Like many truly important life skills, active listening isn't generally taught formally. Those who have learned this skill seem to have acquired it by stumbling upon, observing (and being impressed by) a very small number of people who still practice it.
But unlike some of these skills, active listening seems to be almost a lost art. I encounter fewer and fewer people who still practice it in any language. In this specific area, human beings have achieved true equality, overcoming linguistic and sociocultural differences. ;-)
The "honor" and "privilege" of receiving unsolicited advice from someone who even took the trouble to invent an issue almost ex nihilo in order to fulfill his self-imposed obligation to advise me ;-) have made me ask myself again why active listening has almost become a lost art.
So the true favor he has done me is not his unsolicited advice about an issue I didn't have in the first place, but this precious opportunity he gave me. I also passed the test of being tempted to advise him not to give unsolicited advice—not only to me, but to others as well. ;-)
It must always have been a skill possessed by a very small number of people throughout history. But our new environments must have accelerated the process of endangering its survival. This is also a vicious circle: the less people practice it, the fewer opportunities we have to observe it - and then to learn it.
One possible reason for this accelerated process that has just occurred to me is that more and more people are less and less patient in coping with the issues they encounter, and therefore increasingly inclined to rush to online references, especially generative AI, for quick answers and solutions instead of actively listening to themselves first.
Of course, these online references are not to blame. The responsibility always lies first and foremost with those who use them. They can become incredible assistants if you seek their help after actively listening to yourself. You can even be helped by generative AI as a possible role model, since it has a built-in mechanism of what seems to us almost like active listening.
Many of those who are used to this must think they are doing an enormous favor by advising others before they are asked to do so, saving them the trouble of asking instead of actively listening to them first.
I still find myself giving such unsolicited advice to others from time to time, though less and less frequently. But unlike before, I can now notice this and stop myself from continuing.
There is one practice I started a couple of years before I left Jerusalem at the end of September 2023, and I still continue it in this new place. Do you want to hear (as if you had a choice not to hear)? ;-) It's listening to stillness in nature, especially during my weekly self-seclusion in nature in the last hour before the end of Sabbath.
I was inspired by a lesser-known book by Eckhart Tolle entitled Stillness Speaks. I must have listened to the audio version of this gem, narrated by the author himself, more than ten times, making this a kind of meta-listening to a profound teaching of a very pristine form of active listening: listening to stillness in nature. Once I get used to it, it becomes relatively easy to apply this art to fellow humans.
If you are interested in knowing why this works - or at least why it has worked for me - you are welcome to read or listen to this book instead of reading my interpretation, so that I may not distort its message (and practice). I only hope you won't interpret this very paragraph as my unsolicited advice. ;-)
PS: It is known that ancient Egyptians complained about their youth. I may be like them. That is, active listening may have always been a lost art throughout history. So I am simply continuing this centuries-old art of complaining - and saving it from extinction. ;-)