I speak and speak, [...] but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. [...] It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of the listener's perception in understanding a message.
In this quote, Marco Polo emphasizes that effective communication isn't solely about the speaker's delivery but is equally dependent on the listener's expectations and interpretation. He suggests that the listener's preconceived notions dictate how the spoken words are received, indicating that true comprehension goes beyond mere sound to involve active engagement and openness to new ideas.
In practice
In a podcast discussion about effective communication.
I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice.
I did not write half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed
A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
It is not so much the content of what one says as the way in which one says it. However important the thing you say, what's the good of it if not heard or, being heard, not felt?
There is a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.
And it occurred to me that in this new millennial life of instant and ubiquitous connection, you don't in fact communicate so much as leave messages for one another, these odd improvisational performances, often sorry bits and samplings of ourselves that can't help but seem out of context. And then when you do finally reach someone, everyone's so out of practice or too hopeful or else embittered that you wonder if it would be better not to attempt contact at all.
Language just gradually came in, one or two stressed words a time. Before then, I would just scream. I couldn't talk. I couldn't get my words out. So the only way I could tell someone what I wanted was to scream. If I didn't want to wear a hat, the only way I knew to communicate was screaming and throwing it on the floor.
We cannot be speakers who do not listen. But neither can we be listeners who do not speak.
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