Handedness and Dexterity

I’m left handed. I have been since as long as I can remember. I started writing with my left hand. However, the idea that a left-handed person is left-handed at birth and will remain left-handed for the rest of his life has bothered me for several reasons.

For one thing, I'm only left-handed in writing and eating (with utensils). I throw with my right hand, I use a computer with the mouse on the right and keyboard on the left (just like nearly everybody else), I swing bats and clubs with a right-handed grip (though I rarely play baseball or golf), and I do just about everything else with my right hand. This is not really a rare thing, but I think it proves something about the way people adapt.

For the cases of extreme handedness, in which people do nearly everything with a selected hand, I believe that I can supply a hypothesis, but I can't be sure that there is no predetermination at all. But my hypothesis is that people who are explicitly handed probably learned some motor skill when they were very young, probably still babies, and then they learned another skill with the same hand and continued using one hand for nearly every task that they had to complete. I use this hypothesis because I have noticed that when I newly learn certain skills, my dexterity for those skills is somewhat predetermined if I have learned other skills that are similar to the one that I am currently learning, but if the new skill is completely unlike anything I have ever done, I am not sure which hand to use.

I'd like to extend this hypothesis to point out a fallacy: many people might say that the first time they ever tried something, it seemed completely natural for them to use a specific hand for it. This may be true, and there may be some predetermination involved before they further develop their motor skills. I can never prove to anyone that there is or isn't, but I can hypothesize that there isn't. I believe that when someone attempts a new activity for which it seems natural to use one hand, this is because they have developed motor skills for that type of movement from some other skill, so they have better control with one hand. I can point out an example in my life: eating with my left hand. I don't remember exactly when I learned to eat with utensils, but it might have been when I was about three or four. This was before I learned to write. I learned to write in kindergarten. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but it seems that I had developed a feel for how to hold a pencil unconsciously, but when asked how I held it, I didn't know which hand I used. I eventually figured out that I was left handed. My explanation for this is that my development of motor skill as a result of learning to eat with my left hand led me to write with my right hand.

Although I cannot prove my hypothesis about handedness, I am still figuring out the dexterity of my own hands (and even feet) through drumming. Recently, I have started learning new styles of drumming which include the active and precise movement of the right and left feet in coordination and also precise control of a see-saw motion of the sticks. I currently have little to no experience with that latter, so this should be fun to figure out. More importantly, though, I will be learning to write with my right hand. I predict that if I practice continuously for a matter of years, my writing might come to equal that of my left hand. We’ll see how it turns out.

(Also, feel free to draw whatever symbolic conclusions about life that you can from this. Predestination, freedom, nature vs. nurture, etc. It's fun.)

Jazz, Cheesyness, and Association

First of all, before you come to any conclusions about this post based on the title (you probably already have), let me state this: I relate these subjects because when I was a small child, they seemed to go together well. Now I think otherwise, but through the process of explaining my mindset as a child, I can make a point or two about the human mind's habit of association.

When I was a young child I hated jazz. I thought it was boring. If you could ask me as a child, of course, I wouldn't say it was because I disliked the way the bass line alternated with every quarter note, interfering with the structure of the chords, or that the chords in general were more dissonant than in popular music, although both of these factors may have contributed. I would have just told you it was cheesy and boring, and that I didn't like it. What I realize now, though, is that the main reason that I did not like jazz was because I associated it with my surroundings at the time that I was hearing it. My mind has a strong association between music, color, and environment, and for me, the environment for hearing jazz was what was really boring, not the music itself. But through association, something that links a memory or emotion that bears a particular response can seem to have the properties of that response itself. Imagine the places in which a young child would hear jazz. These would most likely be:

• A boring formal social event involving fancy suits and old people, in which jazz is played on the loud speaker or band stand, eliminating any chance of conversation.
• A waiting room with white walls and a white tile ceiling in which jazz pours from the circular sound-drain overhead.
• An old cheesy movie in which too much talking and not enough exploding occurs.

These are the kinds of situations in which a young child would hear jazz. Can you imagine now why I might learn to hate a form of music by association?

On the contrary, though, I can say that I now appreciate jazz. In fact, I love it. This didn't come too easily, though. It took quite a few listening sessions with just me, some work to do, and nothing but jazz in the background. But after a while, I've really come to enjoy it. It just takes some time to get used to.

This leads me to expand my case of association not just to jazz music, but to all music in general, since for me, this phenomenon occurs mainly in music. Once when I was practicing with a band-mate/friend of mine (guitarist), he was just reviewing one of our songs with me, and for the ending (I don't play during the ending), he improvised three new chords just to say "the heck with it." They were the major IV, then the minor iv, and finally the major seven I. A close friend of both mine and his, who was spectating, began to laugh out loud and comment on what a "cheesy ending" it was. I can clearly see where his comment was coming from. I'd heard quite a bit of those chords in sentimental soft rock and indie rock music, so I knew what he was talking about.

