The Christian Science Monitor

Lending an ear: ‘Free listening’ is this guy’s business

He's not a therapist, but Kip Clark offers human connection through simple listening. From his seat on the steps of Building 7 at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he offers to listen to anything anyone wants to tell him.

Heads down, earphones in, and buttoned up against the wind that comes flying off the nearby Charles River, pedestrians on busy Massachusetts Avenue tend to hurry by the imposing neoclassical pillars of MIT’s Building 7. The pale stone steps offer little of interest most days – except when a young man, who might otherwise blend in with the crowd of students and professionals below, perches there and holds up a large handmade poster offering “FREE LISTENING.”

“I would always notice that he was there,” says Shraddha Rana, a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who often passed by Building 7. But she didn’t stop to investigate – at least, until a friend told her that she had taken the man up on his offer, and enjoyed the experience. Intrigued by the positive review, Ms.

Anything from quiche to emotions Listening’s link to peace

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