NaDruWriNi Post 2 of 2: Next Day Addendum
Nov. 8th, 2026 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tetsabDidn't have time to get into this yesterday ('cause I was already thinking it the time I posted yesterday "geeze, midnight already") but it's worth noting today (over tea made with my last bag of Tetley chai) that there's a complication in a ceremony that is literally called 'listening' ("Sama"), which is that people are not easily built to hear absences, particularly when there is music being played continuously.
The practical impact of this is that you then can most easily hear two things: the music of the ceremony and the interruptions to that music by select members of the audience. Much, much harder to hear (in point of fact, impossible) are the majority of people who are respectfully concentrating on what's in front of them. I couldn't find capacity numbers for that hall but I'd guess that there must a been a couple of hundred people present and of that couple of hundred maybe 10% contributed things to hear beyond the music. You can try and count but at that point you're counting and no longer listening, so you're moving away from the 'listen' injunction in a different sort of way if you do that.
The regular challenge here, and in the world in general, is that it's so much easier to hear the folks who are thwarting an endeavour over those who are quietly supporting it. So it goes.
***
PS. Additional serendipity: the Ismaili Centre was designed in part by Moriyama Teshima Architects.
The practical impact of this is that you then can most easily hear two things: the music of the ceremony and the interruptions to that music by select members of the audience. Much, much harder to hear (in point of fact, impossible) are the majority of people who are respectfully concentrating on what's in front of them. I couldn't find capacity numbers for that hall but I'd guess that there must a been a couple of hundred people present and of that couple of hundred maybe 10% contributed things to hear beyond the music. You can try and count but at that point you're counting and no longer listening, so you're moving away from the 'listen' injunction in a different sort of way if you do that.
The regular challenge here, and in the world in general, is that it's so much easier to hear the folks who are thwarting an endeavour over those who are quietly supporting it. So it goes.
***
PS. Additional serendipity: the Ismaili Centre was designed in part by Moriyama Teshima Architects.