Despite the fact that I had sawn one of my sister's dolls in half, she got into a lot of trouble for hitting me with the three brass monkey set. Not only did I see stars, but there was a lot of ringing in my ears. This lasted for a few days. During that time, I thought that perhaps what the rabbit was telling me about my eyes and brain may be the same for my ears and that the brain may create sounds that my ears didn't quite hear. This was worth discussing with the rabbit, but my mum wouldn't let me go out until I was better. Better than what, I wasn't sure, so I went to find my dad who was trying to put my sister's doll back together. I asked him how the magic man had sawn the lady in half, and if we could figure out how he did it, we could fix the doll the same way. I also explained that I had this under control until my sister interrupted me, at which point my brain had been forced to stop communicating with my eyeballs - or was it the other way around? I didn't know. Anyway, my dad said he didn't know how the magician did the trick with the lady, so he would have to rely on old fashioned glue. I suggested that he use new glue.
When I was better - only my mother seemed to know when that was - I went off to see the rabbit.
. . .
"Does your ears work like your eyes?" I asked.
"Did that bang on your head affect your speech? The question is, do your ears work like your eyes, and the answer is - No! Eyes detect light, and ears respond to sound. In other words, eyes see and ears hear."
"I know that eyes see and ears hear, but does your brain work the same way with ears, like making up stuff."
"Yes, all of your senses communicate information to the brain and are subject to interruption, but your ears present a very unique problem from all of the rest."
"What's that?"
"Hearing is the sense that people have developed most, as part of their communication with each other. That is, they talk and listen to each other."
Talking seemed to be a useful way of communicating, except that my sister preferred to use a brass ornament. "Is talking, a sense?"
"No,"
"So why are my ears a problem?"
"Your eyes see what is around you, and you can determine a lot from that. Your ancestors used to communicate by drawing pictures because they didn't have words as such."
"My great-grandma and great-granddad can speak. I heard 'em," I pointed out, remembering that my mother told me that they were my ancestors.
"This goes back thousands of years. As people learned speech, they relied more and more on talking to communicate. Now, people tend just to hear the words and ignore what they see instead of listening and interpreting what someone is actually expressing. Over the years, we have forgotten the fundamental communication of visibly understanding someone's intentions from their motions. For the most part, we've also forgotten to listen to someone's expressions when they speak."
"I don't think that I'm old enough to have remembered, never mind forget," I pointed out.
"It's a skill that you could practice," stated the rabbit.
"Is this like when you said that appearance is important?"
"Yes. In both the audible and visual methods of communicating, the problem is twofold - for example - one person may want to say something but the words come out well. The second person may hear these poorly phrased words, but because of a lack of listening skills, they may misinterpret those words. This could very well cause a totally confused line of communication. Similarly, a person may make what they know to be a friendly gesture towards someone, but that person, who is unacquainted with the customs of the first person, may interpret their gesture as being hostile. Needless to say, this could lead to misunderstandings"
"If you don't need to say, why say it?"
"Because it needed to be said."
"Oh. Then, needless to say, I thoroughly didn't understand a word you said."
"Why do I bother?" asked the rabbit of no one in particular. "Let's go back to vision. Most of what you see is a one-way communication because people tend to not visually communicate. They get lazy and tend to rely less and less on visual communication, and more and more on audible communication."
The rabbit noticed the vague look on my face. "In simple terms - sound overrides sight!" said the rabbit, "but it didn't use to be like that."
"Oh!"
"But the words you hear are only as good as the words which were spoken. If someone cannot say the right words and you misunderstand the words you hear, then you have a compounded problem."
"So what am I suppose' to do?"
"Learn to speak properly for a start. That way, there is a better than even chance that someone may understand what you are trying to say," retorted the rabbit.
"I wasn't asking about speaking. I was asking about listening."
"This is even more difficult because you also have to understand what someone is trying to say, not necessarily what words they are speaking."
I remembered watching the neighbour's cat one day. It was lying on the window sill with its back towards me, dozing in the sunlight like it always does. I thought of how much cats looked like rabbits. If it wasn't for their long tails and short ears then they would look like a rabbit. Anyway, at that moment our dog came out of the house, saw me looking at the cat, saw the cat and started to bark. The cat just continued to lie there, but I noticed that its ears turned backwards. When the dog stopped barking the cat's ears turned forwards again. My ears didn't rotate and I wondered if rabbits could rotate their ears. "Do your ears rotate?"
