14 DAY TRIAL // Feeling the need for some fresh air, good company and relaxation after an exam, I invited a friend of mine out on the town. A beautiful winter afternoon with some cheap sun which shed light on us only when it wanted to, seldom that is, a subway filled with people who could not stop staring at you, occasionally there would be some touching, a bohemian park with an addictive perfume, a couple of ignorant kids who ice-skated their way into the frozen lake...
Considering that we have not seen each other for a while, we had numerous topics to chat about. And, as we got to talking and dissecting some current events, one thing led to another and we got soon to discuss our own selves. The person next to me was more advanced in knowing the human mind than me, so I took the role of the patient in the equation.
After being thoroughly questioned about my relationships, my good and bad deeds over the past weeks, we got to analyze the patient's mind, as we do with every person we meet.
This reminds me of another so-called patient of ours who had a quarrel with Cupid and suffered the consequences. We tried to heal the wound? one of us took him to the park, to watch children ice skate while the other analyzed the problem from every angle. Taking the two of us as representatives for two distinct classes, I realized that people divide into two categories. My guess was right and my friend provided me the theoretical explanations for my supposition.
I found out that the human brain is divided into two hemispheres, a right one, responsible for how we say words and the left one responsible for what we say. Eager for more information, I found out that the left hemisphere is characterized by a rational approach, the desire for structures and plans; people with this dominant side need to find explanations for everything. In contrast, the right hemisphere of the brain is characterized by mostly non-verbal actions, dreams, imagination and all that creative behavior many of us lack.
Intriguing you say? Well, there's more! These hemispheres account for the jobs we have. People with a prominent left side are engineers, technicians, doctors, lawyers, programmers and people with a striking right side of the brain are musicians, dancers, artists, writers, human-relations experts.
Receiving some new, interesting information, I quickly started to divide my friends into left sides and right sides. Next, adjectives and epithets started to arise which characterize each of the two sides. The left-sided is intelligent, numerical, deductive, rational, analytical, active, discreet, realistic, explicit, objective, while the right-sided is intuitive, analogical, sensorial, metaphorical, receptive, continuous, concrete, impulsive, imaginative, subjective and holistic. The left side of the brain influences the right side of the body and, consequently, the right side of the brain influences the left side of the body.
Generally, if one sees a word with its left side, one understands it better the second time if it is presented with the same characters. If the word is seen in the right visual field, reading it again is more efficient, regardless of the characters used. One of the important parts of reading is converting the text into a sounding code, a thing which only the left hemisphere can do.
Basically, the right side makes us look for visual text of any given text, while the left one classifies the information in more abstract representations. Words are processed by both sides, but in a different fashion; the right part relates to associations and metaphorical interpretations, while the left one gives a unique interpretation for every word.
All the theoretical part being stated, we got to apply the newly found concepts on me. "Left" me is a rigorous person, following the rules where they need to be followed and criticizing my close friends for their mistakes, in the idea of a better person. "Right" me is a sensorial person, influenced by the surrounding colors, the perfumes and essences and the delicate touch.
We reached the conclusion that these two parts sometimes work together. For example, contrary to the apparent struggle, when writing an article, the two hemispheres work together, the left one insures a rigorous, correct expression, while the right one conveys the artistic effect. In the more frequent case, the two sides take control alternatively, thing which would explain my contradictory nature, my hard time on making some decisions, my sometimes contrasting emotions for a person or my alternating moods. Or doesn't it? These hemispheres are really puzzling?