I've got the brain on my brain. Just after writing my last blog on how our brain functions, I came across an article called "Battle of the Brain," published in the Wall Street Journal. It contends that we'd all be happier if we had more respect for our right brain.
The article starts by discussing how the functions, once believed to come from one hemisphere or the other, are now known to come from both. (This includes language, reason and emotion.) The difference is how we use those hemispheres. The right hemisphere sees the world as a whole, while the left focuses on the detail.
It then goes on to say that the left brain helps us navigate and control our world by simplifying things. For example, it is like a general's control room map, where the complexity of the world is reduced to line drawings.
The right presents a different version of the world - it provides the nuance...putting things in a broader context. It’s where the general visualizes and imagines the actual conditions in which the soldiers actually fight.
We have two hemispheres because we need both versions of the world. But, the article contends that one of those two hemispheres can come to dominate in individuals, just as it can for an entire culture. And that is exactly what has happened to us - our right brain has been systematically discounted while our left brain has come to take precedence.
Because our left brain tries to control the external, our lives have become increasingly rule-bound and there has been an increase in bureaucracy. If we see ourselves through the left brain lens, we feel alien to the world, rather than part of it.
The right hemisphere is comfortable with the idea that opposites are complimentary. It alone can help us develop empathy and feel interconnectedness. And that's where happiness comes from.
Once again, the answer comes not from exclusion, but from balance - from having good flow from one opposite to the other. Isn’t it interesting how inter-related all this information is?
Click here to comment
Posted by: |