When I was in the 5th grade we were taught fractions which seemed very complicated to me particularly adding or subtracting them because it required finding the lowest common denominator…it involved a process of thinking and playing with numbers until we found a number which could be divided by each numerator…this a difficult task for a young mind and it took a long time for me to master.
However when it became easy,I began to realize what a truly remarkable tool it was and sensed that there was something magical about it…and so wondered if it was useful in understanding life’s problems…I don’t ever remember using calculations of fractions in my every day life…but as I thought about it I realized just about everything else in life has a common denominator…or it could be said everything has something in common with each other.
But for some reason it is easier for us to identify the numerator and ignore the common denominator as if it didn’t exist…the separate and isolated numerator (left brain perception ) becomes our preoccupation while its relationship with the underlying common denominator (right brain perception ) becomes irrelevant…the goal in life seems to be to succeed in finding bigger and better numerators while the key to the nature of life is in the interrelated denominator.
Is our alienation and irrational behavior a result of not seeing the big picture offered by the common denominator?…would it give us the common sense we need and only seen in the big picture?…was the importance of our early instructions in the common denominator really for that reason and not for us to become calculating machines?
Filed under: education, perception | Tagged: awareness, bottom line, holistic, interrelationships, large picture, perception, wholeness |
FLOW PSYCHOLOGY 
Carol,
I understand the dilemma of right brain persons…you do have the ability to approve and enjoy your own unique way of perceiving life…one way is to identify and develop a special quality of your preferred energy interests (follow your bliss)…this can gain the respect and admiration of left brain persons.
Sid
Very interesting perspective. Having been right brained all my life, I begin to get radical about the domination of left brain, qualitative thinking applied to every freakin’ aspect of life. I wish, just once, that more people would jump over to my way of thinking, instead of me always having to make that leap to their way, and constantly prove my credibility.
I could see having to learn the language of the people in a foreign land – but this value system applied to everything equals suppression of right brained thinking. It’s not even o.k. to live inside your own skin. More than this, it’s estimated that 45% of people in the U.S. are dyslexic/right brained.
O.k. I’m finished ranting, now. Thanks for reading this.
Ron…I like the phrase common “I-ness”which can free us from the fear of separate “I-ness”…Sid
Sid, I much appreciate your common denominator metaphor.
Similarly, I have written and will be posting on SillySutsras.com essays, poems and aphorisms using the term Common “I-ness.”
Here is one of them:
ASCENSION APPREHENSION
Our deepest fears
hide our highest potentials.
The higher we go
the more we know
that our highest highness
is our common “I-ness”.
Ron