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The Language You’re Fluent in — but Forgot How to Hear | Louis VI | TED
The Language You’re Fluent in — but Forgot How to Hear | Louis VI | TED
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0:08
We humans have stopped listening.
0:12
Wow, you all really listen to that.
0:14
(Laughter)
0:15
But it's true. There's a language out there
0:17
that we all know how to communicate really quite well,
0:19
but we’ve tuned out of.
0:21
One we’re innately fluent in, yet forgotten how to hear.
0:24
I truly believe the key to solving many of our crises as humans
0:28
is relearning to listen to this language.
0:30
What I'm talking about is the sounds of nature.
0:34
I want to take you all somewhere real quick, if that's alright.
0:37
I want you to close your eyes
0:39
and make a mental note of how you feel right now.
0:42
You can be happy from the week, stressed.
0:44
It is a Wednesday in the middle of the week.
0:46
Charmed already from my London accent
0:48
or annoyed by it.
0:49
Just be honest.
0:50
Now close your eyes and open your ears.
0:54
(Nature sounds)
1:12
Mmm...
1:14
How do you feel?
1:16
Different, right? A bit better, maybe slightly more relaxed.
1:20
I saw quite a few smiles playing across people's faces.
1:23
You were just transported to West Papua.
1:25
That beautiful melody was a hooded butcherbird,
1:28
which, believe it or not, is carnivorous.
1:30
Didn't think predators could sing like that, right?
1:32
(Laughter)
1:34
So what's happened?
1:36
Is it that you're all nature geeks like me?
1:40
Maybe.
1:42
But it's probably because we're all evolutionarily hardwired
1:45
to nature's sonic language.
1:48
See, we're so hardwired to it,
1:50
so much so, the birdsong, choruses of birdsong,
1:55
the percussion of insects, the symphony of amphibians
1:57
has all been shown scientifically
2:00
to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system,
2:02
aka make you feel relaxed.
2:04
You probably also noticed you were in a forest
2:06
and a tropical one at that.
2:09
It might seem obvious to mention,
2:10
but that was just from you using your ears.
2:13
Look at you flexing your fluency already.
2:16
It's possible the birdsong makes us feel relaxed
2:20
because it's been ...
2:23
a genuine signal from Mother Nature that there's no predators around.
2:27
But it can't be all relaxing.
2:29
(Lion roars)
2:33
Hearing this from an unseen lioness near you in the dark,
2:36
trust me, triggers a cascade of fear.
2:39
But one that's also practical and proportionate.
2:42
Eerie, unusual silence does the same thing.
2:45
It's no wonder that we're seeing a rise in anxiety in cities.
2:49
We may be unknowingly subjecting ourselves to an evolutionary stress.
2:55
See, nature sound does something to us.
2:57
It's often hard to put into words, true,
3:01
but our nervous system understands it like a remote control.
3:05
Blindfold on, I bet I could put any one of you in a biodiverse environment,
3:08
and you'd be able to tell me if it was dawn.
3:11
(Nature sounds)
3:17
The middle of the day.
3:18
(Nature sounds)
3:24
Dusk.
3:25
(Nature sounds)
3:30
Or nighttime.
3:31
(Nature sounds)
3:35
That coo right there was a potoo,
3:37
which is a crazy word worth looking up when you get home.
3:40
Each of these was recorded in the exact same place in the Amazon rainforest.
3:44
The more biodiverse, the easier it is.
3:47
There's an even deeper level.
3:49
There are still First Nations trackers alive today
3:51
that can tell you there's an unseen predator
3:53
moving through the forest in a northwest direction,
3:56
just from the change in birdsong.
3:59
Our ancestors were polyglots of ecology.
4:03
(Birdsong)
4:04
To listen was to know.
4:06
Inattention was literally life-threatening.
4:08
Our ancestral grandmothers and grandfathers
4:10
lived in an attentive relationship
4:12
to the songs of other species,
4:14
contributing to conversations that span back millions of years.
4:19
But that fluency is still in you.
4:22
Why, for our entire evolution,
4:24
listening has been a big part of our compass.
4:27
But now we turned that off.
4:30
It's no wonder that we lost our bearing.
4:33
So what's this got to do with solving crises, Louis?
4:36
I'm glad you asked.
4:37
(Laughter)
4:38
Now my path to standing before you here today is an unusual one.
4:43
I'm not exactly from a place abundant in natural charms.
