“Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Poet
When we refer to freedom, especially here in the west, we think of the idea of having options; the opportunity to endlessly do, limitlessly choose and ideally acquire as much as we possibly can. This “freedom to” do and to have is almost the pinnacle of ideals in modern society today. It does seem logical, aligning nicely with the idea of democracy, liberty and the free market. It also appears justifiable in its position given the history of wars and political conflict that have seen turns of both fascist and communist totatilitarian regimes around the world, especially in the twentieth century recently eclipsed. No human nor nation should have to have to endure or accept physical oppression. Violence, especially on a mass scale, is a very ugly thing.
That said, violence comes in other forms too. And this is where our discussion lies today; we must also be conscious — and aware — of the possible ramifications that can come from a boundless ideological freedom to do/have mindset. The rising toll on the earth’s resources and unsustainable build up of non-biodegradable or toxic waste is already proving that there is a heavy price to constant production, accumulation and expenditure; evermore and ever faster is showing to be problematic. But perhaps even more frightnening and definitely far more insidious is the cost to our individual and group well-being. What we’re referring to is what happens to a mind that is constantly chasing and accumulating, not just mere physical materialism but even that of knowledge and pleasure. For example, both the artist and scientist who obsesses over the collection of data/knowledge easily loses sight of the process, suffers mental paralysis and fails to take action. Likewise, the performer or athlete who thinks in similar manners — by playing it safe or strategic — hesitates in the moment of truth and thus, with his energy scattered and his attentiveness to actual reality being suboptimal, fails spectacularly.
Another example is when we’re obsessed with pleasure and comfort, which striving and accumulation enables, we become addicted to greater pleasures and comforts. The very rewards for chasing, creates the need for evermore chasing. Furthmore, a mind, overly focused on details, on abstractions such as words (concepts) and numbers (money and time), suffers from a lack of flow and becomes a mechanically-dominant mind. Such a mind loves options and measurements and strategems. It falls for the abstract and takes them (symbols) for the real thing. It also believes itself to be completely rational, scientific and always correct, even when it isn’t. Such are the characteristics of a left-hemisphere dominant brain.
“Meaning emerges from engagement with the world, not from abstract contemplation of it.” ― Iain McGilchrist, Psychiatrist
You see, the mind doesn’t do well psychologically when it’s too left-brain dominant. The right brain must also be engaged, for both balance and proper prioritization. Now, it’s long been shown that the mind is more appropriately to be thought of as a product of two systems — the left hemisphere of the brain and that of the right hemisphere. They’re both working all the time, albeit quite differently. The recent cumulative work of psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist (who detailed the findings/studies on split-brain and stroke victims in his magnificent book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain) has greatly elaborated on the understanding of the brain’s properties and how it operates. Up till now, the left-brain has always been thought of as the language center, the stronger, objective, intelligent and thus, superior mind, while the right-brain has been referred to as the more creative, socially capable but emotionally irrational and thus, inferior mind. The stereotype even lines up with historical misogynestic bias, as both scientists and laymen alike have — at least for the last 500 years — referred to the left brain as masculine and the right feminine. This harks back to the days when, during the early parts of the women’s rights movement, we were told that women were far too irrational, stupid, weak and neurotic to be decision-makers in society, thus denying their right to vote, not to mention the host of other restrictions, inequities and atrocities women have had to endure. History and gradual improvements to our social, economic and moral reasoning has clearly proved that those “traditional” views were wrong and continue to be.
Unfortunately, the misconceptions continue to be applied today when we refer to the so-called scientific view of the human brain. As it turns out, according to McGilchrist, the two brain hemispheres work in tandem on almost all matters, including language, broad analysis and decision-making. However, it’s been shown that the left is not as objective or unemotional as it was previously thought to be (its favoured emotions are tied to anger/aggression and it’s very defensive about it). The right, furthermore, is not just socially more adhesive and creative, but it is so because it carries with it a “whole” picture view which is more humble, adaptable and open to discovery but is less concerned with or skilled at specificities. The left brain is more detail-oriented, such nature making it indispensible when it comes to identification, categorization, calculation, and comparision hence its affinity to numbers and words. The left likes to refer to the past and contemplate the future, while the right prefers to attend to the present world that it’s currently engaged with. Clearly, we need both sides of the brain to operate properly for well-functioned living.
