am i really a lefty?

yesterday i read this book, which is basically about the traits that makes us lefty's different than the other 9/10 of the human population. i've read a decent amount about this, but i was really struck this time with how un-lefty i am. excerpts:


you might expect a right-hander to be verbal, analytical, and good at math. and a left-hander to be intuitive, and mystical, with a strong visual sense. which is exactly the case. --p 166-7

i would never describe myself as mystical and am not visual at all. in learning tests i am exactly between an auditory and kinesthetic/tactile learner. my visual skills barely show up in results. i am also pretty good at math.


right-handers tend to think lineally, linking their ideas in logical order. left-handers are more apt to think holistically, skipping over the details. --p 174-5

i usually have trouble seeing the whole picture and am very detail-oriented. i am a step-by-step person and really like lists (the kind where you complete one item before moving on to the next).


right-handers are wired into the logical half of the brain, which makes them sensible, reasonable, and dull. but left-handers are wired into the artistic half of the brain, which makes them imaginative, creative, surprising, ambiguous, exasperating, stubborn, emotional, witty, obsessive, infuriating, delightful, original, but never, never dull. --p 194-5

i relate to all of these righty traits, but only a few of the lefty ones (ambiguous, stubborn, and obsessive). i have never thought of myself as imaginative or creative. i don't consider myself emotional, but thought i'd ask my roommate of 1.5 yrs straight. she said i have my emotional moments just like everyone else, but she doesn't think i'm emotional overall.


the emotional left-handed brain thinks in pictures. it understands three-dimentional space, music, tone of voice (but not words), and is highly imaginative. --p 345

my brain doesn't think in pictures - it's as simple as that. i don't ever remember seeing a picture in my head. people have asked me how i dream and i don't know how to answer that. i can never remember any colors or other images, only sounds and smells. i just somehow know what is happening.


and to top it all off, i barely do anything left-handed. i am a lefty when i write, eat, hammer, carry kids, and shoot a bow. i do all other sports right-handed. i am right-footed and right-eyed.

one section of the book talks about the lives of a whole bunch of lefties and why it's obvious by their traits that they aren't righties. i couldn't relate to many of them, but found one that matches me well:

peter benchley - the author of jaws may be the most determinedly right-handed left-hander on record. the fact is, peter benchley favors his right hand for virtually all activities -- playing tennis, throwing a ball, hammering a nail, etc. the only exception is writing, which he does left-handedly. to a neurologist this makes him left-handed. he may be right-handed at virtually everything else, but the act of writing is so difficult, so complex, so significant a skill that it far outweighs any other manifestation of handedness. if you write left-handed, you are left-handed, and that's that. --p 206


some other interesting facts i learned:

~"48% of all major league first basemen are lefthanded." --p 57

~"there are at least a handred discriminatory references to the left hand in the Bible." --p 329 (the only example given was matthew 25.41)

--"one of the more intruguing explanations for left-handedness was offered by the late dr. norman geschwind of boston. his theories suggest that handedness is determined long before birth, and the determining factor is testosterone, the male hormone." --p 388