RIGHT BRAINER, LEFT BRAINER AND NO BRAINER?

[FIGHT BACK, MY FELLOW RIGHT BRAINERS!]

TO SMELL OR TASTE, THAT IS THE QUESTION

The Earth’s population of Homo sapiens was controlled by folks who were predominantly, Right-Brained Predominant.  Let’s call them, RBPs.  LBPs are tolerated by them because, let’s face it, RBPs are the creative ones, referred to by Saint Paul, in a derogatory way, as Epicureans.  The Stoics, on the other hand, are admired by him because they work, never smile, are clean and fit and they follow their leaders, faithfully.  Paul was definitely not listening to his mentor, Jesus.  God and Allah were creative, but strict and had a million rules for living, breathing and reproducing.  At last count, in the Pentateuch, starting with the Ten Commandments, in Exodus, carved in stone, were 613 Rules and Regulations, all the way to the end of Deuteronomy.  At regular intervals, there was God, or Allah, interjecting, that if the Commandments, Rules and Regulations were not followed, to the letter, word and phrase, there’d be Hell to pay.  Fear was the predominant emotion evoked.  If on the other hand, God or Allah, would look upon you, and your family, with favour.  He would then allow that He loved you, if you loved him, your sins would be forgiven and your spirit would exist forever in a Perfect World, a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, with Peace toward Men, not Women, forever, and ever, Amen.

Women, in fact, were deemed to be the curse of the world, the originators of Sin and the servants of Men.  In the original Garden of Eden allegory, when God discovered Adam and Eve, naked, ashamed, cowering and wearing fig leaves, He asked, in a thundering voice, “What have you done, my perfect creation, my Adam?” Adam replied, “It was her fault!” pointing an accusing finger at Eve.  Adam in Hebrew means, “The MAN.”  Eve means, “Of the Man, having been cloned from one of Adam’s ribs.”  He didn’t point at Lucifer, the snake, or Lilith, the Babylonian-Mesopotamian Hermaphroditic Temptress, presently enjoying a renaissance, of sorts.  Nor did Adam blame the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, apparently long gone since the original couple were ejected from the Garden through the East Gate, guarded by Cherubim and a flaming, twirling sword.  Thereafter, there was a great deal of begetting, pages and pages worth, listing men and rarely women, in the process of going forth and multiplying.

Except for Abel, Adam, Eve, Seth and Cain produced millions of people, all sinners, all doomed to perdition.  As the allegories proceed, Noah and his family and his livestock, in pairs, and his flora and fauna and seeds, all neatly gathered to restart life on Earth, or in the Mediterranean area, at least, after the flood and tsunami caused, we think by a shifting of the African Tectonic Plate about 100 yards, south, re-opening the Straits of Gibraltar, and spreading the legs of The Colossus of Rhodes.  This was all explained nicely by Jacques Cousteau to explain why the bed of the Mediterranean Sea is solid quartz.  Lost were the great cities of Sodom and Gomorra, AKA, in my opinion, Atlantis.  This is the consequence of a LBP diddling with nature and destroying, with satisfaction, and a high degree of self-righteousness, the imperfections of the Earth, including Mankind.

This is reminiscent of many of our kith and kin who say, “this will hurt me more than it hurts you.”  Ha!  It also reminds me of the story I heard while living in the land of Perfectionists, Switzerland.  Apparently, a Swiss bureaucrat determined that the cow, an essential part of the Swiss economy was not perfect enough for the Swiss farmers.  He dictated that the sway back should be breeded out in favour of a straight back.  He didn’t check out the possible consequences which were dire.  Cows with straight backs could no longer deliver calves, because of disproportion of the head of the heifer and the pelvic bowl of the pregnant cow.  The cheese and dairy bonanza was over unless the sway back cows were breeded back in.  Nevertheless, the Swiss cows, as opposed to every other cow in the world, are scrubbed down to be squeaky clean, every day.  A rumour had it that cows with their right front leg and right back leg somewhat longer than those on the left, are preferred, in order that the cow could walk around a mountainous grass field clockwise, instead of counterclockwise…  I was informed, this a joke aimed at gullible tourists and aliens, but I wasn’t convinced after living with a nation of LBPs who willingly suffer tremendous angst, a form of Panic Disorder, with the highest national suicide rate, matching the Swedes, most of whom are in the darkness half the year and have severe seasonal depressions, a form of Bipolar Disorder, thereby.  Each street, in each village and city, is swept twice daily by a block street sweeper who does not allow even a cigarette or chocolate wrapper to remain in sight of his picture-perfect town.  In Canada and the USA, the equivalent are the neat, perfectly mown lawns and the successes of the hired housekeepers and heads of households, who maintain dust-free homes with sparkling, shined floors and frequently vacuumed carpets, as well as shiny, vacuumed cars and pressed, clean clothes.  Angst is everywhere.  The pressure translates into suicide as the highest cause of teenage deaths, and abuse of alcohol as the most common form of habitual abuse.