It made me think, though, about what makes something cheesy. I'm sure that by "cheesy," what our friend meant was sentimental and overused, cliché. I've looked up the official meaning of the word "cheesy," though, and it is different, although I've heard that word used quite often to mean the very same thing. In general, I believe the official definition of "cheesy" is just of generally poor quality, such as a knock-off or something unpleasant. I've found that the word "trite" more accurately describes the desired tone used to describe something that is cliché. However, I believe that the modern slang meaning of "cheesy" will do just fine, as it can be generally recognized as "trite." But anyway, something becomes cheesy when it is overused.

So something becomes cheesy when it is overused. This is not hard to understand, but what is interesting about it is that no new idea is ever introduced with the purpose of becoming a cliché. Think, for example, of the type of music that you might hear in the background of a TV commercial. The type of music being played would greatly depend upon the type of product being used. Think of the all-overused generic soap commercial with the white background, the shiny models' skin and hair, and, of course, the cool-graphics computer-generated animation showing how the shiny fluid magically cleanses you. The music used in those commercials generally some form of relaxing jazz-pop ballad, or and upbeat electropop beat; something of the sort. Usually, though, the people who make these commercials will seek out the dreamiest, most relaxing music. They are mainly responsible for how this music is presented to the general public. As a result, people begin to associate this type of music to its surroundings. I believe that some types of music much like this are commonly heard more often in commercial advertising than by their few avid listeners. Disappointingly, this can shift the entire general perception of one genre of music from innovative to "cheesy" over the course of a few years.

On the contrary, it is likely the person's fault, though, who invests in such tacky methods of music promotion as commercial advertising, even if passively so. Therefore you really have to be careful exactly how you present an idea, as if it appears in the wrong context, it can become cheesy just like anything else. But overall, it matters not how the idea is presented, but simply how much it is, and how well it is adopted. The best way to solve this problem is simply to think of a new way to present an idea and to be innovative, with the hopes that in this world stuffed full of popular ideas, if any are congruent to the ones that you are attempting to present, that they are obsolete or unheard of altogether.

Introduction

Hello. I'm John. I go to school. I learn things. And occasionally, I save up a few of the things that I have learned, chew them up, and spit them out in a wad. Usually they're rather pointless things that ultimately have no purpose in life, but would be quite amusing to think about, or at least they are for me. I like to think about things. Philosophical things, patterns in life, whatever. I have a blog for that. It's just that on that blog, I couldn't really find a consistent tone to stick with (formal, informal, silly, serious, whatever), so I'm going to establish as an (already quite obviously) informal, somewhat silly, somewhat serious blog, in which I express ideas that I have been chewing on recently. And I won't try to be all formal and impartial and absolute about it, either. Basically, this blog will just be for all the ideas that I've felt like posting on Facebook but exceeded the 420 character limit, but more importantly, the 2-line limit for catching people's interest. Because no one actually reads everything on there (at least I don't). I mean, I'd rather look at some pictures of something really cool I did, or maybe my friends did, than read every single three-to-five-line status. Or at least, that's how it works for me. Probably because I just check Facebook mostly out of habit and fear that I might miss something interesting, ironically skimming over the witty things that people have to say. But anyway, I'm writing things here because I want to be more specific than I could be with a two-line status, even if I'm not extremely descriptive all the time (and hopefully I won't be repetitive). But I think that a few of the things that I say (not many of them) deserve to be remembered longer than the two-to-three days during which the rate at which people view my statuses slowly declines out of the significant range.

Oh yeah. And publicity is another thing. I also think that these few things that I say that are interesting could use to be viewed by more than the probably-around-two-hundred "friends" I have, probably fifty of which will glance at them. I would include everyone in the "friends of friends" category, but statistically, it's not likely that anyone will share my statuses, or comment on them, or like them in such a way that perhaps thirty more mutual friends will be interested to glance at them. Also, the only other websites that people really use for sharing their ideas that they think are so cool are Twitter and Tumblr. And not even really Tumblr. That's just things that you saw that you really liked that you think other people will really like if they haven't already seen those same things. As for Twitter, I've sort-of-not-really considered it, but like I said, a few of the things I say I don't feel like cramming into a single sentence. I'm no Demetri Martin.

So from this blog you can probably expect to read interesting little rants about basic concepts in life, mainly things that would inspire some to chew on and consider an alternative point of view when generally processing information. So hopefully it will be a "make you think" type of thing, but not overly formal and serious like that other blog (ugh). I call this "Ideas to be canned" because hopefully, these things will be worth considering and saving up in a can somewhere, just in case ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens to you and you get so bored that you have nothing to do but pick out something strange to think about. So most likely this will not actually have a real purpose in life, but hey, I just feel like writing it, and if time permits, you just might feel like reading it.