"Like a helicopter?"
"No - like cat's ears."
"What's a cat?"
"You know what a cat is. It looks like a rabbit," I answered.
"How can it possibly look like a rabbit if it is not a rabbit?"
"Well, it's about the same size as a rabbit, but it has a long tail, short ears that rotate, and its eyes are on the front of its face instead of on the side, and it meows."
"From your description, it doesn't sound much like a rabbit. It sounds ugly."
"They're not ugly. Mind you, they're not all that smart. My mum and my sister and the girl from next door think that cats are smart, but cats just sit there and look at you. They don't understand anything that you tell them."
"Now why have you left it up to me to determine if your mum, your sister and the girl from next door do not understand anything that you tell them, or that cats do not understand anything you tell them?"
"Cats don't. Mind you, nor does my mum, my sister or the girl next doors," I clarified.
"That was a poorly phrased sentence, but fortunately, I was able to gather sufficient information from it to clarify your previous statement, but to carry on - perhaps cats don't listen properly," ventured the rabbit. "If they only have little ears, perhaps they can't hear very well."
"No, I think that they can hear because our neighbour's cat turned its ears when our dog barked at it. Can you turn your ears?" I asked again.
The rabbit's ears stood up, and he rotated them one at a time.
"Wow! I don't think that the cat can do that."
"I'm not surprised. Anything with eyes on the front of its face can't be all that smart," boasted the rabbit.
"My eyes are on the front," I said, somewhat hurt by the rabbit's comments.
"Can you rotate your ears?" asked the rabbit.
I tried everything I could to make an ear move, twisting my face it all contortions, only to admit defeat. Giving up, I asked, "Why don't cats listen to what you tell them?"
"I don't tell them anything," said the rabbit.
"Okay, why don't cats listen to what I tell them?"
"Who knows? Perhaps they don't understand what you are talking about, or perhaps they just don't want to know."
"I thought that you knew everything?"
"What?"
"Are you listening to me?"
"Sometimes," responded the rabbit. "Do you always listen to me?"
"I always listen," I boasted.
"We know that your ears don't rotate, but non-the-less, sounds do penetrate your ears. The next question is - do the messages get through to your brain?"
"I think so," I answered unsurely.
"Word communication is artificial," said the rabbit.
"What does that mean?"
"Words are unnatural - they are man-made."
"My sister makes words!"
"Made by mankind, not just made by men," corrected the rabbit annoyed that I had jumped off track. "Look at me," demanded the rabbit. "What do you see?"
"A fat rabbit that looks like a long-eared cat with no tail," I replied.
"Did you invent sight? By that I mean mankind, which includes men and women and boys and girls."
"What was the question?" I asked.
"Listen! Did you invent sight?"
"No"
"Did you invent colours?"
"No"
"Did you invent sound?"
"No"
"Did you invent words?"
"No"
"Yes, you did."
"Words were already there when I was born," I interjected.
"Mankind invented unique sounds called words. They use these words to communicate, but words are not natural sounds like colour is to light. They were manufactured. Some people make totally different sounds to say the same thing. Many people speak different languages."
"Once when we were in town I had heard somebody speak gibberish," I told the rabbit.
"It was only gibberish because you couldn't speak or understand their language. Unless they understand your language, your words would sound strange to them."
"That's stupid. I understand what I'm saying. I even understand what you say."
“Alors je te parle en franccais et on verra si tu comprends,” said the rabbit
"What was that?"
"I said that I would talk to you in French and see how much you understand."
"It's hard enough understanding you when you speak normal, never mind that other stuff," I mumbled.
Ignoring my comments, the rabbit continued, "so getting back to what we were talking about, words are a man-made creation used to communicate. As a consequence, you have become more and more dependent upon them and less dependent upon other forms of natural communication such as body movements and gestures."
"What body movements," I asked, frowning.
"Frowning is a good example. Hand gestures are another.
"What are gestures?"
"Where's the river from here?"
"Over there," I answered pointing with my thumb over my shoulder.
"Pointing is a simple hand gesture, so you do use body gestures.
"Oh, I see."
"But remember, there are other senses such as taste, touch and smell."
"What smell? I don't smell."
"People and animals smell different depending upon how they feel, but you no longer use your nose enough to detect their smell. You have relied on words to do all the work, and you are now overly dependent upon them."
"How else am I going to tell my sister to do what I want if I don't shout at her? Smell her?"
"Hopeless! It's hopeless," sighed the rabbit.