“If the detached, highly focused attention of the left hemisphere is brought to bear on living things, and not later resolved into the whole picture by right-hemisphere attention, which yields depth and context, it is destructive .” ― Iain McGilchrist
Herein, lies the problem. It’s obvious and easy to see that society’s current path is one towards left-brain dominance. This is seen right from the beginning of our childhood, in our education. Those displaying left-hemisphere strength are often handsomely rewarded. If we’re good at the maths, languages and the technical, there’s a place for us in our socio-economic system. Much less so if you’re more right-brain dominant such as the creative-type. (In fact, that’s how I ended in Science at university and subsequently Business School having been discouraged to pursue my passion for the arts.) Sure, if we somehow manage to resist the embarassment and lack of support, and we’re both crazy and persistent enough to work tirelessly till fame and fortune show up, the artist is embraced. But this is both rare and damaging — it promotes the idea that creative empathic living is rare and exceptional while hard, mechanically-disciplined, rational living is statistically beneficial and thus, correct and ideal. How many passionate and would be artists would there be living sanely and be contributing their talents to greater society if society itself didn’t make it so counter-intuitive for them to pursue and develop their gifts? If success doesn’t appear quickly, there’s often little to no respect or support for the artist-type even if the work is good, even great. Is it any wonder why people who excel at left-brain skills are highly renumerated for their efforts — laywers, doctors, bankers, programmers etc — while everyone else’s contributions are deemed far less worthy, overly-compensated celebrity-level performers notwithstanding? Are such typically noble professions really that much more valuable to society than the teacher, artist, musician or essential worker?
Now, this may seem like an artist or proletarian type rant, but it’s far from it. Society suffers when there’s a vacuous appreciation of and participation in the arts. A society without a strong variety of music, visual arts, theatre, and dance lacks richness and joy. It loses balance as well as the power that (fictional) literature and artistic beauty can evoke to inspire wonder, goodness and to learn about ourselves and our history. These things are not mere “entertainment” or “escape.” They are both educational and life-affirming. And they are certainly not meant to be propaganda. The arts and artistic peoples bring communites together. Creative work demonstrates alternative points of view, a view that says “freedom from” the pre-established. A mind free from the attachments to rules and to the all-too-common desires tied to ambition and power not only embraces new ideas but also empowers empathy and connection to those different from us. Even science is at its best when it’s open to being wrong, turning itself to new findings and theories even as they conflict with the supposedly known. It’s greatest advancements are proof of this. Furthermore, as a method of discovery itself, science cannot maintain true objectivity. No tool cannot measure itself with any real accuracy.
‘Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” — Max Plank, Physicist
But it’s not just in the field of the sciences and arts that show the value of right brain contribution. When society is prohibited from realizing the value of the gestalt — gestalt being the German word for “shape” or “put together” meaning wholeness — we become like a car that’s being continually engineered to be stronger, bigger and faster, racing so hard forward that it’s not only forgotten where it was heading but why it’s there in the first place and won’t realize it may be going the wrong way until it’s too late. The point is, when our minds adopt a mindset that values numbers and words — which are incorporated into all systems of thought whether scientific, socio-economic, philosophical or religious — we become a rigid. And we all instinctively know that rigidity equals death. The more technical/mechanical we become, the less human and more lifeless we become even as we might appear to be moving. (Animators and actors know this when their creations show as mere movements of body parts and words rather than expression of ideas and emotions). We become the walking — or more aptly — the working dead.
We see this everywhere we look, in every industry, in every country, in almost all aspects of society. Life dominated by ambition, competitiveness and excess supersede humility, compassion and cooperation resulting in conflict and isolation. Qauntity and superficial allure become more important than quality and inner beauty leading us to value image over substance. We become habitilized to desire and conditioned to justify and endorse the causal behaviour. But the ironical and saddest part of all this is life like this begins to feel both anxiety-ridden AND depressing. Stressed by time, anxious of never having enough, fearful of losing what we still possess, distraught by unmet expectations. When we view the world in such calculatable, materialistically abstract terms, the world, in turn, gives us what we should expect and deserve — an existence that is cold and empty, no matter how much we know, do or own.
“A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object… but if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.” — Albert Camus, Philosopher
On the other hand, if we stop to look inside, giving ourselves the time and space to actually see, listen and feel the world around us, we live again. Being “free from” our ego and our left brain’s attachments to what life was or should be, we allow the right hemisphere of our brain to make channel information appropriately so as to make the right call; we trust our gut/heart/spirit (or whatever term we choose to represent that greater transcendant intelligence that’s beyond our ability to identify). In the act of introspection, we halt the enticement to race forward. Instead, we begin to attend to the present — and hence live timelessly — and re-orient ourselves to our true selves, daring to ask again why we’re here and if we’re having any real fun in this thing called life. And in that simple change in point of view, we change instantly. We begin to make the right moves. (Test this out if you don’t believe it.) All lives, and not just our own, become more important. Day-to-day living becomes more open, creative and compassionate. This starts with ourselves. This is where the revolution begins, not with any forced ideologies. But we cannot continue to live so mechanically, staring endlessly into our technological devices, completely unaware of our environments both internally and externally. We are not machines and thus we must assign the mechanical mind, as useful as it is, to its proper place. We can’t let the tool become the master because freedom doesn’t just entail the freedom to choose or accumulate but freedom from the burdens that having numerous choices and things weigh upon us. A person in constant pursuit of security lives in constant insecurity.
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” — Erich Fromm, Psychologist