Wait for my signal

I thought I saw a rat in the snow today, but I was wrong.

I apologize in advance for the length and incomprehensibility of this entry. It might be advisable at this time to obtain some crackers and fruit juice before diving in. Should at any time you panic and feel the need to escape, ALT + F4 is always a good option.

I sometimes joke about my looseness of association (yes, you can say that) and use it to explain my inability to stick to the same topic for more than about 45.6 seconds. And that's on a good day. Secretly, I'm rather fond of these mental leaps because they allow me to make greater and more frequent connections in life. My roommate, Kate, has recently been working on a paper about being left or right brained. Now see, this is a fascinating subject. For years I didn't know which hemisphere of my brain was dominant, and frankly, I gave the matter very little thought. I kind of threw it in the pile with "what kind of learner are you" (visual, for those who care). Most of the world is left-brained. They take things piece by piece, they're good at logical thinking and expression. Fewer people are right-brained. They look at the big picture and deal more abstractly. Of course everyone has traits from both sides. After all, you do have two sides to your brain, and unless you're walking around with a constant cock to your head, I'm willing to bet you're brain's not overly lopsided. Haven't been getting any funny cricks in your neck now have you? Anyway, it makes sense to me, because I've always had problems with needing to see the overall scheme. I want to know the topic before we start the lecture. I need to know what goal I'm working towards. I have to know how things work. Tell me the big picture, and I'll fit all the little details into the framework. If any of you have ever listened to me tell a story and noticed that I go on and on, giving all this trivial, insignificant back story and wondered when I was finally going to get to the point so I would just shut up, try and look at it from a holisitic perspective. Everything relates some how, I swear. If you ever have cause to doubt, just ask me. For example:

YOU: "Yes Jen, that's a lovely story, but what on earth do canaries have to do with Tom dying?"
ME: "Why, everything, my friend. You see, Tom died from lung disease, and coal miners often suffered from a type of lung disease caused by inhaling coal dust. That is, if they lived long enough. Most of them died from cave-ins and suffocation. All the oxygen would run out, you see. So they used to keep a canary down in the shaft with them, and as soon as the canary keeled over, they knew they had to get out quick, because the canary had died from lack of oxygen and pretty soon they would too."

Okay, maybe that's a bad example, but wasn't it a good story anyway? I took a couple little tests once to try and figure out what brain I am and I come out just about smack dab in the middle. In my personal opinion, this is a wonderful way to be. I see good points to both sides of the brain and like the idea of being balanced. However, our world is largely driven by a left-brained philosophy. We stress the importance and praise the merits of the step-by-step, the logic and reason, the eloquence of speech. That is how we teach in schools. That is what we look for in our employees. Once again, the minority gets shafted.

I've heard a lot of opinions about a "collective memory." The idea that people are born with the shadow of a memory from things that happened to their ancestors millions of years ago and it is these memories that make up the survival instincts of an individual always seemed rather strange to me. I do, however, think there is a type of group collective memory, formed by shared experiences and similar thought patterns. Just think for a minute about the inside jokes you've shared with people. Often times, the actual words you are saying have very little meaning. For example. Coconut. If I say the word coconut, some of you will think I am simply going off on another random tangent, and some of you will see it as an explanation for my tangents. Some people won't think at all, but instead start quoting Monty Python, but that's not entirely important. I have dozens of such keys in my life, each functioning to unlock a certain thought in the same way as it does for others who contribute to the collective pool. Anytime you are with someone, you are adding to a pool. Sometimes it surprises me to see something I added to the pool drawn out by someone else. Did you know apple cores have arsenic? And I myself have already pulled out several thoughts that were not originally mine for use in this entry. Life is full of surprises, no?

In life, it is important to walk softly. Too often I have seen explosions occur that were later found to be entirely unwarranted. Can you really know enough about a person to pass judgement? I have enough trouble understanding the motives behind my own actions. I don't think it could ever be possible for me to know enough about a person to be entirely certain of every single factor that went in to a decision they've made. Especially one that I don't agree with. Whenever I get mad at someone, I can rarely do it whole heartedly. There is this irritating little voice whispering in my ear that there is another way to look at this, and then the nasty little creature goes on to enlighten me to the alternate persepectives. This does not always make me any happier with whoever I'm mad at, it doesn't make me agree with what they've done, it doesn't result in any life changing epiphanies. But sometimes, sometimes it keeps me from doing something I would have regretted later. I don't particularly like Theodore Roosevelt, but every so often I find that those who walk softly do carry a big stick, whether or not they intended to. It is the quiet, sensible people who can come up and give you such an unexpected clout that you're sent reeling without any real chance for retaliation. It's even worse when they're right.

Additionally, one in ten fetuses starts off as a twin, but one of them does not survive. One in ten people are left handed. You do the math. That's right, you better watch out for all us leftys, because we're a violent lot, and we've proved our intent before we were technically even human by taking out our right handed counterparts. Then again, maybe we never did become human. Look out for the master race.