Lazy Right Punishes Left

Are you definitely right-handed?

I am not.

One of the ultimate examples of the laziness of the industrial system is the punishment of left-handed people.

I spent the better part of my first seven years on this planet at the occupational therapist, and received ongoing attacks from a concerned mother to ensure that my latent left-handedness was programmed out of me.

Was she a cruel parent?

No.

In her mind it was an act of caring. She was attempting to make me fit in. Fit into a right-handed world.

The result?

Constant admonishments at dinner time when I would instinctively pick up my fork with my right hand and my knife with my left.

Hours of handwriting practice, for it to never improve past the proverbial doctor’s scrawl.

Receiving ridicule from friends when I would skate and surf in some sort of weird combination of goofy and natural.

In my first teenage job as a waiter, I instinctively picked up the tray with my right hand and served with my left, still contrary to right-handed protocols.

I was not alone.

But why this weird torture of the left-handed?

Simple, it wasn’t profitable. That’s the only excuse I can see.

Research claims that only 10 percent of the human population are left-handed. As someone who was reprogrammed to be right-handed, to fit in, I am not so sure that that number is absolutely correct. But, regardless, the industrial system of mass production doesn’t like outliers, particularly if the percentage is less than 50%. 50% means you can just create a separate range or product line. 10% is too much effort.

To this day left-handed people are still punished because the industrial system focuses on uniformity, on sameness. Yes, there are some companies and manufacturers who are making concessions, but there is still this hangover from a past that didn’t want the unique or the different, because it negatively affects profit margins. Who cares if it means negatively affecting a noticeable portion of the population’s ability to operate effectively.

This one size fits all approach is still all pervasive and it inevitably means we don’t get the best out of everyone. We settle for percentages.

Imagine a world that is not about left or right, it’s about acceptance of both, and everything in between, so we can create something embellished by individual genius in concert, not in uniform.