Afraha Stadium (wikipedia)

"Afraha Stadium is a multi-use stadium in Nakuru, Kenya. It used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of Ulinzi Stars of the Kenyan Premier League. The stadium holds 8,200 people and opened in 1948."

Your ears are a multi-use stadium, receiving information for the known yet foreign land that is your psyche. It is used mostly for searching for specific information and is the home sensory organ for intellectual exchange and connection to your environment. The ears can process thousands of different kind of information,
and they opened the day you were born.

You think I'm joking? Football is as specific, inane, and ridiculous as sports come (this from someone who has never sat through a football game, nor who really understands the rules. I am at least aware of my prejudices in this field), and yet its rules come nowhere close to the minute criteria our brains use to filter what we hear.
Depending on our mood, our chemical state, our desires, our values, whether it is day or night, whether we are hungry or thirsty, we will hear and interpret a million different things from the exact same set of sounds.
I'm going to make up a statistic: We only register 1 out of every 1000 things that we hear. Only 1 out of every 1000. I'll repeat it one more time so you forget I just made it up: We only register, we're only consciously aware of, one out of every thousand things we hear.
And yet we have the conceit to think we really know what's going on?
We have the gall to think, not only that we know what's right for ourselves, but what's right for others?
We can't even process all the sensory input we receive in our own lives-- we don't even receive the sensory input from the lives of others, yet we still think we know what's best for them.

There are 8,200 people in Afraha stadium when it is full. Do you think they all know each others' names? If they did, do you think they'd be able to then deduce the names of the spectators in Safeco Field? In the Yankee stadium? Do you think they'd be able to accurately state the motivations, the reason why each person came to Safeco Field to see the big game? No. Nor would they care. They are at Afraha stadium to watch the Ulinzi Stars play football, and that's what they do.
Enjoy the sound of the waterfall, but don't think that everyone's problems would be solved if only they came and listened to the waterfall in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons as you.

I went for a walk today with a good friend of mine. She talked to me about how much she's learned lately by not speaking. By not speaking all the 'good advice' she had in mind to her children, she learned how they grow and learn on their own. By not criticizing her friend she learned to hear the unseen truths behind her friend's actions. When I listen to somebody with the intention of really listening, with the intention of understanding them, connecting to them, hearing their emotions, their motivations, without any ulterior motive other than to hear- I learn so much, and grow so much. As soon as I have a personal stake in it, the listening becomes tainted and filtered and I grow seperate and distant.

The Afraha Stadium in Nakuru, Kenya is a multi-use stadium. It's primarily used for football, but very, very functional for a wide variety of other games.
Kazam!