Hearing and Listening

"Don't you hear sincerity in my voice when I talk?"

-Eminem, "Love the Way You Lie"

I really hate that I quoted Eminem, but that line really sticks out to me. How often do we actually listen to the desperate cries of other people? How many times do you ignore the homeless man or woman on the street corner? How often do you simply tune out when someone is putting their heart on the line? When people speak, are you hearing, or are you listening? The paranoia in me leads me to believe that this happens to me a lot. The root of my paranoia is the knowledge that I have tuned people out before.

For twelve pages total (six, front-back) Cassandra goes on and on in what appears to be a schizophrenic episode, when it is nothing short of true insight and arrant helplessness. At first read, I thought she was hysterical, and in a way she is. But, I really felt her frustration with speaking nothing short of absolute truth and not being heard. A lot of her frustration could be with herself for being the cause of her own predicament, then combine it with the failed hopes of thinking just for once somebody might be listening to her. In a nostalgic way, Cassandra reminds me of the days of yore and The Boy Who Cried Wolf; they both brought on their own miseries and I pity them just the same.

Commented on Alexandra (a.k.a. Captain Awesome).