Being left handed is a minority problem (estimated up to 15%). I am not left-handed, but it is a characteristic that I systematically notice in people (I have never managed to detect left-eyed fish – see ABC report). When my wife asked me what image or expectation I had as a youth of my wife to be, the most concrete image I had was that I thought she would be left handed (she isn’t; but we have two out of two left-handed children). While being left handed is considered, statistically, to be bad luck (prevalence of certain types of diseases, la sinistra in Italian), there is room (scientifically) to believe in the prowess of left-handers (BBC report citing Dr Nick Cherbuin’s study). And, far beyond the competitive advantage afforded “lefties” in sports, I have always viewed left-handed people as having to be “different” and this I mean in the Apple way. There are thousands of sites on left-handers. I draw your attention to two of them that I found interesting.
- Observations of a left-hander (Stanford Computer Science PhD student, Lucas Pereira)
- List of famous left-handers courtesy of our gallant wikipedia folk. I cannot back up with any statistics, but it does appear that that list of people represents a higher percentage of the talented/successful people than a representative 15%.
I can only believe that having to battle all the right-favored accessories and accoutrements of daily existence, the left-handed people — with a stronger right brain component — end up with a more interesting, more complex and ultimately more extreme experience in life. And, yes, a leftie in tennis is also a fun challenge.