The Bible, in fact, is what most Western Civilizations use for their Laws.  The Magna Carta, composed in 1215, contains the 613 Pentateuch Commandments, Rules and Regulations, almost verbatim, including the punishment rules of never giving more than 39 lashes, unless the judge judges the person is to be exiled, ostracized or forever enslaved.  LBPs often quote the laws of behaviour to anyone in his surroundings, even if he created the rule himself.  The self-righteous attitude is very common in our daily lives, like no pets are allowed or no bicycles can be kept in the apartment.  The enforcement of these contrived rules is the Bain of apartment dwellers who follow them, lest they be evicted or fined.  A true LBP always knows exactly what to do under any circumstance and hesitates not to convey his rule of behaviour to any kith or kin in his immediate surroundings.  Law makers back this up with police forces or increased taxes or heavy fines.  Income tax is essentially an illegal form of taxation started during wars or other economic emergencies.  It was never stated to be a permanent tax.  LBPs love permanency and taxes.  It is the punishment for working hard and contributing a huge amount of one’s efforts back to the law makers with stiff penalties, even loss of freedom, if one fails to do so.

LBPs often back up their controlling rules and regulations and commandments with religious stuff.  Cleanliness, as far as I know is not next to Godliness.  God himself makes many mistakes, the most obvious of which is that he created an imperfect, sinful man, or mainly woman, as implied by the allegories.  He has the Power to clean up his humongous human messes with floods, tsunamis, fire and brimstone, all of which are extremely messy, or unclean.  Inasmuch as predestination is a prominent part of most Western Religions, God does his Work, despite foreseeing the mess He’s going to create.

Nieder ist Arbeit, Freiheit, as the German assassins like to say.  Working is no more freedom than not working.  I would hazard a guess that most poor people are a lot happier than the rich variety of people, whether they work for their riches or inherit them.  My marriages were the happiest when I had little cash.  After I started making a fair amount of money, my first wife said, “Now you make enough money for me to divorce you!”  She added, “I may not be able to live with you, but there has never been a dull moment around here.”  My second wife said, “I loved the way you loved me and send more money.”  Her legal suit was unsuccessful, though the defence lawyer was expensive.  My impoverished fixed-income state did not stop my adult, married daughter, who refuses to talk to me, and her never wed mother, to successfully sue me for 75% of my USSS income, in compliance with the Law-makers of Cook County.  Now that I’m 75, and poor again, as I had started as a youth, I’ve never felt better, never had so much freedom to paint and write, and never experienced such energy and good health, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Jesus’ often misinterpreted message was Love.  Without conditions, He suggested, “Love Thy God.”  He added, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.  Forgive him his sins, as he forgives yours.”  Allegorically, He sacrificed His life so every sinner has a chance to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  He also promised to return and destroy the entire world except for the people and souls who have taken Him into his Heart, those alive and even those who have already died.  His Second Coming will be heralded triumphantly, with Cherubim playing on their harps and trumpets.  It’s bound to be an exultant party for the 144,000 who will be chosen, plus a Heaven on Earth.  For the rest of us, it will be a Hell on Earth for the Millennium.  Afterwards, some of us will also make it, if we repent, on time.

