Heroes Not Zombies

Nature

Music

Poetry

I’m convinced about the hemisphere hypothesis as described in Iain McGilchrist’s two great works, The Master and His Emissary, and, The Matter with Things. Both of these books are huge, erudite and comprehensive. They’ve given me a new way of seeing the world and a perspective which enables me to make a lot more sense of life and society.

If you use the search box at the top of my blog and put in “hemisphere”, “McGilchrist”, or “brain”, you’ll find a number of posts which describe how this hypothesis has affected my thinking.

But the essence is this – the human brain has two large cerebral hemispheres. They are not the same. Each enables a different kind of focus, a different way of paying attention. A broad, holistic, attention to relationships, contexts and connections, and a narrow, focused, analytical attention to details. We use both all the time, but over the years, we humans have come to use the left hemisphere much more than the right. The left enables us to “grasp” things. It priorities utility and drives our mechanistic, reductionist view of the universe. All of that has brought us great power and control but by itself this half brain approach has created a delusional view of reality which is now causing great harm – to ourselves, to our societies, to the natural world.

When we use both halves of the brain, the focused analyses of the left hemisphere are handed back to the right hemisphere to be integrated into the broader picture, to be contextualised and synthesised. The right side should be the dominant side, the “master”, benefiting from the work of the left, the “emissary” but the left has convinced itself it doesn’t need the right side. The result is where we are now – valuing utility and control over beauty, truth and goodness, experiencing alienation and illness, and destroying the planet whose health is necessary for our survival.

I’ve written many times about how we exist in a vast web of flow and connections. When we live in harmony with the rest of existence we benefit, and the world benefits. We flourish, and we create the conditions which enable flourishing.

So, the way forward is to develop a whole brain approach to reality and reset the relationship between the master and the emissary.

How can we do that? How am I going to do that in my own life? Partly through awareness, partly through slowing down to experience each day more deeply, partly by seeking to be amazed, to wonder…..to delight in the “émerveillement du quotidien”. But also by deliberately using my right hemisphere more.

I figure that if I use my right hemisphere more I’ll strengthen it and in so doing, I’ll reset the balance between the left and right. One way to do that is to include activities which activate the right hemisphere into my daily life. Here are three of them.

Nature. Spending time in the natural environment, whether gardening, walking in the forest, or taking walks with my camera. There is an increasingly large amount of evidence that engaging with the natural environment is good for us. Part of that is down to how it activates the right hemisphere.

Music. Music primarily activates the right hemisphere. I’m sure you are very familiar with the experience of how music can touch your soul, can move you in such deep ways you can’t even express it in words. That’s got a lot to do with the right hemisphere. Listening to and playing music every day. Another of my core activities.

Poetry. Whilst the left hemisphere is hugely important in language development and in communication, it’s the right which handles metaphor. Reading and writing poetry. My third activity.

Maybe you’d like to try some of this? Maybe you’d like to try including these three activities into your daily life? Nature, music and poetry. Why not? See what changes for you, and for those you live with.