Right Brain vs. Left Brain vs. AmbiBrainDexterous: Einstein & Franklin as EXEMPLARS
There’s always been a stigma surrounding “right brains” and “left brains.”
How there are two different types of people and how individually we are more reliant on one rather than the other, similar to handedness.
Artists and inventors are RIGHT brained, and CEOs and engineers are LEFT brained
Labeling people as right brained or left brained in and of itself feels like a half-ass understanding. I know we use some low percentage of our brains, that’s only slightly higher than the percentage of plastics that actually get recycled, but it’s hard to fathom we only use one half.
A Doctor’s Theory
As a studied & practicing doctor of nothing at all, I think it’s less about genetics and more about access. How much do we engage each part of the brain when those neurons fire? Do we ignore or show disinterest when a right-brain idea sparks or do we pursue and dissect it? When the left-brain starts digging through solutions to an assignment do we power through to check each of them out or do we settle for whatever we feel is best without doing the homework?
In that sense, I think nurture trumps nature.
Free will over destiny, always and forever.
The best and most-inspired creatives are able to tap into that left side to maximize their work. For example, ripping through a to-do list with efficiency and aim, the left brain is active.
It can be as small as a continuity fix on a movie set, or as large as the entire organization and correlation of the Marvel universe.
As quick as a Migos single ad-lib addition or as large as a string arrangement and the mastering of the entire album with a scientific approach to compression.
These are all creative endeavors that rely heavily on left-brain functionality to be completed successfully.
So onward and upward…
To the peak and pinnacle of these maestros, my two favorite historical icons: Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin.
These two picked nature’s locks and granted themselves access to both sides of their own brain like no one had done before, and like few have done since.
Albert Einstein
One of the greatest scientific minds the world has ever seen, whose theories continue to be proven correct as technology improves at exponential levels.
I mean, just sit for a moment and think about this fucking headline:
At the theory’s most basic and elementary level, Einstein imagined that shit over a CENTURY ago.
100 fucking years ago.
Right brain, right?
At first, yes, but in all reality, it was much more than an imaginative idea—it was an educated prediction and a theory he was unable to prove at the time of conception because of technology’s limitations during World War I.
It was his right-brain curiosity merging with the detail and diligence to understand the elements contributing to this phenomenon he had no idea of proving that allowed him to publish such an otherworldly theory. It was his ability to grasp every single aspect of what was known of the cosmos prior to World War II (which wasn’t much, relatively speaking), and piece them together to come to such an advanced and correct conclusion on the matter.
Ben Franklin
Ben Frank. Philly’s favorite adopted son. His lightning rod changed the world. It stopped churches, homes, and large buildings from being struck and burned to the ground during thunderstorms. To go out into a thunderstorm with a kite and a key definitely takes some imagination (and some balls), but it all takes a sophisticated and knowledgeable understanding of the different elements at play. As you probably know, that was just one of Franklin’s projects that helped shape society and first-world living as we know it.
Here are a few of his most popular inventions:
Lightning rod
Bifocals
The Franklin Stove
The first Political Cartoon
Swim Fins!
Urinary Catheter
Not condoms
He was also a founding father of the country and had a massive influence on what has society has involved into in the span of 250 years, including development of libraries, hospitals, waste management systems, fire departments, unions/fraternities, the bracketed tax system, and so much more. His wheeling and dealing in France combined with Washington’s battlefield tactics won America its freedom. In the process, he contributed to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, but the Treaty of Paris will remain his most impressive and important stamp on the American Revolution.
AmbiBraindexterous
I’d argue these are not singular right or left-brained actions. They are inventive ideas and solutions brought forth by an impressive, developed understanding of materials, human behavior, and sociology.
Einstein and Franklin aren’t left-brained or right-brained. They’re both-brained.
groooaaaannnn
And none of their inventions or theories came to light without their own enamored pursuit of their subjects.
Knowledge honed, not biologically owned.
Mind you, I did no such research on actual brain stimulation during the activities discussed.
No idea where the brain is actually firing during such activities. Didn’t need to figure that out.
This is about stigma not science.
