Think, read, talk, LISTEN

Our motto at Indiana Humanities is “Think. Read. Talk.”

One of the reasons we adopted it was to give people a simplistic way of understanding what the humanities were and how they could interact with them. Everyone thinks, reads and talks, right? Those aren’t “scary” words like “humanities” can be.

One of our fears in going with this simple three-word approach, however, was that one important word in particular was left out– Listen.

While we’re definitely proponents of listening, we felt that the word “talk” implied that one would also be listening. To talk is to imply conversation or discussing — something that requires give and take.

The last time I talked with someone — let’s say the several folks at Yelp’s Totally Bazaar event last night — I also listened. I listened as a mother and daughter told me about their relative who collected interesting books and how she would love this for her collection. I listened as a young man told me about a parent who grew up on a farm.  I listened to a chef describe how influential Judy Schad and her goat cheese was to a colleague.

When was the last time you listened, and what did they have to say?

Indiana Humanities is participating in the December Think Kit challenge by writing something every day based on a writing prompt provided by the folks at SmallBox. This post  was written by Kristen Fuhs Wells, director of communications.