Why Am I Left-Handed? | Natalie Wolchover:
Being left-handed is mostly no big deal. It is annoying how ink smudges under my hand. And I did once have to jump out of the way of a circular saw that I was holding backward; indeed, left-handers have more accidents while operating machinery. That aside, overall, I enjoy being left-handed. It grants entry into a smug little club, whose members — 10% of the human population — carry the secret knowledge that we are overrepresented among U.S. presidents, famous artists and musicians, and top athletes.
But our difference hasn’t always been welcome. My 91-year-old Texan grandmother remembers starting out left-handed … before being forced to switch, a common practice in much of the world until about the 1970s.
I too was pressed to use my right hand to write, though if my memories are accurate I was originally wrote and drew with either hand, indiscriminately. But it’s noteworthy that all the things that people notice (writing, throwing, swinging a baseball bat, shooting a basketball) I do right-handed, but the things they don’t notice (combing my hair, brushing my teeth, shooting pool, drawing a bow) I do left-handed. I am not, strictly speaking, ambidextrous, because the things I do one way I can’t do the other: handling a bow and arrow right-handed is extremely awkward for me, as is throwing lefty. In any case, Wolchover’s essay wonderfully explores the difficult question its title asks.