Sun
02Random Observations: February
This post is a continuation of my Random Observations. I’ll be choosing a topic for the category each month, because I’m a bad blogger and never have anything to talk about.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the different types of people that exist. In a psychological sense, there exist two types of people: right brained, and left brained. You can usually tell within a few minutes of talking to someone whether they are more analytical and logical, IE left brained, or more fluid and artistic and intuitive, IE right brained.
Being about as right brained as you can get, I’ve always been an observer of the human carnival and I’ve always taken notice of things like that. I fall in love with the subtle nuances and gestures and thought patterns of other people, even if they’re entirely different from my own. Something I also think a lot about is the difference between people that live their lives blissfully ignorant and void of passion for any one thing, to people who have the ability to view life on a broader scale, have immense passion for several things, and function through means of creative expression. I’m obviously no psychologist, but I think my life-long penchant for observing others and my ability to change perspectives gives me a bit of an advantage in discussing things like this. I could also just be totally full of shit but it doesn’t really matter in relation to my point.
One thing I absolutely cannot wrap my mind around, no matter how well I can usually put myself in someone else’s shoes, is how some left brained people exist. You know the type, you’ve probably encountered several of them in your lifetime. They grow up, they follow a preconceived plan for their lives via social norms or by influence of their peers ("I’m going to the same college my dad went to, he wants me to be an accountant too.") Or they spend their lives being slaves to corporate America, living paycheck to paycheck with no hopes or thoughts for something better.
It could be that people like this are afraid of what the future may bring. Analytically speaking, it’s easy to see that negative past experiences can inhibit one from striving for something else. They could also just be perfectly satisfied with how they live their lives, which boggles my mind even further. They could also just lack the insight required to imagine themselves in a different situation and how to get there. I think that being right brained gives you the ability to change perspectives, and to overlook negative past experiences to give a certain fluidity to your life, and just go with the flow.
I guess one of the reasons I have trouble understanding it is because I am fully right brained, and hope and change are mainstays of my thought processes. I may be rotting away in a menial minimum wage job, but I know I won’t be there forever. Change is difficult for anyone, but I think being right brained gives change a silver lining and is easier to cope with. A lot of it probably also has to do with my liberal upbringing, supportive parents and the constant notion that I am free to change and grow and experience without reprocussion from my family and those close to me.
Also, while creative, intuitive people spend a vast majority of their time worrying and being painfully aware of the negative aspects of the human condition, such as the state of the world, war, famine, disease and other such unpleasant things, the logical, analytical people chalk it up to “that’s life” and go on about their daily lives unaffected by any of it. It might not be fair, but I woudln’t trade my passion or knowledge or intuition for a little blissful ignorance, as much as I might wish to sometimes.
Raise your hand if you made it through that one.