"I'm not hopeless," I said, sulking.
"We can smell a fox a mile away. We can smell other rabbits when they sense danger. We can smell a man and if he has a gun or not. How many men have you seen coming to the warren jumping up and down yelling that they have a gun? And even if they did, none of the rabbits would understand what they were 'gibbering' about anyway because they don't understand your language."
"You do," I pointed out.
"Yes, and I can also speak French. You should meet someone who speaks French."
"Why?"
"Because then, you would have to use your other senses and observations to understand them."
"So why can't they learn to speak like me."
"Or you, like them? added the rabbit.
I already knew how to speak how I do. It seemed like too much of an effort to learn a different way of speaking.
"Hm!" uttered the rabbit in disgust. "Well, if you are too lazy to learn another language, at least make an effort to learn your own language, and it would help to learn how to listen. Any person who has made the effort to speak your language may be having difficulty using the right words or may not be expressing themselves properly, therefore you must not only listen to the words but you must also be aware through your other senses what the person is trying to convey to you."
"Oh!"
"If you saw someone coming to the field with a gun, for example, what would you shout?"
I was tempted to say 'good shooting', but I said, "Look out," instead.
"You would say, 'Look out'?" mused the rabbit. "What does that mean? If all of the rabbits took you literally, they would all look out of their holes. Is that what you want them to do?"
"No - of course not."
"So why did you yell, 'Look out'?"
"Because it's what you say," I said.
"It's - 'because it's what you say'?" repeated the rabbit, "but it is also how you say it, and we rabbits, being as smart as we are, would sense the warning in your tone of voice and keep low."
"How would you warn the other rabbits?" I asked.
"I would thump the ground with my back foot," said the rabbit.
"But you do that when you laugh, don't you?"
"It's a different thump," explained the rabbit.
"It is?"
"Yep!"
"It sounds the same to me."
"Not to other rabbits, but there is something important to remember about using your language as opposed to ours..."
"What's that?"
"Ours is a natural form of communication, just like smell, touch, a gesture etc. Yours isn't. Your language can be repeated."
"I know. So what? What do you mean?"
"What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
"What?"
"What did you have for breakfast?"
"I had toast - burnt, no less. Mum always burns the toast. I had jam and tea and what else?"
"Show me," interrupted the rabbit.
"Show you what?"
"Show me your breakfast."
"I can't. I ate it."
"Then can I smell it? Or touch it? Or hear it?"
"You can't hear breakfast."
"You mean that there was no sound whatsoever during breakfast?"
"The wireless was on, and everybody was talkin' and..."
"None of these senses can be repeated, however, there is one exception - you can describe your breakfast."
"So what?"
"I just mean that language has an artificial factor in as much as it is the only means to describe the past. As such, it is open to interpretation - or misinterpretation."
"I guess you're right," I said, wondering what the rabbit was babbling about.
"Then this is a real area of concern, because years from now, you will be able to repeat our conversation, but will you not be able to show all the other factors surrounding the conversation."
"I could draw a picture of my breakfast."
"Show me."
"I didn't draw one, but I could"
"You mean you could draw it from memory?"
"Yes."
"Great, go ahead."
"I didn't bring a pencil and paper."
"Even if you did, your drawing would only be as good as your memory," offered the rabbit.
"I suppose..."
"And even if you did have a pencil and paper, would it record the smell or taste of your breakfast? Would your drawing capture the temperament of the moment you had breakfast?"
"I don't think so."
"It all comes down to how you remember everything and how you can recall the information which has been twisted and remembered the way your brain wishes to remember it. And it is also dependent upon how capable you are of describing what your brain remembers."
"So what are you saying?"
"You had better get very good at talking and listening."
. . .
After I thought that I had listened to the rabbit for long enough, I went home. I thought to myself as I walked back along the riverbank, it's more important to understand what somebody is trying to say than it is to understand what they actually said. I thought that this was too important not to talk to the rabbit more about all this, seeing - talking - hearing - moving - smelling - touching.
When I got home my sister wanted to know if I would listen to her while she practised a poem for school.
"Okay," I agreed.
She started telling me about some yellow daffodils.
"Don't tell me about daffodils," I interrupted. "I want to see, breath and smell those daffodils. I want to be able to touch them. Use your whole body to express how you felt when you saw this bunch of yellow daffodils."
"You're weird, and there was a host of golden daffodils, not a bunch of yellow ones," she said as she marched off to tell the dog about her poem.