One of my primary reasons for pursuing a creative writing career is to be more “right brained”, or to be more open to possibilities and less certain of reality. As an engineer my focus is on determining things: a problem, a solution, a process, a result. But as a writer I’m trying to let go of that way of thinking, to be more open to possibility or new ways of seeing.
Today I was working through comments to George Saunders first post on Hemingway’s Cat in the Rain story, see previous post here, and there is a discussion of different ‘reader’ brains we use: the first fast reader for entertainment and pleasure, and a second slow reader for analysis and criticism. For this exercise using both readers is important, and in fact the slow reader can use the feelings and reactions of the fast reader to inform its analysis. Within this discussion a commenter introduced the work of Dr. Iain McGilchrist on the divided brain.
Dr. McGilchrist has written several very large books on this subject, on a length and density of Infinite Jest and the Bible, so it’s not readily accessible to those outside of neuroscience and academic study. Fortunately his 10 minute “elevator pitch” has been animated and is available on YouTube here. It’s a fascinating subject, particularly our evolving understanding of our divided brains, but also how that very division has been altered over time by our cultural evolution.
Here's a longer, more detailed lecture from Dr. McGilchrist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4AFdNxLmb4&t=663s