Monday, 13 October 2008

• On the other hand...

  You know, I often feel out of place in today’s world – like I’m an unwilling minority, and one looked down upon (even if not openly). Is it because of my race? Language? Religion? Political Association? Nay, my friends, nay a thousand times nay. It is because I am left-handed. For centuries we southpaws have been relegated to the borders of society – forced to conform or face the punishment. Yes, it’s not easy to admit, but I’m a left-handed person in a right-handed person’s world.
  
  
  http://www.bizarroartist.org
  
  

  I’ve been a left-handed person for as long as I remember. I’m not sure if I was born this way, or if it’s actually a life-style choice. When I was quite young I remember my grandmother trying to convince me to become right-handed. It was the right thing to do, she said. It would only make life easier for me, to help me avoid unnecessary persecution and hardship. I’d need special scissors, and golf-clubs. Life would be hard.
  

  
  

  But I persevered in my sinister ways (well, actually, I golf right-handed now). It hasn’t been easy, though (read with appropriate accompanying violin music.) Every day I face the consequences of my life-style choice. Every time I spend any significant period of time writing the side of my hand ends up covered in ink or graphite stains, and my writing itself is often smudged. I can’t use spiral binders, or notepads. My hand gets tired quickly as it attempts to compensate for the smudging effect, and writing is generally a messy and uncomfortable task. Often, the result is less legible than a Doctor’s prescription pad. When I was young, I tried to take up calligraphy, only to find the results to be less than stellar. Fountain pens are, of course, even worse for us than ball-points or pencils are. But what choice do I have? I can hardly be expected to surrender the natural urges granted to me by god upon my conception simply because of the majority preference.

  I can’t tell you how happy I was with the invention of the personal computer. Sure, the typewriter helped level the playing field for us, but really. You can’t surf the internet with one of those things. With the development of a writing method using both hands equally, though, I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. But alas, it was not to be! Mice, joysticks – all, biased against me. I could weep. The shame of having to purchase the symmetrical computing interface devices put in the ‘special’ sections of the electronics stores! And firearms, too! True, I haven’t got a gun. But if I had, I’m told the vast majority are made for right-handed people! Oh, the indignity.

  
  

  Sometimes it almost seems too much. My only satisfaction lies in the fact that despite being between seven and ten per cent of the populace, we make up 47 per cent of art students, and while that may not necessarily be a good thing, did you know that Barack Obama, John McCain, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ross Perot are all left-handed? Considering a base of ten percent of the population, how can one explain that six of the twelve post-war presidents have been left-handed? Natural superiority, that’s how! I begin, now, to perceive why we are hated and prosecuted! It’s true what my mother said; they’re just jealous! We’re better, and have been better for ages, and you hate us for it! Admit it. I can sense your green rage from here. But don’t you worry – when the world rights itself, and the superior kind of people take charge of the right-handed majority, I will remember the indignity, and treat you with kindness, as I would have so preferred when I tried my stained hand at calligraphy all those years ago.

  Currently Reading Planet Google: One Company's Audacious Plan To Organize Everything We Know By Randall Stross see related

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