Wednesday, October 16, 2013

ON BEING LEFT HANDED










I am not left handed, but my wife is.  There is a distinct difference in the way we perceive things, the way we manipulate objects and even the way we interact with the world around us. 

The world is right handed, and I often feel sorry that my wife has to move through a society that is unsympathetic and alien to her natural inclinations. 

I could make a list; but it is better expressed by Salman Rushdie in Luka and the Fire of Life.

Door knobs turn the wrong way.   Screws insist on being turned clockwise, guitars were strung upside down, and the scripts in which most languages were written ran awkwardly from left to right…  Potter wheels wheeled perversely, dervishes would have whirled better if they whirled in the opposite direction, and how much finer and more sensible the whole world would be, Luka thought, if the sun rose in the west and set in the east.

Seeing things in reverse to accepted norms is a special gift that results in innovation.   Some of our most brilliant people, and I include my wife, were and are left handed.


the Ol’Buzzard

6 comments:

  1. Yes, left-handedness often comes with great creativity, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Younger brother is a leftie - 55 years old and in a nursing home because of wet brain - aka vodka.

    Debra,
    Now for a wield one - air traffic controller assistants sit to the right of the actual controller at the scope and have to train themselves to write with their left hand - You adapt...

    Sarge

    ReplyDelete
  3. Whenever I see that a person is left-handed, I am intrigued and want to get to know them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hendrix was a left handed guitarist, he just learned to play it upside down. I have tried to educate my left hand...I wish I was ambidextrous. I have an old friend who had a great career designing perfume bottles. He is quite the showman, he would do presentations and draw his designs, first the right side then flamboyantly flip the pen to his left hand and finish the other side. I can write with my left hand, but it looks like the penmanship of another person.

    ReplyDelete
  5. OB,
    I am at www.oneangryzebra.blogspot.com
    or msgtron@aol.com - email.

    Ron

    ReplyDelete
  6. As Mr. Burns of the Simpson's said:

    “Damned infernal gizmo. My kingdom for a left-handed can opener.”

    ReplyDelete

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