In the past few months I have encountered more and more situations that get me thinking about left brain vs. right brain thinking. One of the first things that got me thinking about this subject was reading the book My Stroke of Insight by Jill Taylor. Dr. Taylor is a neuroanatomist who had a stroke in the left side of her brain at age 37, but was able to fully recover after 8 long years. I read the book because I wanted to get some insight into what my grandmother is going through since her stroke last year. I highly recommend the book to anyone who has a friend or family member who has suffered from any form of brain injury. If you would like a short introduction to the subject, you can watch Dr. Taylor’s TED speech here.
What I didn’t expect to get from the book was insight into the two different parts of my own brain, and how I can recognize and control which one is taking over at any given time. This knowledge has made me realize more and more things about myself, and especially how much I’ve changed in the past 10 to 15 years.
I have always been fairly middle-of-the-road on the various tests and quizzes, flipping from “left brain thinker” to “right brain feeler” depending on my mood at the time. I have chosen a creative career path, but I am the more analytical and organized than most designers I know. This has positives and negatives, I can help left brain business people understand art/design issues because I understand how they think, but I also don’t identify as much with fellow creatives at times.
I’ve always thought of myself as a bridge between the art and business worlds because of my ability to think both creatively and analytically. However, since reading more about left brain / right brain thinking, I’m realizing that in the past 10 to 15 years my personality and everyday thoughts and feelings have gone from very right brain too much more left brain, which could be described as going from emotional thinking to practical thinking, or perhaps teenager thinking to adult thinking?
One recent activity where this was very obvious was while watching the Ken Burns Jazz Documentary on Netflix. It was a wonderful 10 part documentary on the history of Jazz, I highly recommend it. When I was listening to the musicians describe their playing, or the feeling of improvising with the group and just knowing what each other is thinking, or using flowery emotional metaphors to describe their connection to the music… I just… sort of laughed. Back in high school or college I would have eaten that stuff up, I would have loved it, I would have written poems about it, I would have put on some jazz music and starting painting, probably dancing and crying all at the same time. But it seems that over the years my left brain has taken over, because when I heard these emotional comments, I first thought “Wow, that’s a bit much isn’t it? I like the music, but I don’t get all that from it.” Then I realized “Oh, I used to get that emotional about things, I used to BE like that… what happened?”
One theory is that I chose graphic design as a career, and after being “creative” all day long at work, I don’t really feel like being creative anymore. I’m not sure how well that theory holds up because, after all, most of my graphic design jobs have been very corporate left brain jobs. Maybe it’s just a sign of getting older, that emotional teenager is long gone, and in her place is a more practical adult.
Is this change a bad thing? I don’t know. I’m certainly not as dramatic as I used to be, that’s probably a good thing. I’m not as sad as I used to be either, and I think I’m as happy if not happier than I was in my more right-brain-thinking days. But I’m also not coming up with new creative ideas as much as I used to, and I see that as a bad thing. I crave more creativity and new ideas, but they aren’t coming to me like they did before.
So, what’s next? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, weighing my options (how left-brained of me!), and I finally took a small step forward – I signed up for a drawing and sketching class that starts at the end of June. I have no idea what will come out of this class, I haven’t tried to draw anything in nearly 10 years! I’m hoping it might bring back some right-brained creative energy into my life.
Hmm, never really thought about it until I read your post, but I think this is what happened to me. I used to write fiction and poetry all the time. THEN I got a corporate job. It’s not that I was creative all day at the corporate job, but more like I was too mentally exhausted at the end of the day or on weekends to be creative. Also I think that when you’re in certain positions of responsibility, there’s an expectation that you use your analytical and logical skills and suppress your creativity. For example, in the industry where I worked, you really can’t be creative because there are so many regulations and you have to follow strict processes. Anyway, now that I’m no longer slaving away in Corporate America, you would think that I would get my creativity back. So far, though, not so much luck. Maybe there’s something to the Age Factor. That sounds like a good book. I’ll have to get it! Thanks again for sharing.
By: Marianne on June 10, 2010
at 8:00 pm