Right or Left?

One side-effect of the economic downturn is that the blokes left hanging(on a single thread if I may add!) on Wall Street like yours truly have a lot of time to while away. Projects have been scrapped and funding withdrawn and the few people that are being tolerated, because some critical element is linked to them, are usually just waiting around(and hoping) for some disaster to happen so that they can be jerked out of their boredom into doing something constructive.

So what do you do in your spare time apart from reading depressing news on Yahoo finance and discussing US elections ?

Yes and No!

Yes - Faltu surfing on the net is the activity of choice.
and No - That does not include MSDN and other technical sites(alas! I could never be the model IT person)

So then what do we surf? Apart from exchanging health articles, (the resident obsession of my workmates), and reading up abstract concepts on this world(my past-time exclusively), we take a whole lot of quizzes. You know the types that explain all screw-ups in your life by giving it a fancy medical term? Or the really insightful ones like - What you were in your previous life (guess who I was - Pablo Picasso!)? What is your personality type? What colour are you? etc. etc.

Facebook has a bulk of the quizzes and the rest are at tickle.com. They are quite amazing and a good timepass.

I took an interesting test yesterday that determines which side of the brain is dominant in your personality. The left is the analytical and logical side of your brain and the right is the creative, abstract and emotional side. The left is more detail oriented and the right looks at the larger picture. In most people one side dominates. But there are a small percentage that work with both sides. It seems that I belong to that rare tribe of people with balanced brains. This means that the left side and the right side of my brain are equally dominant.

To pause for a minute, isn't it fascinating? The brain is analyzing the brain!

Anyway, that explains a lot of things. It explains the dichotomy between an unsatiable desire to seek the larger picture, to expand the canvas and put things, people and events into their true context and a constrasting fetish of seeking and analysing minutes details. I am a lefty(with the hand and not politically- duh!) yet I use the right hand for a large number of my tasks. I write and eat with the left and play badminton/tennis and harmonium with the right. It also explains why I am always on the 'other' side in any kind of grouping . For emotional people I am too analytical and practical and for analytical people I am too emotional!

What really strikes home though in the last part of the analysis. Here is what it reads

"The down side to being balanced-brained is that you may sometimes feel paralyzed by indecision when the two hemispheres of your brain are competing to solve a problem in their own unique ways."

Aha.. now it all makes sense. The fence-sitters of the world are redeemed. I can now happily blame all my indecision on the balanced brain. So all you folks, if you spend 20 minutes deciding which toothpaste to buy and 20 hours deciding what you want to do on the week-end and 20 years deciding what to do with your life, do not despair... it is just a very balanced brain that sits in your skull!

Here is test : http://web.tickle.com/quizzes/compare/3022

I have setup a poll. I would be curious to know if the visitors on my blog are left brained, right brained or (off)balanced like me!

Here is my brain analysis

Balanced-brained

That means you are able to draw on the strengths of both the right and left hemispheres of your brain, depending upon a given situation.

When you need to explain a complicated process to someone, or plan a detailed vacation, the left hemisphere of your brain, which is responsible for your ability to solve problems logically, might kick in. But if you were critiquing an art opening or coming up with an original way to file papers, the right side of your brain, which is responsible for noticing subtle details in things, might take over.

While many people have clearly dominant left- or right-brained tendencies, you are able to draw on skills from both hemispheres of your brain. This rare combination makes you a very creative and flexible thinker.

The down side to being balanced-brained is that you may sometimes feel paralyzed by indecision when the two hemispheres of your brain are competing to solve a problem in their own unique ways.