The Land of Listeners

[Peredhil]

The scientist-priests of society, who explain the forces that move through humanity in terms that reduce and reassure, tell us that all energy is a vibration. Our senses are detectors, that decode particular frequencies of vibrations. So the skin detects infrared, while the ear decodes the vibrations we call sound, and the eyes decode the frequencies we call sight. It is not that way in all creatures, for instance, the common Honey Bee is blind to the color red, seeing it as black, but in turn sees the wonders of ultra-violet that we cannot.

 

In the Land of Listeners, there was a very peculiar adaptation unique to them. They had another organ of perception. Not an ear, or an eye, but something else. Let's call it an eyear. With their eyes they could see body language and with their ears they could hear the tones of a voice, but the eyear let them hear the special metalanguage that surrounds our normal human communications. It decoded the body language's nuances and the intonations of voice and precisely identified whether the person was being sarcastic, or loving, or lying, or genuine. Was that hug lustful or comforting? The eyear removed all doubt. It was as if all people spoke the language of the other lands around them, but at the same time, communicated in a rich, vibrant language of all their own, all at the same time.

 

Pity the poor person who entered the Land of the Listeners from any other land. They constantly spoke in ways that miscommunicated and confused the Listeners, their spoken words at variance with their metalanguage. Their lips said, "yes" while their eyes screamed "no no no", for example. Oh, they tried, and if they lived there long enough, they developed some facility, as a deaf person can mimic the inflection and enunciation of speech, and yet...

 

Can you picture the both sides, struggling to communicate? The confusions, the misunderstandings? The poor Tourist constantly confused because what they said was being taken by the Listeners in all the wrong ways, deaf to their own metalanguage, while the Listeners, acutely social, had trouble accepting that the Tourist really could be so *stupid* or rude or crass.

"Really. I mean to say, I know they don't have an eyear but they do have eyes and do have ears and surely they can understand why you don't tell THAT joke in front of my GRANDMOTHER. It was like a person with no nose farting in public continually and unaware it could be offensive! There is a time and place that even a Tourist should know!"

 

Even the educated Listeners had trouble truly understand what it felt like to be a Tourist, and the Tourist always felt how alien they were to the Listener's society.

Can you understand both sides yet?

 

 

 

 

Having the form of autism to lesser or greater degree that our scientist-priests label "Asperger's Syndrome" is like being a Tourist in a land of Listeners. Well, no, it isn't really, but for purposes of understanding, perhaps you'll accept this parable instead of the inexpressible truth?

[Azuran]

This is obviously important to you. I will say only that I thought it did exactly what you intended, and helped me to understand just a little bit better. Thank you.