A brain scientist gave a Ted talk about her experience of having a stroke in the left side of her brain, she’d lost her ability to read a phone number and speak but then functioning primarily from the right hemisphere she experienced an acute sense of connectivity, flow and awareness.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight
It might be a myth or an unsubstantiated claim that there are differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Whether a team of researchers have proven there isn’t much evidence to support one side is more creative and the other side more logical or one side more intuitive versus conceptual. But without even considering how mental capacities are affected when a brain injury happens to one side of the brain. Whether it’s true or unproven, I think at the very least the visual concept works well as a metaphor.
I think it makes sense how the brain would manage different cognitive functions, how we relate to ourselves, how we relate to the space around us. To have separate processes for interperting us as individuals and another process that is connects us to people, energy, emotions and awareness. And it makes sense to me that if these are two halves of a brain, why people would be different in these two ways and what appears to be a 50/50 split – how we see the world, how we interpret and interact with each other.
As we as individuals try to reconcile the two hemispheres within our own psychologies and cognitive function, processes that seem to be contradictory and at odds with each other. The negative thoughts, critical self-doubt, discouragement, anxiety, self-sabotage, attacks, defensiveness. Doesn’t this complex conflict within an individual seem representative of the population to a greater whole. How much more then is the conflict between groups of individuals – families, friends, communities, populations. But the key isn’t for one side to win, for one side to dominate the other – the key is for both sides to work together to have more compassion and empathy, understanding, an appreciation and gratitude that we are individuals and we are the collective. But this also happens at an individual scale – that is, we need empathy, understanding, appreciation, gratitude and awareness for ourselves.