First we learn that other people exist and that they have feelings, too.

Then we learn that those other people can feel quite differently than we do, even about the same things.

Then we learn that these different feelings other people have are rooted in how they conceive, perceive and inhabit the world; when understood this way, these differing feelings are revealed as legitimate and deserving of our respect.

Then we discover that listening and learning from those with legitimate different feelings can alter our own ways of conceiving, perceiving and inhabiting the world — or to put it more simply, can change our own experience of life.

From this we learn that the world is always infinitely greater than what we have yet made of it.

And the gate to this infinitude is other people, accepted as teachers.

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Disclaimer:

Let’s not allow sentimentality to lead us astray. Learning is more than letting someone else have their turn talking. Learning requires that we discover our own ignorance and develop a sincere appetite for learning.

Complicating this situation is the fact that the ones most eager to be teacher are often the very ones who are too proud to be taught, and who therefore have little material to teach. Or you get the opposite situation: the “good listener”. The kind of person most eager to let everyone be their teacher are acting a role, mostly for themselves. They cannot be absorbed in their lesson because they are too absorbed in the activity of good listening.

It requires the involvement of at least two authentic participants for teaching to transpire.