Incidentally, the Pentateuch, in Hebrew, preserved all these years on scrolls as well as being a part of the oral tradition of Judaism, was probably written by Moses, under the direction of God, in a cloud, atop Mount Sinai.  It had no vowels.  It did, however, have musical directions.  Obviously, it was meant to be sung, probably accompanied by tambourines played by women and harps played by Cherubim and trumpets, like the sheep’s horns, blown by men.  Dancing by women, like the dance done by Miriam with her tambourines, after the successful Exodus from Egyptian bondage, as Moses sang the Song of Moses.  It is my feeling, that the Gospels of the Jewish disciples of Jesus, either said it wrong, or it was interpreted wrong.  More exactly, in the Beginning, there was Music, and the Music was God.  Music is what separates mankind from the other animals on Earth, not language.  Animals certainly have spoken and unspoken languages.  Music is what makes us intelligent, inspired and people, as opposed to instinctual animals and plants.  The power of music is evident in practically every church, mosque and synagogue in the world as well as in every aboriginal culture in existence.  The beat of a drum, reflecting the excitement of the beat of one’s heart, is part of every culture.  The ringing of bells in whatever harmony has evolved, calls us to worship and heralds special occasions like marriage and triumph, freedom and enjoyment.  Words are the tools of the Stoics.  Music is the language of the Epicureans.  LBP are wordy.  RBP are musical, love to dance and love to share a joke with heart-felt, healing, laughter.  LBPs like photographs and other graphs showing statistics why they are always right.  RBPs like impressionists, surrealists, abstractionists and Klimt, Chagall and Brach, the painters who paint from the soul and not from the brain, the ones who paint with their hormones afire and not with their chemicals perfectly aligned.

I was inspired to compose this very personal Commentary because of the anxiety suffered by myself and my brother-in-law, unnecessarily, because a neighbour complained about a smell emanating from my apartment.  A rumour had it that another nearby neighbour was recently jailed when he was discovered having and smoking crack cocaine.  My brother-in-law had rented the apartment because I was impoverished and had a poor credit rating, unacceptable, as is well known, to owners off all apartment owners.  My benefactor was visibly anxious, throughout, and apparently upset with me, blaming me for not maintaining everything spotless, sterile and odourless.  He had already informed me that a kitten, a tropical fish tank and plants would be unwise acquisitions; not only because of their initial and chronic costs, but also because of the messiness I had consistently demonstrated.  He maintained that messiness was the main reason for an eviction from a low rent apartment, for bed bugs in a hotel apartment and for the losses of several other dwellings, including three houses.  I hired a very expensive cleaning women to come and make her judgements of my messiness, and any corrections to it, an hour or two before the scheduled inspection by the superintendent.  The super, a germaphobe and clean-freak, walked in and smelt my bathroom, saying, “It smells in here!”  I fought the urge to say, “It’s a bathroom!”  Clipboard in hand, she made checkmarks up and down several pages and left saying, “I’ll be sending a report to the owner.”  My brother-in-law was not relieved.  He wondered where on Earth I could go, now, if I were evicted from this nice place.  Stupidly, I said, with bravado, “There’s a ton of empty apartments, everywhere, even in this exclusive building!”  He became more upset and shook his head as he exited with his toolbox of cleaners and rags.  He didn’t ask for a report so that I could learn more of what they were checking off and the super said I was not entitled to one unless my in-law requested it.. She said something about it’s sufficient that we have not evicted you with that record in its proper secret file.

Well I have not been evicted.  However, I have been greatly inconvenienced because of many other rules and regulations regarding my bicycle, unscheduled searches of my apartment without my permission, for leaks to other units and the restrictive scheduling of the locked doors to the lobby washroom and laundry room.  I am considering an affordable apartment, elsewhere.  I’m sure I can’t escape the rules and regulations, but I believe there’s a friendlier alternative, somewhere in Canada.  I believe my kith and kin are all LBPs.  Most have already expressed fear that I would come and live with them.  Certainly, none have offered.  One has already told me to leave, while another sibling said she could never do what the first did.  I figure I’m the classical child that only a mother could love.  My father said it all in the presence of my brother when I asked him why he never came to any of my many sports events or graduation ceremonies?  He was 80.  Angtily and red-faced, he spit out, “Who could live with you!?”  Indeed!  It was the same face I remembered from my childhood when he’d shouted at my mother, “Paskudiak Yachneh!” just before he stomped out and went to gamble with my uncles and other gambling friends, for the rest of the evening.  I’m guessing, my Bipolar mother and my Bipolar self were the only RBPs in my immediate family.  He and all the rest were LBP and spoke a different language.  When my sister and I were fortunate enough to spend a lot of time together, it was my feeling she grew up in a different house.  She claimed my father was very proud of me but had shyness about expressing love.  She and my other siblings and my dad said that he worked hard all his life providing food and shelter under trying circumstances with my mom and me.  From all their points of view, it’s presumably correct.  Until recently, I never saw their point of view.  My sister, on the other hand reaped from my dad all the love and respect she deserved.

