Peter's cerebrum

Introduction 

According to Zemach and Rogers on page 44 of Skillful, science tells us that the two sides of our cerebrum, the part of our human brain that makes us intelligent, is divided into two sides. They are called the right-hemisphere and the left-hemisphere. Each of us is controlled mainly by one hemisphere more than the other. For me, it took some thinking  to decide which is the stronger side of my cerebrum. Which is it? Read on to see what I discovered about myself.

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body 1 = right-brained 

My brainstorming from class.
Click it to enlarge the image.

Although I first thought of my left-brained aspects, I want to discuss the right-brain parts of my cerebrum's influence on me first.  I never thought of myself as creative or good at art in school, but thinking more, I realized that even in primary school, there were elements of right-hemisphere influence in my life. For example, I loved poetry, and even in primary school, I would find and memorize poems that I liked independently of anything we studied in my classes. In fact, the nuns who taught me in my primary school didn't really teach poetry, but they did encourage independent reading, and I loved reading a lot. I remember that when I was nine or ten, I fell in love with the poem "Bell Birds," by Australian Henry Kendall. This poem was in an anthology that we used in school, although we studied very few of the poems in the collection. I loved the way that the poem descibed both the bird, with is silver voice calling in the rain forest, and also the places it lived. My family drove to Brisbane a couple times when I was ten, and I was always looking out to spot a bell bird, but only ever heard it singing, as the poem, which I had memorized, ran through my head. That sounds very right-brained. Today, I still love poetry, even though that was not what first occurred to me when I started brainstorming. 

Other signs of the right-side of my brain are seen in my related love of reading literature, from the ancient Greek classics, which I studied eagerly from an encyclopaedia at home while I was also still in primary school, to deeper studies of Homer and Latin classics at university. Less artistic perhaps was my first business venture, which when I thought about it also goes back to when I was in primary school. Unlike most of my male classmates, I hated sport and loved handicrafts. A couple of my aunts indulged that by teaching me to knit and crochet, and then to sew. In my early twenties, this became a small business designing and making custom clothing in Sydney. My "real" job was working for the Australian Government, but it was the creative creation of special clothing that excited me. Again, that all sounds like influence from the right hemisphere of my brain. But it wasn't as straight forward as it might seem.  
 

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body 2 = left-brained

When I started my brainstorming, I first thought of my love of mathematics, which Skillful tells us is a left-hemisphere function. I have loved mathematics since I was 12 years old and started studying it properly in high school. I didn't have time to note it in my brainstorming, but along with mathematics I liked all sciences. On the 40 minute to one hour trips to and from my high school every day, I would happily read my science and math books. And after I'd finished the assigned the texts for the year, I read more advanced books from the library. This all sounds very left-brain. 

When I went to university, I started doing a science degree with majors in mathematics and physics, but something that had been growing since high school increasingly dominated my thoughts. My maths and physics teacher in senior high school, a Catholic priest at my private school, had introduced me to philosophy. I'm not sure why he did that, but he did. Perhaps he thought that my love of maths and science would lead me away from God and his version of the Christian religion, so he suggested I read some Christian philosophers. I loved it, but it didn't work out the the way the poor priest had hoped. I loved the logical reasoning of philosophy, how philosophers from Plato down through more than 2,000 years applied strict critical thinking to all the important questions human beings might ask themselves about the universe around us and our place in it. And I loved the philosophical study of logic. So I switched from science to an Arts degree with a major in philosophy. I kept studying mathematics, but instead of the science, added a couple of dead languages. This might not seem the best preparation for any particular career, but I've never regretted my choices then. 

What I learned is that by focussing my creative interests and emotional life by applying my love of reason, logical use of language and critical thinking, I could succeed. For example, while I enjoy the emotional pull of poetry and literature, that only works by using language carefully. I think artists like Picasso do the same, and also great music: we might not see the organizing logic, but it is there making the emotional and creative aspect work as the author wants it to. The same applied to my business designing and making clothes for customers who wanted something unique: without the ability to plan with mathematical precision, and organize the process, I would have produced only messes that no one would pay for. 

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Conclusion

So although there are strong right-hemisphere aspects in my thinking and emotional life, I think that for me the left-hemisphere is more dominant. In fact, it is the left-brain dominance that strengthens my right-brain motivations, allowing them to succeed. I'm sure that both sides are important for all of us, but for me, the left-hemisphere of my brain has definitely contributed more to making my life what it is, and me who I am. How about you?