitch of sound, sends an electrical impulse to the auditory nerve, which in turn carries the impulse, called an action potential, to the auditory cortex in several areas of the brain, including the Brains Stem where timing and volume are processed, the Mid Brain, where sound location is processed, and the Thalamus which relays the signal to the cortex. In the auditory cortex, the brain processes pitch, rhythm, tone and timber. It also distinguishes between sounds and matches sounds to memory. When the sounds are spoken language, another part of the brain, called Wernicke’s Area, kicks in, which is responsible for understanding words and grammar. At that point, the brain connects the impulses to Broca’s area so that B can both understand and respond.

It does not stop there. Having recognized the sound, including interpreting meaning, emotion, and context, then. B processes what they have heard, formulates a response or an acknowledgement and the process starts again from B to A.

This is a long winded way to say, stop and listen, don’t just let their words bounce off you. Hearing is not the same as understanding. That is why in good communication, if B does not understand the sounds that A is making, they should seek clarification.

I wrote an earlier blog with the title, “The Other Part of Communication” which addresses active listening listening. Its worth a read.

My larger point is that when we are in a, let’s call it, combative conversation, we tend not to listen at all. We tend instead, the listen to our own opinion about that the other person is saying. So, while all the mechanics of listening stay the same, the process of hearing, understanding and calmly responding to what was heard precisely, is impacted by our own internal tendency to do all we can to make ourselves look good socially. What that means is that we tend to respond as if we are under attack and our very survival is at stake. I like to say that we behave like drunk monkeys.

Humans have higher cognitive skills, after all we have a cerebral cortex. And yet, we respond with our hindbrain, or what I like to call, our lizard brain. Kids up until age about 25 (some say 27) tend to respond in this manner more routinely. It’s why auto insurance is higher for especially young men till that age.

I like to say that we have higher cognitive skills, free will and volition. We should, by all rights be able to stop and listen, think and respond. But, we tend to bark out a response from our hind brain rather than take a minute to think about what we want to say in response, before responding.

That is the take away…stop and listen, think BEFORE you respond to anyone where you are having a disagreement. Set aside your inner drunk monkey, and use your higher cognitive skills effectively.