How Do We Change When We Really Listen To The People We Love?

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, the act of listening. And earlier, we introduced you to a guy named Dave Isay. Dave is a pioneering radio producer with an idea to give people all over the world a brand-new way to listen to each other. And this year, that idea earned him the $1 million TED Prize. It's an award given each year to someone with a vision to change part of the world, but the story of how Dave came up with that idea actually started years ago. It was in the late 1980s. Dave was 22, and he was just starting out in radio, and it's a story he told on the TED stage.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

DAVE ISAY: At almost the exact same time, I found out that my dad, who I was very, very close to, was gay. I was taken completely by surprise. We were a very tight-knit family, and I was crushed. At some point, in one of our strained conversations, my dad mentioned the Stonewall riots. He told me that one night, in 1969, a group of young black and Latino drag queens fought back against the police at a gay bar in Manhattan called the Stonewall Inn and how this sparked the modern gay rights movement. It was an amazing story, and it piqued my interest. So I decided to pick up my tape recorder and find out more. With the help of a young archivist named Michael Shirker, we tracked down all of the people we could find who had been at the Stonewall Inn that night.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I guess, as they say - or as Shakespeare says - we were ladies in waiting, just waiting for the thing to happen.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: Recording these interviews, I saw how the microphone gave me the license to go places I otherwise never would have gone and talk to people I might not otherwise ever have spoken to.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: There was a cop and his - on his stomach was a drag queen straddling him. She was beating the hell out of him with her shoe. Whether it was a high heel or not, I don't know, but she was beating the hell out of him.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: I had the privilege of getting to know some of the most amazing, fierce and courageous human beings I had ever met. It was the first time the story of Stonewall had been told to a national audience.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: I realized that this was a tremendous thing that happened at Stonewall, and it gave us a feeling that we were not going to be closeted for very much longer.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: I dedicated the program to my dad. It changed my relationship with him, and it changed my life.

RAZ: By doing that, by listening to those people, was it sort of a way for you to kind of communicate with your dad?

D. ISAY: Oh, totally. You know, it was taking steps towards him. And also, I think what I wanted to do is understand what he had gone through. And I wasn't at the place where I could talk to him about it yet. But talking to these men and women about, you know, what life was like, especially in the era before Stonewall and the hiding and the shame and pain, you know, that's where I learned everything.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: Over the next 15 years, I made many more radio documentaries, working to shine a light on people who are rarely heard from in the media. Over and over again, I'd see how the simple act of being interviewed could mean so much to people, particularly those who'd been told that their stories didn't matter. I could literally see people's backs straighten as they started to speak into the microphone. In 1998, I made a documentary about the last flophouse hotels on the Bowery in Manhattan. Guys stayed up in these cheap hotels for decades. They lived in cubicles the size of prison cells covered with chicken wire so you couldn't jump from one room into the next. Later, I wrote a book on the men with the photographer Harvey Wang. I remember walking into a flophouse with an early version of the book and showing one of the guys his page. He stood there, staring at an in silence. Then he grabbed the book out of my hand and started running down the long, narrow hallway shouting I exist. I exist.

(APPLAUSE)

RAZ: We don't think about listening as this profound act of respect, like, really giving somebody dignity or a gift, especially people who are not listened to or not heard from.

D. ISAY: That's right. And that's always been kind of the guiding lessons of - of the last, you know, 30 years. I mean, we all have the capacity to listen in this way.

RAZ: Dave Isay wanted to give people a chance to tap into that capacity, so he came up with an idea for a project he called StoryCorps. In New York City, where he lives, he set up a small recording booth in a terminal at Grand Central Station. And he encouraged people to just step inside and interview each other.

D. ISAY: I just didn't know what was going to happen. I thought of, like, "Jerry Springer" moments and people killing each other in the booth and, like, every - like, there were many lost, like, nights of sleep.

RAZ: And just like in his early documentaries, Dave would not be heard in any of those recordings from the booth. It would just be a couple of people telling their own stories. All Dave did was come up with a list of suggested questions for them to ask.

D. ISAY: How do you want to be remembered? What are the most important lessons you've learned in life? You know, can you - is there anything that you've never told me that you want to tell me now? And it's - it's the kind of questions that kind of draw you together that are the kind of questions that get asked in StoryCorps.

RAZ: I mean, this is - this is not easy, right? Like, you need so much concentration and effort to listen to someone answer those questions and to have a conversation like that.

