Read Your Way Out of Mental Thralldom
The left hemisphere is always doing. Make it stop with recreational reading. 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the evening.
We're human beings, not human doings. I’m not fond of cute slogans that try to carry more meaning than their pithiness allows, but I like that. It explains why the right hemisphere is the master and the left hemisphere is its emissary.
The Right Hemisphere is the Hemisphere of Being and Being is Prior to Doing
The left hemisphere is tasked with the nitty-gritty of everyday life. It earns money, drywalls the basement, and slays orcs. This makes it the hemisphere of doing.
The right hemisphere is more concerned with the whole picture (the greater reality, the gestalt) and the Transcendentals: truth, goodness, and beauty,1 even though all those things have little immediate and practical application.2 This makes it the hemisphere of being.
Doing serves being. After all, if there were no being, there’d be no reason to do the doing: there’d be nothing to serve by the doing. That’s why we say “being is prior to doing.” Because the right hemisphere is the hemisphere of being and the left hemisphere is the hemisphere of doing, the right hemisphere takes priority over the left hemisphere: the right hemisphere is the master, and the left hemisphere its emissary.
Modern Culture Has Inversed the Master and Emissary Roles, So We Are Always Doing
Unfortunately, modern culture is inverse culture: the left hemisphere insists it’s the master and the right hemisphere, atrophied by our neglect and constantly besieged by left-hemispheric cultural dispositions (e.g., speed, obsession with efficiency, acquisitiveness, busy-ness . . . the list continues for pages), finds it difficult to re-assert itself.
The result? Left hemispheric dispositions rule our culture, and since the left hemisphere is the hemisphere of doing, we’re always doing. We’re always on that hamster wheel.
It’s exhausting, not sustainable, and, quite frankly, ridiculous. If we neglect the being part of existence, all the doing is without purpose, so we find ourselves driven for no apparent reason. This results in a frenzy of activity that finds its purpose in the projects themselves, without the sustaining “whole” vision or understanding that can come only from the right hemisphere.3
We need to allow the right hemisphere to breathe, exercise, and rejuvenate so it can re-assert its proper role as the master. But we must first suppress the rogue emissary that is the left hemisphere. We gotta get off that hamster wheel.
The Healthy Effects of Reading
Did you know that people who read regularly are 43% more likely to report a good night's sleep? They also score better on worry and depression questionnaires. These nerds are even more likely to enjoy their social lives, researchers tell us.
It’s because reading helps re-establish the proper relationship between the hemispheres.
Reading puts us into receptive mode, which is the opposite of assertion mode. Receptive mode is being mode; assertion mode is doing mode. Receptive mode is right hemispheric; assertion mode is left hemispheric.
When we read, we are inherently put into receptive mode. It’s inherently a right hemispheric activity.
Don’t Let the Left Hemisphere Usurp the Reading
Of course, we can botch it. The left hemisphere can botch pretty much anything. Instead of loving (attachment to other), it lusts (desires to acquire the other). Instead of a few drinks with friends, it “networks.” Instead of praising a beautiful landscape, it thinks about how to buy it. Heck, the left hemisphere even botches Christmas.
The left hemisphere also tends to botch reading. The left hemisphere reads so it can better accomplish more projects. This is the “how to” genre of publishing. How to earn more money. How to drywall. How to kill orcs. It’s “productive reading.”
This isn’t the reading we need to exercise the right hemisphere. We need “recreational reading”: reading done for fun, devotion, curiosity, and wonder.
If you're unsure whether you're engaged in recreational reading or productive reading, watch yourself while reading: Do you feel any agitation that you're wasting time or that you should be doing something else? Do you start thinking about the things you're going to do when you finish reading?
If you're engaged in productive reading, you won't feel any such pricks: the left hemisphere is content because you're dancing with it.
If you're engaged in recreational reading, you'll probably feel the pricks. It's your left hemisphere telling you that you're wasting time.
A Low-Impact Approach to Recreational Reading
If you’re having trouble with recreational reading, it means your right hemisphere probably needs exercise.4
You might try carving out merely 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night for recreational reading. Maybe 15 minutes of "curiosity reading" in the morning (a non-fiction book) and 15 minutes of "fun reading" (a fiction book) in the evening. That's my routine and it has helped enormously.5
This is my attempt to diagram “reality,” including the connection between transcendence and the right hemisphere. “The Tao” is the nameless primordial reality that connects to transcendence while also remaining in the world.
Which is why the right hemisphere realizes that it needs the left hemisphere: it takes care of everyday life’s necessities. The left hemisphere addresses the immediate and practical, brings the results back to the right hemisphere (an emissary reporting back to the master), and then gets further instructions. It’s a constant to-and-fro between the hemispheres . . . a constant “lateralization,” to borrow a neuroscientific term.
This is why our projects often crash. The temper tantrum is a great example of this. When the left hemisphere is the master, all its projects, from hobbies to work assignments, take primary place. When thwarted, it’s a good reason to panic or throw a tantrum because something primary is getting damaged. This in turn hurts our ability to do the project, even to the point where we get discouraged and give up. But if the right hemisphere is the master, it respects the project without letting the project take primary place, which allows us to pursue it with energy yet detachment.
Conversely, if you're engaged in recreational reading and have minimal agitation or thoughts about what you will do once you’re done reading, that's a good sign.
Quick Tip: I keep a pen and notecard with me, so I can calmly jot down those pricks from the left hemisphere ("You need to take out the garbage tonight") and then return to the page. It's my way of keeping my foot on the left hemisphere's neck so my right hemisphere can enjoy its walk.