4:47
Born and raised in grimy old north London,
4:49
more common to hear sirens and music --
4:51
good music, I might add --
4:53
than birdsong.
4:55
Growing up in Ends,
4:56
my love of music led me down the path to becoming a musician.
4:59
But I'm standing here today as a massive nature geek.
5:04
Nice to meet you.
5:06
Even though I grew up in a city,
5:08
I've always been fascinated by nature from day dot.
5:12
Yet it was something that me and my friends had the least access to.
5:16
Yet many of us had ancestry from nature-rich places.
5:19
For a long time I felt
5:21
that these two worlds I had to keep separate.
5:25
How would you market a rapper
5:28
that can talk to you about the complexities of h
5:31
with a full-blown degree of zoology?
5:33
But during COVID, my amazing mom and sister
5:38
really persuaded me to combine the things,
5:41
the damn things,
5:43
a couple more swear words I might add, but I won't say.
5:45
See, sound was the common denominator between my two loves.
5:50
Yet ...
5:52
if there’s over 55 percent of us humans living in cities and rising,
5:58
we don't get to experience this.
6:01
If I wanted people to reconnect to nature, I needed to bring these sounds back.
6:06
So I built these omnidirectional mics.
6:09
These right here,
6:11
I bring with me wherever I go.
6:14
When I'm not being mistaken for an alien with a probe,
6:17
I record.
6:19
The first time I did this,
6:21
something crazy happened.
6:24
I put my headphones on.
6:28
And I disappeared.
6:31
Not literally, of course.
6:33
(Laughter)
6:35
But I wasn't an individual anymore.
6:37
I was plugged into an overwhelming, highly synchronous chorus of aliveness.
6:46
See, listening to these sounds ...
6:49
(Nature sounds)
6:50
... didn't just tell me information.
6:53
It made me feel ...
6:56
like ...
6:58
something like a soup of life,
7:02
a language that my DNA knew that I fundamentally understood,
7:05
not as Louis, but as a human.
7:08
Surely this could be a new tool for people,
7:11
particularly people from the diaspora,
7:13
to reconnect to the places that we're from
7:16
that are still abundant in nature there.
7:19
See, remember,
7:22
for a long history of colonialism, extractivism
7:25
the transatlantic slavery diaspora
7:27
have been pulled not just from the lands we're from,
7:30
but from the nature there.
7:31
Sounds as common as the rising sun to our ancestors
7:36
are now our extinct in our experience.
7:38
But that's happening to all of us, wherever we're from.
7:42
Reconnecting to nature is fundamental if we're to have a future on this planet,
7:47
because planetary health and our health go hand in hand.
7:51
See, nature sounds are so important to us as a species.
7:54
We evolved not just to hear the information,
7:57
but to have an emotional response to it.
8:00
That's probably why music is so powerful for us.
8:03
It transcends barriers.
8:06
Where words fail, it adds meaning.
8:08
It resonates.
8:10
Many scientists believe
8:13
music predated language in humans,
8:15
inspired by mimicking the songs of Earth.
8:20
But we are relatively new on the scene as musicians.
8:24
Try telling a nightingale or humpback whale
8:27
that we invented music.
8:29
Mother Nature is the original artist.
8:32
Going back to that hooded butcherbird,
8:35
I can imagine that mimicking moment.
8:37
(Nature sounds)
8:41
(Soft electronic piano sounds)
8:47
What's crazy is I did nothing to this,
8:52
and I recognized this, I was like, this is G Phrygian,
8:55
which is C minor for those that ain't geeky in music like me.
9:00
But let's check with the harmonies.
9:01
(Music continues)
9:05
OK.
9:07
I can imagine people hearing this
9:10
and being inspired back in the day to get musical with it.
9:15
But we've got to check the chords.
9:30
And obviously, what is a song without bass?
9:43
(Bass guitar sounds)
10:17
(Sings) Oh yeah.
10:23
Oh yeah.
10:28
Yeah.
10:29
You can meditate till you levitate
10:32
High off life till you’re featherweight
10:34
Try and fly till your feathers hurt
10:36
But listening to the world that made you
10:39
Will be how we elevate
10:41
Reconnect and things will change
10:43
I know things are shades of grey
10:45
But the future green if we make it
10:50
Get your melanin till your level raised
10:54
Let’s take a breath, let’s ventilate
10:59
Who you are inside is so OK
11:01
Just close your eyes, do this simple thing
11:03
Nature loves when you’re listening
11:08
Happiness is the realest rage
11:12
Give time to Mother Nature mate
11:17
All she needs is a simple thing
11:19
Nature loves when you’re listening
11:21
Nature loves when you’re listening
11:25
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
11:27
Listen to this world
11:31
Says the hooded butcherbird
11:34
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
11:36
Listen to this world
11:40
Says the hooded butcherbird
11:42
Tell you so!
