Coaching the difference between listening and hearing

texture · ~YDPAH (Gately's residency, first ~60 days)

• When: Gately's first ~sixty days of residency (recounted by Gately, present-tense 8 Nov YDAU, to Erdedy and Joelle)
• What: In Gately's own telling, for his first sixty-odd days he "couldn't hear shit" at meetings — just sat Comparing ("I never rolled a car," "I never bled from the rectum"). "Gene would tell me to just keep coming for a while and sooner or later I'd start to be able to both listen and hear." Eugenio wouldn't say what the difference between hearing and listening was — which pissed Gately off — only that "it's hard to really hear"; and after a while Gately did start to really hear, meaning to hear how similar he and the speaker had felt at the Bottom.