Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time

by Sheila Liming

As much as jamming is about improvisation, it also about education. My years of jamming with Tom and others like him have rested upon an invisible scaffold formed from listening and learning. The same, I want to argue, is true where hanging out is concerned: being with someone, or with a whole group of someones, and transforming that act of being into something that is worthwhile and meaningful, requires listening but also assiduous digestion—the thoughtful processing of whatever one has heard. That kind of digestion gets easier over time, through repeated exposure. The knowledge base that is fed from each successive instance grows more solid so that, after a while, improvisation feels like a more stable enterprise, less threatening and less risky. But all of this takes years. It cannot be forced into instant formation, over the course of a few interactions.