Left is right

With Easter coming, I thought it might be time for a lighthearted break. Time for a laugh after a year of depression. But humorous it may be, this column is still all based on facts.

There’s growing focus on addressing the injustice done to minority groups, which is most encouraging. Do Black Lives Matter? They certainly should, so it’s great that the issue is being recognized, and equality is being achieved. LGBTQ+ is now an accepted way of living.

But there’s an abused minority that isn’t being given due recognition and acceptance: Southpaws. No one makes anything for them. Take a simple one: scissors, the ones designed to fit onto a right hand thumb and fingers. Try it, you’ll see. For me the worst is power tools. I have to struggle to reach the switch while holding the tool. Or worse, pressing a safety button while at the same time switching it on. When writing, you smudge the ink, and can’t read what you’ve just written. Why doesn’t writing proceed from right to left?

Just because we’re only about 10 percent of the population doesn’t mean we can be ignored.

So we must fight for better recognition—for things that are designed for left-handed people, too. It’s time to stand on our left foot and complain: Make products for us.

There have been various research efforts on the difference between left- and right-handed people, and the results are mixed. We score higher when it comes to creativity, imagination, intuition. And, importantly, to enjoying life, and daydreaming. We’re better at rhythm and visualization, too. We’re good at complex reasoning, and better at divergent thinking. But I must admit the one about us being more intelligent is just a myth. Statistically, right-handers are smarter than left-handers, but that’s the average over all the population of both. Far more important is that geniuses are more likely to be left-handed.

A few lefties you may have heard of are Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, and Friedrich Nietzsche. You can add Leonardo Da Vinci and Aristotle to that list; Bill Gates, too. Not a bad group to belong to, seeing how these people revolutionized the world we live in. Then there’s the inventor of the computer, Alan Turing (he killed himself at age 41 for the shame of being gay, because it was denigrated in his time) — put your cellphone down for a minute and ponder that. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing, but five of the past eight American presidents are left-handed. Donald Trump is right-handed.

We work out of the right-hand side of our brain, but are able to better tap into both sides, which makes us fast learners who can catch on to new tasks after just a few tries. We can work more independently; we prefer to work on our own rather than in a group.

Southpaw college graduates go on to become 26-percent richer than their right-handed mates (I think I’m being cheated out of my 26 percent). We have an innate ability to come up with several options, as opposed to following just one black-and-white route that right-handers tend to be locked into.

And this is going to upset you: We are 71 percent more satisfied after a good night in bed (not sleeping) than righties. Sorry, guys.

Manny Pacquiao excelled because he was left-gloved. Right-handers didn’t know what to expect.

Then there’s my two pet cockatoos; both hold fruits in their left claw. My German shepherds raise their left paw when being patted. The animal kingdom seems to know what’s best.

The real solution to this is where evolution failed us. We need a third hand. I wrote a book on this sometime back where I pointed out all the advantages a third hand would give us (I gather the book is still available on Shopee). For instance, you could hold a glass of wine and a plate of food at a cocktail party (can you remember them?) and still be able to consume them. Or applaud the speaker while still holding that glass of wine. And just think of the sexual experiments you could explore.

The one thing we promise: No more left-handed compliments.

But you need to be wary of us because we are sinister. Sinister meaning evil or malevolent in some way. It comes from a Latin word meaning “on the left side.” So left is associated with evil.

Lefties, arise! Time to fight our own revolution for equality. Build products for us, too. Left is right.

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