Then there is the human voice. The sum of a person can be read in his or her voice if we listen. The problem is, we get so distracted by the words, the content of a conversation, it’s hard to listen consciously to the truth of the voice.

A good way to practice is to listen to a conversation in which we're not taking part. Focus on what is carried in the voice. Pitch, tremor, steadiness, hardness, softness, volume, speed. Shifts within each variable.

Better yet is to listen deeply to people speaking in a language that is foreign to us, where words are meaningless and all there is is voice.