Anansi Learns to Listen

The cleverest spider in the world meets the one creature he cannot outwit—and discovers that listening is the beginning of wisdom.

Anansi the spider was, without question, the most clever creature in the world. He had outsmarted lions, tricked elephants, and outwitted the Sky God himself. Everyone knew it—including Anansi.

One day, he was walking through the forest feeling extremely pleased with himself when he met an old tortoise sitting very still beside the path.

“Hello, old tortoise,” said Anansi. “What are you doing?”

“Listening,” said the tortoise.

Anansi looked around. He heard birds. Wind. Water. “Listening to what?”

“Everything,” said the tortoise.

Anansi sat down beside her, meaning to wait a few minutes and then leave. But something made him stay. The tortoise said nothing. She just sat there. Her eyes were half-closed.

An hour passed. Anansi shifted. He was not used to being still.

Then the tortoise spoke: “The elephant is upset. Listen.”

Anansi was about to say he heard nothing—and then he did. Far away, a sound like rolling thunder that was not thunder. Feet on earth, irregular and distressed.

“How did you know?” Anansi asked.

“I listened.”

“But I was listening too.”

“You were waiting for a chance to speak,” said the tortoise kindly.

Anansi was quiet for a moment—genuinely quiet. He thought about this. How many conversations had he been in where he was really just waiting for his turn? How many times had he been the cleverest person in the room and heard almost nothing?

He sat with the tortoise until sunset.

“Teach me,” he said.

She looked at him. “You are already learning. You just sat still for six hours without tricking anyone.”

He went home that evening and listened to his children’s stories all the way to the end without interrupting once. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

It was also the best.