My passion for sound started here.
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Age six, my mother bought me this record
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and I fell in love with music.
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Over the years, the music changed. I
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learned to play this noble instrument.
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Any drummers in the audience?
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I'm surprised they can still hear me.
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By the way, my parents encouraged this
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despite the noise. And if you have
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children, do encourage them to play an
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instrument. When you're playing in a
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band or an orchestra, you're developing
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a multi-channel, very attentive form of
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listening. Which may be why musicians
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have bigger brains than non-musicians.
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Fact. And they also score better on many
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cognitive tests. Playing music is good
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I joined bands, I made records, and I
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got a chance to do two of the legendary
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John Peel sessions. Here's what the
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famous DJ had to say about my name.
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Julian Treasure on drums. Are you sure
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that's a good idea, Julian Treasure?
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It's the only idea I've got, John. It's
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For 20 years, I put my passion for sound
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together with business and I ran an
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audio branding company. Asking the
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question, "How does your brand sound?"
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And designing soundscapes in spaces like
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this. Along the way, I wrote a book and
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I got a chance to do a TED Talk. Uh
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which I think Herb just mentioned. That
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spawned four more TED Talks.
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And along the way, I had an epiphany.
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Selling audio branding was really hard
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because most organizations don't think
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about how they sound at all. And I
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realized the reason for this is that
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they're full of people who don't listen.
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So, let me prove that by
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giving you the example of two of my TED
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Talks. The third one was about
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listening. The fifth one was about
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The fifth one has been seen by five
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times as many people
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We're very keen to be heard, but not to
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listen. And that's not an equation that
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People conflate listening with hearing.
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Hearing is a capability. We all do that.
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It's a skill you can practice and
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master, not a capability.
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Sadly, and I think you may agree with me
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when you think about the state of the
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Why? Well, it starts with education.
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Here are the four ways we communicate:
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reading, writing, speaking, listening.
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Two for the eyes, two for the ears, two
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that send, two that receive, presented
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here with equal weight. Is this how we
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teach them in school?
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It's like this, isn't it? We barely
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teach children how to speak and not at
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How crazy is this? If we taught children
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first how to listen brilliantly,
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how much more of their education would
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Madness. I'll give you four more reasons
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we don't listen very well.
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The first one is distraction. There are
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some very, very big organizations
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spending billions of dollars to grab
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your attention and mine, as we heard
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earlier in TJ's wonderful talk.
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Attention is essential for listening.
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So, we're distracted a lot of the time.
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When we're surrounded by this kind of
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thing all day, every day,
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we go numb. We suppress our
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consciousness of sound.
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Half of humanity lives in cities now,
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and some of those cities are very loud.
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There's a chart in my book of the
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loudest cities in the world, Dhaka in
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Bangladesh, average noise level over 120
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decibels. That's rock concert loud as an
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average. How people can live in that I
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The third reason we don't listen, we
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We've been speaking, using complex
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language, for probably 150,000 years.
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We've been listening for probably 3
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million years of evolution to survive
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and to connect with each other.
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Generalized reading
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has only been around for probably 200
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years, and yet writing has elbowed aside
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speaking and listening as our primary
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way of communicating.
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Where's the listening in a message like
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And the final reason that we don't
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listen is what we're seeing, also
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turbocharged by the internet, an
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epidemic of being right.
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What's the easiest way to be right?
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Make somebody else wrong.
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Hence, we have a world which is now
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populated by outrage and judgmentalism
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There's a great quote from one of my
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favorite authors, Harville Hendrix. He
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said, "You can either be right or be in
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The cost of not listening is enormous.
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We have a world now where 70% of
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are reporting that loneliness is
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affecting their mental health.
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We have huge impacts on
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disengagement, polarization you see all
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around you, disengagement from politics.
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Uh only one in three people are happy
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with their government, generally
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We have disengagement in business as
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well, where we don't trust our leaders
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overall. And there are costs to these
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things. Now, they've been measured for
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business, and those of you who run
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businesses may want to perk up your ears
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at this point. Disengagement, that is to
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say people not feeling listened to, not
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feeling valued, is costing global
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business 8.8 trillion dollars a year
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according to this huge study.
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And then, what about miscommunication?
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Well, this is just America
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costing America 1.2 trillion dollars a
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year with mistakes, having to repeat
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things, getting things wrong, and so on
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Massive cost, 10-plus trillion dollars a
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And I think this is a failing of
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Only 8% of people in this huge study
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rated their leaders as very good
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I actually think there's an inverse
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relationship between seniority
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Two reasons for that, I think. Firstly,
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it's the job itself. You're supposed to
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know stuff, aren't you, and tell people
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things, not listen and ask.
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And also, I think ego is involved.
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You know, listening is inherently
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When I listen to you, I'm saying you're
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important, you're more important than I
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And I think a lot of leaders have an
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ego-based problem with that process.
