Trust in the Process (Part IV): The Myth of the Right-Left Brain Mentality

City VII - Roses - Oil on Canvas (2014)

The right and left parts of the brain may do certain things, but they don't operate exclusively. I took this right-brain vs. left-brain test recently and scored 16 out of a possible 21 (there are 22 questions, but one is the same with reversed answers). I'm borderline "moderate" to "strong" right brain, which means I'm supposed to be more creative in my life. There is some truth to this, but a lot of this is also complete bunk. Here's why:

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The BATHE - Oil on Canvas (2014)

First of all I believe that anyone can be right-brained or left-brained. Overly analytical people can train themselves to be more emotional and the same goes for emotional people. The only reason why we're analytical or emotional isn't because that's just the way we are; it's because we've learned to accept that's the way we are. Many of us, as I was, are unhappy leading overly analytical lives. I was a financial analyst at a children's hospital in Boston, and I was good at it, too. But I longed for something more. Some may say that my feelings told me that I was more right-brained, and there may be some truth to that because I eventually quit my job, moved to South America, and became a painter. However, I needed about two years to unwind my old, analytical ways. I couldn't just turn it on, and even today I still find myself struggling with getting away from the occasional analysis in my work. But my point is that I had to teach myself to live more creatively. I've successfully done so, and if I can do it then so can others. It's a lifestyle more than it's a fundamental part of our personalities. I've always said that I can't sing well, but I know that's not true. It's just that I've never learned how to sing. People who say they can't draw have simply never learned, or at the very least not taught in a way that has connected them to their ability. I'm a perfect example of this. I always believed I couldn't draw, but then I learned that it requires a lot of hard work. Now that I know what I'm doing, I can do it.

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The Response - Oil on Canvas (2014)

Another reason why I don't believe in the right-brain vs. left-brain myth is because science has actually disproven this. Are certain parts of the brain more analytical than others? Yes, but that doesn't mean that the right side of the brain stops working. It also doesn't mean that the right side of the brain does less than the left. In fact, they're about equal. What does exist is what is known as lateralization, which is a certain section of the brain becoming more active during certain activities. The site LiveScience has a great article that explains this well. Certain functions are separated. Speech is predominantly done by the left brain for right-handed people, and a person's ability to pay attention really does come from the frontal lobes. But according to this article by Science-Based Medicine, while there may be some brains and some periods of people's cognitive energy using a particular area of the brain at any given time, on average the brain uses both sides equally. In other words, the artist is using his or her left brain as much as his or her right brain both during the periods of creation and execution. Even the OECD gets in on the act (though really, who trusts the OECD?). From the OECD paper (final paragraph): "If one considers the right hemispheric creative and emotional thinking style, there is no scientific evidence that supports a correlation between creativity and the activity of the right hemisphere, let alone evidence for a correlation between the degree of creativity and the use of the right hemisphere." Again it states: "...Stanislas Daheane found that both the right and left hemisphere are active in the identification of Arabic numerals (e.g. “1”,”2”). Similarly, other data showed that subsystems in both hemispheres are activated for parts of the reading process, e.g. decoding written words or recognising speech sounds."

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In fact, this small article published on Harvard's Neuroscience teaching site suggest that all of this is cultural and comes from teachers who think they know what they're talking about when they see an exceptionally strong student doing exceptionally strong tasks in a certain field. This isn't a right-brain vs. left-brain activity that they're doing. It's based more on how they've developed. Furthermore, this idea actually may restrict us (I know this to be true on a personal level). The Harvard article goes on to say this: "...
they lock us into ways of thinking about brain function that reduce our understanding of the brain and, therefore, limit our ability to develop more effective models of education. The left-brain/right-brain metaphor puts us into the very box out of which we encourage creative people to think."

So what's my point? Do what you want. Stop being led by whatever people tell you you are. Do personality tests work? Maybe for some things. I am introverted and I know those personality tests out of the park every time, but I also hit the right-brain tests hard, too. I used to be a financial analyst. I hated it. Now I'm an artist and I love it, even the hard parts. So stop. Just do...whatever you want to do.

Untitled Abstract #2 - Oil on Canvas (2013)