D. ISAY: That's right. That's what active listening is, is that you are completely tuned in to what someone is saying and you are listening, you know, with unbelievable intensity. And, you know, it's an opportunity to say everything you've always wanted to say and hear things you've wanted to hear from people who matter to you.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: So we open this booth in one of the busiest places in the world and invite people to have this incredibly intimate conversation with another human being. I had no idea if it would work, but from the very beginning it did. People treated the experience with incredible respect, and amazing conversations happened inside. I want to play just one excerpt from an interview recorded at that original Grand Central booth. This is 12-year-old Joshua Littman interviewing his mother, Sarah. Josh has Asperger's Syndrome. As you may know, kids with Asperger's are incredibly smart, but have a tough time socially. They usually have obsessions. In Josh's case, it's with animals. So this is Josh talking with his mom, Sarah, at Grand Central nine years ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

JOSH LITTMAN: From a scale of one to 10, do you think your life would be different without animals?

SARAH LITTMAN: I think it would be an eight without animals because they add so much pleasure to life.

J. LITTMAN: How else do you think your life would be different without them?

S. LITTMAN: I could do without things like cockroaches and snakes.

J. LITTMAN: Well, I'm OK with snakes as long as they're not venomous or, like, can constrict you or anything...

S. LITTMAN: Yeah, I'm not a big snake person.

J. LITTMAN: ...But cockroach is just the insect we love to hate.

S. LITTMAN: Yeah, it really is.

J. LITTMAN: Did I turn out to be the son you wanted when I was born? Like, did I meet your expectations and...

S. LITTMAN: You've exceeded my expectations, sweetie, because - you know, sure you have these fantasies of what your child's going to be like, but you have made me grow so much as a parent because you think...

J. LITTMAN: Well, I was the one who made you a parent.

S. LITTMAN: You were the one who made me a parent. That's a good point. But also because you think differently from, you know, what they tell you in the parenting books.

J. LITTMAN: Yeah.

S. LITTMAN: I really had to learn to think out of the box with you. And it's made me much more creative as a parent and as a person. And I'm so lucky to have you as my son.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: So this experiment in Grand Central worked and we expanded across the country. Today, more than 100,000 people in all 50 states in thousands of cities and towns across America have recorded StoryCorps interviews. It's now the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered.

RAZ: That collection is kept at the Library of Congress. And anyone who records a StoryCorps interview can choose to add their recording to that collection so that one day their children or grandchildren - or anyone who's interested - can look it up and listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: I've also learned so much from these interviews. I've learned about the poetry and the wisdom and the grace that can be found in the words of people all around us when we simply take the time to listen, like this interview between a betting clerk in Brooklyn named Danny Perasa, who brought his wife, Annie, to StoryCorps to talk about his love for her.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

DANNY PERASA: You see, the thing of it is, I always feel guilty when I say I love you to you, and I say it so often. I say it to remind you that as dumpy as I am, it's coming from me. It's like hearing a beautiful song from a busted old radio. And it's nice of you to keep the radio around the house.

ANNIE PERASA: If I don't have a note on the kitchen table, I think there's something wrong. You write a love letter to me every morning...

D. PERASA: Well, the only thing that could possibly be wrong is I couldn't find a silly pen.

A. PERASA: (Reading) To my princess, the weather out today is extremely rainy. I'll call you at 11:20 in the morning...

D. PERASA: It's a romantic weather report...

A. PERASA: (Reading) ...And I love you. I love you. I love you.

D. PERASA: When a guy is happily married, no matter what happens at work, no matter what happens in the rest of the day, there's a shelter when you get home. There's a knowledge knowing that you can hug somebody without them throwing you down the stairs and saying get your hands off me. Being married is like having a color television set - you never want to go back to black and white.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: It takes some courage to have these conversations. StoryCorps speaks to our mortality. There's a hospice doctor named Ira Byock who's worked closely with us on recording interviews with people who are dying. He wrote a book called "The Four Things That Matter Most" about the four things you want to say to the most important people in your life before they or you die - thank you, I love, forgive me, I forgive you. They're just about the most powerful words we can say to one another. And often that's what happens in a StoryCorps booth. It's a chance to have a sense of closure with someone you care about; no regrets, nothing left unsaid. and it's hard and it takes courage, but that's why we're alive, right?