11:47
Woo! Yeah!
11:54
Listen to this bird
11:58
Says the hooded butcherbird, tell you so
12:02
So listen to this bird
12:07
Says the hooded butcherbird
12:09
Tell you so
12:12
Listen to this bird
12:16
Says the hooded butcherbird
12:19
Yeah yeah
12:21
Listen to this bird
12:23
Listen to this ...
12:25
Listen to this bird
12:27
This hooded butcherbird
12:30
(Applause)
12:31
Yeah.
12:41
And that's my theory of ornithology.
12:42
(Laughter)
12:45
Scientist geeks like that one.
12:48
So it's not very common for someone where I come from
12:51
to get to go to a rainforest,
12:52
let alone three in the space of a year.
12:54
Trust me.
12:56
But I was lucky enough to be invited to West Papua,
12:59
to Dominica, or Waitukubuli, as it’s more correctly known,
13:01
where one half of my family are from in the Caribbean.
13:05
And the Sarayaku nation,
13:06
deep in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon,
13:08
with the Moth Collective.
13:10
Each of these is an indigenously stewarded place,
13:15
past and present,
13:17
and a biodiversity hotspot because of it.
13:20
When we were in the Amazon,
13:21
the Kichwa people taught us about Kawsak Sacha.
13:25
It means "living forest."
13:28
Now it doesn't just mean the toucans, the jaguars,
13:33
the tapirs.
13:35
(Nature sounds)
13:36
The many frogs you can hear right now.
13:38
No, it means the trees,
13:43
the rivers,
13:44
the rocks, the soil, the fungi, the air, everything.
13:48
Just like the planet,
13:50
the forest itself is a living organism,
13:54
and we are like the organs singing our functions to each other.
13:58
How good does nature sound without colonialism?
14:02
See, listening to these beautiful sounds
14:05
of thousands of lives and universes they inhabit ...
14:09
of course it’s Kawsak Sacha.
14:12
But of course it's why it's so hard for us to connect in places
14:16
devoid of these orchestras of life.
14:19
We're in a climate crisis,
14:21
a biodiversity crisis.
14:23
There's wars, there's genocides, there's depression, anxiety on the rise.
14:29
But at the heart of it all, we're in a crisis of inattention.
14:34
We're like apples that have forgotten the tree we come from is alive.
14:39
That not only is it alive,
14:41
but it bears many other fruits.
14:45
8.7 million, to be exact.
14:48
8.7 million other species that we share this planet with.
14:52
(Nature sounds)
14:53
This is a nightjar, that sounds like a laser.
14:58
How many songs and cultures
15:01
and stories are we missing?
15:05
We're not so neatly separable from nature,
15:09
and listening to it doesn't just tell you that.
15:11
It makes you feel it.
15:18
Being more attentive to nature's sonic language ...
15:25
might help us better exist with it,
15:27
because listening requires embodied respect.
15:30
But we've stopped listening so much
15:32
we've almost not noticed
15:34
we're making it silent.
15:37
We run the risk of future generations thinking that silence is normal.
15:43
(Sighs)
15:44
That's a bit embarrassing.
15:47
We've only just met,
15:49
and I already owe you lot an apology.
15:52
Now I've hopefully helped you listen,
15:54
I'm afraid you can't unhear.
15:58
You'll go outside and you'll notice the beautiful birdsong.
16:01
But you'll also notice the drilling, the beeping, the scraping,
16:06
the burning and the silence.
16:09
You can't unhear the symphony of nature,
16:12
but you also can't unhear what we're doing to it.
16:17
But that's OK,
16:18
because noticing is the point.
16:22
We don't just
16:24
stand to be aware of what we
16:27
might lose,
16:28
but what we stand to gain in a nature-filled future.
16:32
Awareness that nature ain't a luxury, it's a necessity.
16:36
Our membership in life's conversation is not one just to be observed,
16:40
but one we're part of.
16:43
(Nature sounds)
17:03
So go out there and change not how you see the world
17:08
but how you hear it.
17:10
And changing how you hear it,
17:12
hopefully you'll never see it the same again.
17:15
Thank you.
17:17
(Cheers and applause)
