It’s probably nothing like desperation, actually. I’ll try and explain. There’s this little voice inside my head. It doesn’t tell me to hurt people, if that’s what you’re thinking, no. It’s more like a compulsion. I always thought it was something external to myself, a being from a higher plane, guardian angel, or something like that, giving me clues about what would make my life happier, and, to use the words of Radiohead, more productive.
I had this thought the other day, however: Maybe the little voice inside my head, really is inside my head. Most of us have two brain hemispheres (condolences to those who don’t), both having different functions but through the high bandwidth connection between the two halves, both function as one whole. But, I think sometimes, my more artistic half comes to the conclusion that I need an intervention, and starts leading me away from my mainly left-brain, logical endeavours.
I find my mind wandering, thinking about photography or writing novels (an unrequited—as in I’d love to, but never get to, dream of mine), or drawing pictures of eyeballs, as I often do. Wandering away from whatever programming or problem solving task I’m currently working on. I think I engage in so many logical tasks that the right-brain becomes completely underused, and probably sits there for hours and hours wondering what the hell is going on, until it manages to get a message over to the left-brain that is strong enough to shatter its concentration and flood it with delightful compositions including lovely velvet couches and pale women who look like they might have one foot in the grave, or other decidedly Burtonesque things designed to completely derail logic, and send it careening off the bridge into a ravine.
So, the right-brain wins often, sending me on photography trips, out to meet new people, on its never ending quest for inspiration. And, the left-brain is left to wonder what all the fuss is about. What’s the big pattern underlying all this, it asks. It’s all just a bunch of random things. Pure acts of artistic desperation. Leftie, we’ll call him, can really be clueless sometimes.