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So, [snorts] I've developed a mission,
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and my mission is to regenerate
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conscious listening in the world. It's
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desperate. Uh we are heading in a very
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bad direction right now.
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The benefits of doing this
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Our connection with ourselves, with each
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other, and with the planet around us can
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be renewed if we start consciously
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Our happiness. We all want to hear to be
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heard, understood, and valued.
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Listening does all three of those
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Our effectiveness. Do you know that if
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you work in an open-plan office, which I
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expect many of you do,
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you can be as little as 1/3 as
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because of the noise around you,
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particularly other people's
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conversation. That may resonate with
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And our well-being. I mentioned the
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damage of noise that is all around us.
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It's doing incredible damage to health.
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There are something like 200 million
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people in Europe having their quality of
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life and their health damaged by the
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noise around them according to the
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So, let me entice you to become
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conscious listeners by having a little
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tour of some of the wonders of sound.
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I'd like to use a taxonomy which was
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developed by my very good friend Bernie
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Krause, one of the world's leading
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nature sound recordists, and I've added
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one category. So, here's the first of
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Bernie's categories,
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The sound of our planet.
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Many beautiful sounds
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like this, surf on pebbles.
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When you listen to a sound like this, or
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you're going back in time. These sounds
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are unchanged for something like 3.5
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billion years. These are the sounds of
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The second class of sound to enjoy is
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biophony, the sound of the living things
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we share this planet with.
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This is a lar gibbon.
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An extraordinary animal.
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Sounds like a synth solo from the 1970s,
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doesn't it? Amazing animal. And I'm now
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going to play you my favorite sound in
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the world. It's another animal sound,
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the sound of the biggest animal on our
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It's going to blow up the subwoofers.
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which can travel 1,500 km across an
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ocean, an entire ocean.
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Or at least it used to be able to do
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that before we deafened the whales with
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60,000 ships moving around at any one
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time. Now their range is a tenth of what
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Which brings me on to the sound of us,
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Much of it not that great. Until the
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Industrial Revolution only 200 250 300
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years ago, the world was a pretty quiet
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place, but now we've invented incredible
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machines that create electromechanical
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noise. It's very hard to get away from.
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By the way, if you want to seek out
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quiet places, I commend to you a
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website, Quiet Parks International,
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where you can find on a map the nearest
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quiet place to you to go and perhaps
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ruminate in silence.
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So, our sound can be awful,
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but it can also be sublime. And I
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started with this, music can be
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inspiring, engaging, or inspiring even.
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There's one more category, it's the one
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I added to Bernie's three,
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the sound of the universe.
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Now most people think space is a vacuum,
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there's no sound in space, you can't
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hear the nobody can hear you scream, and
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so forth. Well, that may be true,
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but space is not a vacuum.
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It's a very very dilute plasma.
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The same plasma that was there at the
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beginning of the universe,
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so sound waves with long enough
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wavelengths can travel through it, even
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intergalactic space has sound in it. But
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I am talking about very low frequency
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sound waves with frequent with with
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wavelengths of hundreds of millions of
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years of light years, huge sound waves,
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way too low for us to hear.
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Some places are denser, and this is a
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picture of a gas cloud around a black
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hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy
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cluster, which is vibrating that gas
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cloud and creating real sound. 57 to
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octaves too low for us to hear, but NASA
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have pitch shifted it up, so we can hear
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the sound of a black hole. And if you
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think that should be spooky,
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That is the sound of a black hole.
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So, perhaps I've engaged you a little
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bit to move towards conscious listening.
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I'll give you three tips to close with,
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which you can take away and use to
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become more conscious listeners. Here's
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Give yourself 3 minutes a couple of
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times a day of silence, or the nearest
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thing you can get to it. It resets your
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ears, recalibrates them, refreshes them.
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You can listen anew.
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Here's the second one, a practice I call
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savoring. Very easy to do. Wherever you
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are, just close your eyes,
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and ask yourself these three questions.
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Is this sound around me healthy for me?
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Is it helping me to do what I want to
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And is it making me happy?
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Finally, the four C's of conscious
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listening. The first one, of course, is
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If you're not aware that you're
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listening, if you're not conscious that
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you're listening, you're probably just
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hearing. It's a different thing.
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commitment, because it is work. It takes
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effort to listen consciously.
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The third C, compassion.
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Seeking to understand the other person.
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Even if you disagree with them, you can
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listen to them. Listening is not
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surrender, it's not agreement. You can
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listen and still disagree.
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And finally, curiosity. There's always
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if you're listening consciously.
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there's only one outcome of conscious
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listening. It's always the same,
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and that is understanding, which is
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something I think you might agree we
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need a lot more of in the world around
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when you go out from here, give the gift
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of your full attention to somebody you
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love or somebody you know. You may get
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the response, "What are you doing?"
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Because we're not used to being listened
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to with full attention, but it's a
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wonderful gift to give. And by giving
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that gift, you will increase
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understanding in the world.
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Please join me in that. Thank you.
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