Get up on the right side

Get up on the right side

Since I was a child, I've always been intrigued with the idea that you
could have a great day just by getting up on the right side of the bed.
Later in life, during my years as a largely unsuccessful songwriter, one
of the few successes I had was with a country rock song that I co-wrote
with Fred Knipe and Duncan Stitt. It was called "The Right Side of the
Wrong Bed."

Today my fascination is not so much with the right side of the bed as it
is with the right side of the head—or to be more precise, the right side
of the brain.

In the 1930s, brain surgeons discovered the different functions of the
two halves of the brain while working
with epileptics. In 1950, Roger W. Sperry of the University of Chicago
(and later of Cal Tech) made the greatest breakthroughs in discovering
that dreams, energy, and creative insight come from the right side of the
brain, while linear, logical, short-term, and shortsighted thinking come
from the left.

The best explanation of how "whole-brain" thinking surpasses left-brain
thinking or right-brain thinking is in a book written by British
philosopher Colin Wilson called Frankenstein's Castle. Wilson reveals
that we have more control over drawing vital energy and creative ideas
from the "right brain" than we ever realized. And what stimulates the
right brain the most is a high sense of purpose.

If you had to carry a heavy sack of sand across town, your left brain
might get upset and tell you that you were doing something boring and
tedious. However, if your child were injured badly and she weighed the
same as the huge bag of sand, you'd carry her the same distance to the
hospital with a surprising surge of vital energy (sent from the right
brain). That's what purpose does to the brain. Self-motivation gets more
and more exciting as the left brain gets better and better at telling the
right brain what to do.

I'm reading: Get up on the right side