Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Carol Goodman Heizer
I’VE BEEN THINKING
Carol Goodman Heizer is an author who recently moved to Hood County from Louisville, Kentucky. She has had short stories and articles published in seven editions of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. Her column for the Hood County News will appear every two weeks.
We dealt with the complexity of the human brain and its two hemispheres in an earlier column. Now we consider a third option! It was originally referred to as “split-brain dominance.” However, the name currently used is “whole-brain” or “balanced-brain” thinker. So, perhaps, we can say the matter is neither black nor white — but rather a “gray area.” That seems fitting — since the brain is often referred to as “gray matter.”
Although right-brain and left-brain individuals can sometimes show characteristics of the other, the third type of individual shows an almost-equal dominance of both hemispheres. Hungarian-American author, educator, and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (try to pronounce that name) recognized this phenomenon as "flow," a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. He refers to the “mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focused, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.” The greatest representatives of this are Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Samuel Morse. They are high achievers in scientific and logical thinking, along with the arts and music.
Csikszentmihalyi describes eight characteristics of flow: Complete concentration on the task; clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback; transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down); intrinsically rewarding experience; effortlessness and ease; a balance between challenge and skills; merged actions and awareness, loss of self-conscious reflection; a feeling of control over the task.
This columnist was diagnosed with the condition years ago when it was referred to as “split-brain” dominance, learning the pros and cons of the situation. A positive aspect is that such a person is twice as likely to recover from a stroke. A negative aspect is that, when being confronted with a large amount of information or making a decision, they can experience increased stress or anxiety.
For example, if being part of a class where the presenter explains an expected result, such a person is simultaneously trying to grasp the nature of the task while thinking up topics for the project. Or if trying to decide between two clothing outfits for the upcoming season (two completely different in style and color), the individual cannot decide because both brain hemispheres are attempting to decide — each from its own perspective. Can you see the dilemma?
When this columnist was required the take the then-standard Myers-Briggs Personality Test, she nearly drove herself insane. The instrument attempts to define the introverted/extroverted, sensing/intuitive, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving individual. As one readily sees, the test deals with complete opposites. The participant had to choose only one answer for each question.
Such questions could include the following: I prefer quiet or I prefer background noise; I would rather quietly read a book or I would rather be in a group of people; I focus on the present or I focus on the future; I prefer doing one task at a time or I prefer multi-tasking; I gain motivation from interacting with people or I gain motivation from solitude; I am a down-to-earth thinker or I like to dream about possibilities; I like sharing ideas with others or I like to keep things to myself; I focus toward the outer world or I focus toward my inner self.
For the “balance-brain” person, both answers would always be correct, depending on the moment at hand. Thus, such a test created stress.
Now back to the headline for this column. Some cultures and some religions have a strict, unfavorable bias against left-handers (regardless of the dominant hand). The required protocol is to use the right hand for eating, handling food, and social interactions. However, the left hand is used for personal hygiene and other unsanitary purposes.
Handwriting is one of the biggest sources of disadvantage for left-handed people because primary teachers usually instruct students to hold the paper in a position that requires the person to hold a pencil in an awkward position so they can see what they are writing. At times, left-handed students were forced to use their right hand so they would not be “frowned upon.”
In the past when telephone operators sat at the customary switchboard, there were no left-handed operators because all systems were designed for right-handers. Fortunately, there has been a rise in accepting left-handedness.
And, of course, there are unfavorable names for left-handers; southpaw (the most common), wrong-way drivers, portsiders, buck fisted, spuddy-handed, and sinister-handed.
So, whichever-handed you are, thank your brain and be satisfied.
