I confess, I never properly learned my right from my left. While still in
kindergarten, I realized I had a "double jointed" thumb only on my left
hand, and I learned to "click" that thumb out of joint to tell which hand
was which. If you give me directions with "left" and "right" in them, and
pay close attention to my hands, to this day you might catch the little
flick of my left thumb that tells me which is which. ("Left" is the click
thumb, "right" is "the other one.")
For years I kept this secret, figuring everybody else "just knew" right
from left. Then the subject came up in my origami email list, and it turns
out there are dozens of us, mathematicians, physicists even, who use
various devices to remind them right from left. Then one day I found this
great quote:
Sigmund Freud (you might have heard of him), writing to a friend:
"I do not know whether it is obvious to other people which is their own or
other's right or left. In my case, I had to think which was my right; no
organic feeling told me. To make sure which was my right hand I used
quickly to make a few writing movements."
So I don't feel half so embarrassed about not "really" knowing right from
left any more!
Lynn Carpenter in SW Michigan, USA
alwen at i2k dot com
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