Standing Up For My Left

"Lemme see your hand" A smug Gene Hackman once asked a smiling Leonardo di Caprio in The Quick and The Dead. "See. Those are farmer hands"

"These aint no farmer hands..." a slightly irritated Di Caprio replied.

Gene Hackman then pointed to his own and those of Russel Crowe's. "Now these. These are gunslingers hands."

He was right. For the rest of the movie, no matter how wretched or crappily-made the gun, Gene and Russel's specialized hands made sure that a split-second was all it took to get the gun out of the holster, shoot and blast the sucker in front of em.

More so with Russel Crowe's character, as that gunslinger's hand's instinctively did what a gunslingers hand's gotta do- shoot off bad guy after bad guy.

And when it came to the showdown between Gene's hands and Di Caprio's farmer hands... guess who won?

That movie made me realize how much one's hands could shape one's destiny. Great violinists, surgeons, artists and pianists all have equally great hands suited for their line of work. These great hands probably worked with a mind of their own, working at speeds, grace and coordination no conscious brain could probably match.

Indeed, hands like these could shape the destinies of those gifted with them.

Which brings me to my hands.

My hands have a mind of their own too. They just dont coordinate with each other.
They're so bad, they dont even get along with their own fingers! It's like a weird interknuckle rivalry or something.

Anyways, whereas most hands are graceful and artistic, mine are shakey and clumsy. This totally frustrated my artistic talent-- making it impossible for me to draw the perfect circle or even make smooth curves using my hands.

It made me give up a potential career as a surgeon, my conscience getting the better of me as i passed up med school to save the world from lacerated internal organs.

And worst of all, because of these hands, which could produce nothing but the worst of chickenscratches (another reason why i thought the medical life was for me) i almost never realized how fun it was to write. Luckily, PC's became popular and upped the ante in my personal vendetta against the signpen.

These are kender hands-- Irrepressible, irresponsible and partly kleptomaniac. Time and time again, i find my hands keep creeping up in places not meant to be crept. Too often i've found things in my pockets which i didnt even remember seeing before or squashing some poor creature that tried to get in its way... These are seriously demented hands.

In any case, I learned to live with these evil hands. Furthermore, years of watching them at it made me realize that the main reason for every bad thing that happens is because the left hand is jealous of the right.

You heard me right. The right always has the right to do what he wants and this makes the left hand feel left out.

Think about it: What hand do you write (using a pen) with? What hand do you pull the trigger with? What hand do you throw with?

On the other hand, what do you do with the left hand? It is used to ward off fearsome attackers that threaten you bodily harm. It is the sacrifice to the rabid dog that wants to bite off the artist's hand. It is the expendible one, and is awarded no honors, no dignity.

After years of putting up with this, the left hand tends to have an inferiority complex. He'll start to think little of his own strengths and capabilities and forgets all about his lefty-handed dreams. Soon, it will lose all hope and just resign itself to its fate as the Right Hand's right hand hand.

Well, normally.

In my case, my Left hand declared an all out war against the Right.

What the right hand can do, it can do just as well. So for the longest time, I can text with my left as fast as i can with my right. And i can write as badly with my left, as I can with my right.

You gotta hand it to it. My left hand is sure as hell standing up for its rights.

Last saturday, while playing badminton, the left hand was again dangling uselessly at my side... And soon, bored and consumed with wrathful envy, The LEft DEMANDED that it be allowed to use a racket as well (see the stuff i have to put up with?). Me, fearing to risk an internal civil war, conceded to the Left's request.

So there I was.. playing badminton with two rackets.

Which was fun. It allowed me greater reach, a second chance should my first whack miss and even allowed the liberty of faking shots to confuse the enemy. The only thing that i havent quite figured out yet is how to serve the damn shuttlecock.

It's not a totally bad idea though.

Japan's greatest swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi put in a nice way in The Way of the Five Rings. A rough translation of the Way of Wind (correct me if im wrong) of his reasons for always using two swords to fight:

1. There is no extra gain in using a katana with two hands
2. If you're using just one hand with the katana, your other hand is useless
3. So use it.
4. Train your other hand to use another katana.

And did this work? Well, i think so. Musashi was never bested in single combat. But was he good in badminton? We will never know.

Speaking of useless left hands...

In most of the popular sports im aware of, the LEFT hand is used as a support to the right:
Basketball, wrestling, football, volleyball, baseball...etc

In these games, if you dont use the left hand, you are dead.

It is only in sissy versions of REAL games that the left hand is left uselessly hanging on the side. What games, you may ask?

Badminton and pingpong (as against Tennis), Fencing (as against Kendo), Duckpin bowling (as against 10 Pin bowling) and of course, the ultimate one handed game of all... Chess.

Yes. These games are all popularized by the Mafia of the Right Hand in their evil quest to totally dominate the Left. Pretty soon, there will be games like one-handed basketball, gaming controllers that require only one hand for control or maybe soccer will allow the use of one hand while playing.

But as long as Left hands like mine are here to foil the Right's evil plans, this world shall be safe for all Handkind.