The difference between listening and hearing

write a blog post about any differences you might feel between listening and hearing. Write what each of those words means to you and how they function in either your everyday life or when you are at a gig/listening to a work of sound art:

Listening, to me, is actively paying attention to the sounds around you and making an effort to take in those sounds. To listen is a conscious choice, you choose to listen and absorb sounds. Listening can also be a form of exercise, not in the traditional sense but, a mental exercise. It can be pretty tiring to just listen for a long time. It takes a lot of, what I call, brain strength. 

Hearing is the opposite of listening. It’s still hearing sounds but more in passing. It’s not a conscious choice, your brain just clicks into certain sounds. It tends to be background noise that you hear, road noise or people talking.

I personally find listening to be more enjoyable than listening. Listening has more control, you can choose what to listen to. This means that if I find a noise unpleasant, like a baby screeching, I don’t have to listen to it. I also have control over the volume of sounds when listening. For example, if I’m listening to a sound piece on SoundCloud and it’s too loud. I can just turn it down.