RAZ: Dave Isay recently came up a new idea - to give anyone anywhere in the world that same chance to record an interview with someone they care about.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

AMBER: My name is Amber (ph), and I am 29 years old, and I'm speaking with Ava, who is my daughter. How old are you, Ava (ph)?

AVA: Four.

AMBER: Four.

RAZ: This recording came from new StoryCorps app.

D. ISAY: Basically, I said I want to try to see if we can take StoryCorps and put it on a cellphone so that people can do this anywhere anytime.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

AMBER: Can you describe your dad for me?

AVA: My dad is in the Army. He is deployed in Afghanistan, so we hope he comes back soon.

AMBER: What do you think your future holds?

AVA: My future holds my family.

RAZ: Just like StoryCorps, the app has suggested questions, and anyone who records an interview can choose to upload it to the Library of Congress.

D. ISAY: Like, one of the total shocks has been seeing what's happened with the app, and, you know, we've had thousands and thousands of stories coming in and people are listening and having this experience.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

JAVIER VAZQUEZ: Hi, my name is Javier Vazquez (ph), April 29, Sunday.

RAZ: And Dave says something really interesting and unexpected is happening with the app.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

VAZQUEZ: And I'm going to interview myself regarding my recent illness.

RAZ: People interviewing themselves, a kind of audio selfie.

D. ISAY: And we're seeing a lot of them.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

VAZQUEZ: Do you think about dying? To be truthful, I - it's something that I know it's inevitable and, you know, it's going to happen.

D. ISAY: There's a guy who's sitting in a hospital bed. He's been diagnosed with some kind of cancer...

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

VAZQUEZ: But at the same time I accept it.

D. ISAY: ...And he is just talking into the phone for his family.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

VAZQUEZ: Maybe I'll share this with my kids or my wife. They are the soul, the heart, of who I am.

RAZ: I mean, in a sense, it's like people are almost feeling listened to just talking into the phone, into the app.

D. ISAY: Exactly, yes, and also the fact that it goes the Library of Congress, they know that it will be listened to and that future generations can listen to it.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: So here is my wish - that you will help us take everything we've learned through StoryCorps and bring it to the world. Imagine, for example, a national homework assignment where every high school student studying U.S. history across the country records an interview with an elder over Thanksgiving so that in one single weekend an entire generation of American lives and experiences are captured. Or that people in your community go into retirement homes or hospitals or homeless shelters or even prisons armed with this app to honor the people least heard in our society and ask them who they are, what they've learned in life and how they want to be remembered.

(APPLAUSE)

D. ISAY: Ten years ago, I recorded a StoryCorps interview with my dad who was a psychiatrist and became a well-known gay activist. I never thought about that recording until a couple of years ago when my dad, who seemed to be in perfect health and was still seeing patients 40 hours a week, was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away very suddenly a few days later. It was June 28, 2012, the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORYCORPS RECORDING)

D. ISAY: What do you think is the most important thing that you've accomplished in your life? What are you proudest of?

RICHARD ISAY: I'm very proud of you kids. I am very proud of the work I've done, and I am proud of being able to turn my life around and make it into a happy and good one.

D. ISAY: Do you think about dying?

R. ISAY: All the time.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: I listened to that interview for the first time at 3 in the morning on the day that he died. It was at that moment that I fully and viscerally grasped the importance of making these recordings.

RAZ: And you had never done this, you had never sat down with him and asked him questions about his life in this way.

D. ISAY: No, that's the beauty of StoryCorps...

RAZ: Yeah.

D. ISAY: ...Because, yeah, that's the - so you have the formal reason to go and have these conversations. And I think most people who record StoryCorps interviews don't necessarily listen to them until there's a reason to listen to it.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

D. ISAY: Every day, people come up to me and say I wish I had interviewed my father or my grandmother or my brother, but I waited too long. Now no one has to wait anymore. Interview a family member, a friend or even a stranger. Together we can create an archive of the wisdom of humanity. Maybe these conversations will remind us what's really important, and maybe it will help us recognize that simple truth that every single life matters equally and infinitely. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

RAZ: Dave Isay - he won this year's TED Prize. That prize help to make the StoryCorps app possible. And you can find that app and the amazing StoryCorps podcast at storycorps.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) The sound of our voices keep us from listening. I welled up like water, they're drowning out the day. We never intend to hear what each other say.

RAZ: Hey, thanks for listening to our show on listening this week. This episode is dedicated to the memory of our colleague and friend, NPR's Jim Lesher, who passed away this week. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to ideas worth spreading on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.