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Somewhere on the internet,

http://www.fractalfuture.com/handedness-and-voice/ Until recently I considered myself a person who did most things with their left hand. I was a "left-handed person" and that was that. There wasn't much to it. A while back, I decided to begin learning to write with my right hand. The endeavor served as an excellent opportunity to practice my patience, and so it was. Whereas before I could hardly form letters with my right, today I can fluently write in cursive and block. Notably, my right's handwriting is not only today far more legible than my much more highly practiced and developed left's, but my right hand claimed this advantage very early in its training! Yet there is more. Today, my right hand is fully competent at writing and much more. That much is clear. The more interesting experience I've had along the way is that while writing a document (whether it be a fictionalized story, non-fiction story, technical writing) I began to occasionally switch which hand I was writing with -- from right to left first, then left to right -- due to muscle fatigue. In doing this, I have been amazed at how the words themself come out differently. That is, if you read what I've written with my left and with my right you can readily identify that differences exist in each "voice". It is an uncanny reflection of the different ways the brain is activated by varying physical input-output. There are a few overwhelmingly apparent expressions of this difference in my explicit behavior on the day-to-day. It is simply that thinking right-handedly somehow affords me greater navigation of my own memory. Historically, my happiness has been greatly diminished by one simple characteristic that seemed to be an attribute of me -- I'd often feel that I had a lot to say, but couldn't seem to "think of whatever it was" in the moment at hand. My ability to recall a figment of thought, or memory, and formulate it into transferrable information has and is greatly increased through writing with my right hand. Recent experience has taught me that this increased ability to perform on-the-spot has transferred across all domains: Today, I hold my own and manage my side of conversation like I always "knew I could", my ability to perform in real-time such as in sport or job has increased, it simply feels as if my spark plugs have been replaced. And this is all traceable back to a general increase in "alertness for the moment" that has been heavily associated with the daily training of my right hand. What kind of crazy person decides to change their handedness in adulthood? Well, what is really that crazy about doing something that you haven't done before? For this essay, my medium is the standard QWERTY computer keyboard inside of a word processing application (I recommend disabling automatic spelling and grammar checks). In fact, I have probably spent several multiples of time longer expressing myself through QWERTY versus through the handwritten word. My voice comes through differently here just as it does when I choose to write with my left versus my right hands. Just as it does when I'm in real-life conversation. This is most relevant because every expression we make is not only itself a given, but also comes back upon ourselves to influence us. It is hard to elaborate much more explicitly on this point without becoming technical, but consider the differences in your automatic thinking if you compared yourself before, during, and immediately after you had spent ten years locked in a room with only woodworking tools and food around. Our voice is the translation of our mind's thoughts through the brain and ultimately the rest of the body (since our brain doesn't have limbs nor vocal chords). Our voice is the only way through which we can effect other people -- by our impressions upon the environment whether they're words delivered by sound wave or sight delivered by gymnastic performance. By learning to use my right hand I have literally changed the landscape of my brain and have gained an enhanced ability to communicate and perform. This is something worthy of sharing, and so it is done.

http://www.fractalfuture.com/handedness-and-voice/

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