From the time we’re born, we’re trying to figure it out. The mind of an infant is traced and outlined by the pencil of genetics, but aside from those initial markings, what’s left is largely a blank canvas, ready to be colored with the paintbrushes of nurture, environment, and culture.
Growing up, I played various sports. I didn’t settle on running as my go-to until I was in high school. Earlier, in elementary, I remember mostly playing basketball and baseball.
Now, as a general societal assumption, it’s a pretty safe bet to act as though everyone is right-handed. It makes sense. There aren’t as many lefties. Catering to the majority, in this instance, is just practical.
As a child, my parents got me a right-handed mitt. I write and eat with my right hand so why wouldn’t throwing be the same?
But I always struggled. I didn’t know why. I believed that people, as a general rule, were right-handed. I believed that for others and for myself. Why should I be an anomaly?
One day, my family spent an afternoon at the lake. I absentmindedly threw some rocks into the water, watching them splash and ripple. My parents noticed something then that they hadn’t before.
“Jesse,” my dad said, “what hand are you throwing with?”
I suddenly had the same realization. I may write and eat with my right hand, but, in a moment of unadulterated, natural expression, I was throwing with my left. Not long after, mom and dad got me a left-handed mitt and my enjoyment of baseball improved.
I no longer had to fight my nature to when I put on the glove.
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How much of life is the same? How often do we simply accept and believe the norms that are generally true of the masses are true for each individual? I believed what society implicitly told me about myself (more by omission than anything), and this, even down to my dominant hand.
It took a moment of purity, a moment of allowing my honest nature to operate, for me, and those close to me, to realize I was ambidextrous (albeit to a limited degree).
Now, if this is true of something as relatively trivial as my dominant hand, I’m not sure why I can still find it surprising that the same is also true of things like politics, religion, sexual orientation, and any number of other things in which a broad spectrum of beliefs, positions, and identifications exist.
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This train of thought is a natural progression from my post a couple weeks ago. Because we can’t trust that societal norms will hold true for all of us in the same way, we have to challenge our own beliefs.
Sure, we should have a little grace for simple, errant assumptions. That said, we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge long-held preconceptions. What if we discover we’ve been operating under false ideas? Ideas that were never our own, but that were inherited from the culture in which we grew up?
Or maybe we find our presuppositions to be accurate of ourselves and our experience. That’s fine too. The point is not to be special or different. The point is to be intentional. If I know I’m left-handed, I can make the proper decision when it comes to something like a baseball mitt or a guitar. I never would have gotten into making music otherwise.
What else might I be missing out on simply because I’ve bought into a faulty assumption? Whether about myself or someone else. What might you be missing?
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Every day I’m learning more and more who I am. It’s a frightening thing as often as it is comforting, but it’s valuable regardless. What I know is safe. What I learn can be less so. But then, I’ve never been one to put ignorant bliss before cognizant suffering.
Here’s to challenging assumptions. Here’s to being as ordinary or atypical as we are. Neither is better; neither is worse. This, especially, when either is more an existence of intention than one of default.