And here, as in there – the paragraph above, just to make it clear, I'm talking limbs and not twins. Because we like to think, perhaps at times condescendingly so, as twins as individuals, which they are, but they also come as a pair like legs, and will lead or follow and reverse that order according to their comfortableness in each situation. Feet and legs can do that but it takes more thought to adapt and it usually only occurs when one is incapacitated. That there is a hierarchy in the body however should come as no surprise since its communication network undoubtedly formed our organisational structures i.e. business has borrowed the idea many times over. Don't you agree? Well that's my theory anyway; one that I'm sticking to and that I imagine has been voiced before. I wouldn't have the audacity to claim it as my own – who do you think I am? I'm just a humble servant. To my body. To nature. To man, by which I mean others, in the service to and of.
And this humble servant hasn't conducted a survey which could turn the whole dominance theory on its head. What if, unbeknownst to us, we all push off with the same foot? And the notion that it's always the same foot as the hand with which we write is presumed? If that was the case this theorising would be held up as a joke, is in fact already a joke (yes, as quickly as all that) to be summed up succinctly as: an hypothesis put forward by an uneducated woman of no sound scientific or medical knowledge has been swiftly disproved because she was too bent on sharing her views and forgot to do preliminary research.
Actually, that prediction is about to be realised, and by my own foot too – the left one. For in walking to answer the phone and then circling the living-cum-dining-room-cum-kitchen I've noticed that my left foot is not always the first to launch itself; sometimes, against all odds (those in my head) the right foot leads, and entirely of its own accord. Although I also have to report that seven times out of ten the left foot commands the way. And so typically, as is my habit, I've undermined my own attempt to prove anything, though it's never anything of any significance anyway. Too many anys, too many possibilities. Which is me in a nutshell: greedy.
But I have qualified (to myself) one thing: that lefties are not, as one Italian writer put it, less predictable, they're unpredictable. In every definition of the word. I'm not sure we have a Commander. Well, obviously the brain, but it is I think more susceptible to whims, creative or orderly. In a left-dominant body order is chaotic rather than rational. You might say: can it be called order at all? I might answer: it's a functioning disorder in a right-sided world. At one time it was seen as a disability: people were forced to write with their right hand, but now, as much as they're able, lefties make their own adaptations, and even catch those not versed in these ways off guard. I, for example, can't always control my arms; they're quite independent of me, whereas left-footed footballers give the appearance of being in control and, deliberately or unintentionally, fool the goalie. The same I think must apply with throwing punches or possibly karate kicks. Limbs (and their appendages) don't always go, least of all land, where you think, where you hope, you're directing them, and neither does for that matter the predominantly left-sided brain.
In command, left is nomadic in style. As if it recollects being uprooted from anywhere it called 'Home', or ancient times when lands lay unnamed or even unpeopled. Charted courses are viewed with contempt and uncommon methods toyed with, not however to simplify nor reach the intended goal but to widen the net into which if it likes it might (or might not) sail.
Picture credit: The Football Match, L S Lowry
