Listening with Purpose

I have an interview tomorrow that I totally haven't prepared for on any meaningful level.

I got a call a few days ago from one of my new favorite people, who happens to live not too far away from me.  His daughter had contacted the City of Austin to get someone to interview her father after he attended the Honor Flight, a really neat program that sends World War II veterans to Washington, D.C. to see the memorials and be treated with the respect they have earned.

While originally hesitant, his daughter eventually convinced him to talk to me and he ended up being a delightful interview, peppered with humorous stories and poignant moments of grief when remembering the loss of his friends and the horrors of war from a 20-year-old in an octagenarian's body.  He phoned me a few days ago to give me the name of another Honor Flight veteran who might be interested in sharing his story with me, and now we have an interview set up in twelve hours.

So I haven't prepared a lick, besides talking to him on the phone and charging the camera battery.  I know going in that I'll learn something new, and that this guy has more energy than I have in my twenties - he still works five days a week in his nineties!.  But what I really need to do to prepare for this interview is to get my listening ears on.

What does that mean?  Isn't the purpose of an interview to ask the questions you want to know the answers to?  Not exactly, at least for this project.  While there is an intent to follow the chronological events that led the veteran into and out of the service, the real purpose (for me, at least) is to show respect for the veteran's memories and to listen with all of my ears instead of trying to lead the interview with my own intentions.

What they don't tell you about this project is that it's really hard to turn off your internal monologue:  to set your own desires aside and to truly move at the pace of another human that is often very different in age from yourself.  During this time, the most important thing you, the interviewer, can do, is to perceive what the veteran needs or wants to express and to help them feel comfortable making that expression with dignity.  This means not interrupting, but rather enabling the best conversation possible.

Listen with purpose, and you'll always get a good interview out of the deal.

This American Life: How I Got Into College

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/how-i-got-into-college?act=2

The section of last week's This American Life above talks about stories, how we feel about telling stories and what happens when we find out that the stories we tell about ourselves aren't exactly true.

"These stories we tell about ourselves, they're almost like our infrastructure.... so maybe the point is that... you should be conscious of how you tell your story."

The Veterans History Project is so fascinating because oral history isn't about documenting the facts - it's about documenting emotions and how people perceive their lives and narrate their stories.  Would highly recommend listening to the above to understand more about the narrative construction process and what happens when that narrative that guides how we perceive our past is broken.