The power of listening

“The power of listening” is an oil pastel painting inspired by my dream. I see such images in my dreams, especially when I feel very lonely. Though this painting looks naive(actually it is), it has a meaning. A meaning that I have always searched for. Even in the middle of a lot of friends in my school and college life, only a few friends are worth to be called as a “friend”.

This painting is about a depressed elephant who has a lot of problems in life. One of his biggest problems is his work. Working with humans whole day and the pain of loneliness. The elephant still doesn’t know whether the physical pain of work or mental pain of loneliness hurts the most. One day, the elephant sees a scarecrow in the field. The elephant explains all his problems to the scarecrow and feels more relieved. Elephant continues this habit of opening up his heart to the scarecrow. Day by day, wounds on the elephant’s body and mind starts to heal.
This is the power of listening. The scarecrow is a symbol of a good listener, a good friend. The world lacks such good friends and this is one cause of all mental problems. All the loneliness, divorce, war etc stems from the lack of having someone in life to listen. We live in a selfish world where nobody has time for listening. If there is free time, all are interested in playing games, watching movies or chatting with someone in a fake manner. Everybody is chasing after money that the demand for sincere and unbiased listeners are sky-high. No wonder why artificially intelligent chatbots are getting so popular nowadays. Everyone is interested in listening to your success stories and bank balance details, but none is there to listen to your struggles. I hope the “scarecrows” won’t be more scarce in the future.
My best advice for everyone who has no such listeners in life is that either you try to find one asap or believe in God. A 5year old kid finds happiness and peace believing in imaginary friends(superhero cartoons, toys etc). There is nothing wrong with sharing your worries to the idol of the god. The problem starts when we start to think about everything logically. Life won’t offer you complete happiness if you need logic in everything. So stop rational thinking in everything and try to share your sorrow with someone and be a good listener for others. Never underestimate the power of listening; heal yourself and heal others too. 🙂