I like to listen to people’s problems. It is the curiosity in me. I have the chance to peek into other people’s lives and help them out of it. And people love talking about themselves. The best way for me to spend a late night is to sit with someone face to face in a quiet environment and just talk. For me, it is the most stimulating thing that I can be doing outside of my cafe coding projects. It is the social equivalent of a dance.

I still find it hard not to make listening all about myself. You need to bite your tongue several times and keep yourself from interjecting with your own thoughts. Everyone loves to talk about themselves - and you want to use that for your own benefit by letting them do that. The more they do it, the more they enjoy it, and thus the more they enjoy you.

The second thing about listening is that you really need to be listening. It is not just ticking off the seconds for them to stop talking so that you can talk. Perhaps this is just something that I learned from listening to my dad lecture me for long periods of time … only to end the talk with a pop quiz. Gotta be listening and can’t be flying off into la la land.

You can show that you were listening well by asking good questions. My friend Jenny has gotten mad at me for asking shallow, vapid questions that feel like they have no other purpose than for filling the air with sound. Asking someone a question that they have to answer by re-phrasing their story, recounting a detail within it, or defining something in their story are low effort questions. When someone is telling me their story, I am thinking about it like as if I were watching it in a movie. Why is something happening the way it is? What are their motivations? Would they want to redo it again? Those questions though are tiring to answer - and I have to realize when someone is just recounting their day to me as part of their reflection, asking from me their empathy, and when they are open to genuinely thought provoking response.

Many people feel uncomfortable in continued silence. You can use this open secret to get them to dig deeper into what they’ve just said without having to do yourself. You are walking with someone and they’re telling you a story or something they have recently realized. Then what they’ve been telling you ends and it is just the two of you walking. Sometimes I just keep on walking, without having responded to the story - often much to the teller’s surprise. Taken aback by this, they sometimes awkwardly add a coda to their story - and it is often that coda I find the most interesting. Of course, if you use it too often then they catch on and think you are just not listening. That’s bad.

I read somewhere that Steve Jobs watches you in your eyes while he talks to you. Shortly afterwards, I started trying it on people. Even when they are not looking at me, I am looking right at them. When they are looking at me, I stare straight into the darks of their eyes. Many of them notice. Sometimes they ask you what is wrong. If that happens then you should probably cut it out because it is making them too uncomfortable. Other times, they feel that you are intensely, immensely interested in them and they really like it. Might work during first dates. Don’t do it on your parents.

You’re reading people while you’re listening. Guessing at what they want by feeling through the tone of their voice, the words they’re using, and the looks in their eyes. You need to figure when it is right to lightly touch with a piece of advice, offer up your own story, push for a course of action, or just nod and empathetically offer your shoulder. When they are uncomfortable, you need to latch onto that and figure if it is because of you or something else. Usually it’s you, ha.

Looking back at all these thoughts about listening, I realize that it is just like George Orwell’s rules of writing. At the end of all these serious, concrete rules is exactly the sort of subtle, blanket statement that makes no sense and yet all of it at the same time: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Let yourself know when it is okay to do that.