We talk a lot about the importance of reading, but what about listening? As children, we fall asleep to stories, comforted by voices. As adults, we learn through music, emotion, and sound. In a world obsessed with measurable knowledge, I challenge what it truly means to understand — and to be well-read.
I love music in all its forms. I always have. My relationship with music started early, back home in Sweden, when my older brothers first played a Beatles record. I remember it like it was yesterday – something opened inside me. A new language. A new world. Then came The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. It wasn’t just sound. It was life.
That was when my first true understanding was born – not through textbooks or school assignments, but through music. I couldn’t analyze chords or read sheet music, but I knew when a song felt real. I knew when a drum solo spoke to me deeply. I understood music, even if I couldn’t explain how.
And that’s where I start questioning how we define understanding. How society still places certain forms of knowledge above others. How we continue to treat silent reading from printed text as the highest form of education. As if there’s a ladder – and those who read with their eyes stand above those who listen with their ears.
But why should someone who listens to audiobooks be considered less well-read than someone who reads with their eyes? Why would someone who’s never played an instrument not understand music?
Music’s Alphabet is Bigger Than Sheet Music
Understanding music is not just an intellectual activity. It’s emotion, memory, movement, vibration. It’s hearing your mother whistle in the kitchen. It’s walking home alone on a cold evening with headphones in your ears. It’s recognizing the first tone of your favorite song in a crowd of voices. Music lives in the body. In the heart. In the skin.
I’ve met people who never learned a single chord, yet cried to the same songs I did. Their understanding is not less – it’s simply not academic. And that must be okay. It MUST count.
Audiobooks – Reading with the Ears
The same goes for books. I often listen to audiobooks. And I know some people frown upon it. As if it were cheating. But I don’t listen because I’m lazy – I listen because I want to experience stories differently. I want the voice to carry the story. I want to hear the rhythm, the pauses, the breathing.
And maybe more importantly – I remember how it began. As children, we fall asleep to stories being read aloud to us. That voice in the dim light, comforting us into sleep. You don’t fall asleep with a book. You fall asleep with a voice. That experience stays with me even today. It shaped the way I listen. The way I understand.
Listening isn’t a weaker way to absorb stories – it’s our first way. Before we could read, we could hear. It’s a primal form of understanding.
What Does It Really Mean to Be Well-Read?
In Sweden, we love to measure things. Number of books read. University credits. Pages per week. But understanding can’t be measured in pages. It’s about what we carry with us. What stays. What changes us.
A man who never went to university but knows every Dylan lyric by heart, who can explain the pain of life through a single Neil Young line – is he less wise than someone with a PhD? I say no.
I believe in a broader definition of education. One where experience, emotion, listening, intuition, and bodily understanding all have a place. Where both ears and eyes are gateways into the world.
To Read is to Listen – and to Live
When people say reading is important for comprehension, I agree. But I would add: so is listening. Reading is understanding with the eyes. Listening is understanding with the ears. But to truly understand – that’s about feeling, living, experiencing.
I’ve felt music in my body since I was a child. I’ve listened to voices telling stories, shaking me, shaping me. I’ve learned from life, not just from books. I’ve become educated through encounters, conversations, sounds.
And I think it’s time we acknowledge that: understanding comes in many forms. It’s not the format that matters – it’s the experience. What happens inside us.
So next time someone says audiobooks don’t count, or that you need to read music to understand it – think of the Beatles’ first chord. Think of the feeling. Think of the heartbeat that matched the rhythm. That’s where understanding begins.
By Chris...