After my internship, I moved as far away as I could get.  Through books, movies and associations with others, I started learning how to respect myself and become aware of talents that were shunned, and still shunned by my family of LBPs.  My sister revealed that my folks were seemingly convinced I was not smart enough to go to Medical School.  One teacher apparently told my mother that I was too smart for my own good.  My mother was right about my first wife, on the other hand; she simply said, she wasn’t the right woman foot me.  It was a truthful opinion from one RBP to another.  Only much later did I come to know that my mother was highly intelligent and a talented master seamstress who could discern the patterns of a displayed dress at Eaton’s and allow her work-mates to create the beautiful dresses that the rich and famous wore.  She was able to convey to me, that the only way to get along with the others, who didn’t understand us, was to hide your intelligence and appear to be helpless.  It\s not quite the same, but it reminds me of, “You can attract more bees with honey than you can with vinegar.”  My mother’s great advice was to make yourself, “toma shevota,”  In Yiddish and/or Hebrew, that means something like, make yourself stupid like the 3^rd or 4^th child.  Her other great piece of advice was, “hack mir nisht kein chinek!” which means, what I’ve heard all my life: “Stop talking, already!” or literally, “Don’t bang me a tea kettle!”  I have had the unfortunate experience with a very pretty woman who felt she had to instruct me during our one-night stand.  She mounted me and tersely said, “Just shut up and fuck!”  I didn’t lose my potency, but I lost my confidence; my “control-by-talking tool,” was taken from me.

OK, RBPs, those who prefer unconditional love to provisional like, fight back!  Lose all your likers and attract more lovers.  Be prepared to face your likers with phrases like, “I ride my bicycle because it’s fun, not because it’s exercise.”  Or, “I love your see-through blouse because I can see your breasts and nipples and I can see you smile as you look at where I’m looking, without contempt or guilt-provoking comments.”  Also, “Wow!  That was great!  I don’t care if you go to your doctor and have him do tests for your hormone levels to check on whether you should enjoy love-making, even when you’re married and instructed to make babies, not to have fun.”

All of us Right-Brained-Predominant people originated with the cavemen who had real excitement, running from tigers and then eating them.  God, Ra and Allah, the pre-eminent Left-Brained-Predominant Superior Beings, were the invention of the original LBPs.  They were probably invented by Moses, Ramses II and Habakkuk, as icons of fear and anger, not love.  Jesus obviously knew the truth.  He was all about love and happiness, as opposed to greed, gluttony, pride, lust, envy, sloth and acquiring gold, just for the sake of owning something sparkling and essentially worthless, that no one else can have.

I don’t have a lot more to write without sounding wordy, even to myself.  Fighting Left-Brain neat freaks and germaphobes has been a life-long battle and will continue to be so, as far as I can see.  Trying to convert, always turned out disasterous for me.  I was tempted sorely when I realized life would be so much easier for me, if I went for the money rather than my personal satisfaction.  That others have fooled me many times, saying that they preferred fun to work, as I do, goes without saying.  That I was confused many times, discerning those that loved me, as myself, from those that would abuse me and/or rob me and those that sought to change me into an image of themselves.

Mark Twain’s elegant satirical book, LETTERS FROM THE EARTH, wherein Satan, God’s favourite Angel, comes to Earth around 1900, to see what his boss, God, hath wrought.  It has many great lines.  My favourite was a spoof on the Biblical pronouncement that God made Man in His Image.  He said in his letter, something like, “Boss, you wouldn’t believe these guys.  They firmly believe they are beautiful, like you.  Boss, they are ugly, really ugly!”  It’s something like Churchill’s line to a lady that walks up to him and says he’s drunk.  He replies that while he will be sobre in the morning, she will still be ugly.

I believe I’ve written enough to make this a truly long essay.  I hope that all of you who read it, right- left- and no-brainers, will have enjoyed reading it, to some degree.  Actually, my hope is, to ANY degree!

THE END

© izzy sommers, md, retired

Welland, Canada

June 13, 2013

(an especially miserable, rainy day)