Just a little warning before I even get started: This may or may not turn into a little bit of a rant. So if you don't feel like hearing someone rant about something that you may not give two shits about you should probably just stop now. Unless, that is, I've already kind of hooked you and now you are just too curious to turn away (at which I laugh at you thusly: mwhahaha).
Anyway,
This isn't really a new discovery by me in any way it's just that I have only recently begun to think about it. Left-handed peoples are severely discriminated against in the technological world.
I'll give you a moment to take that in.....
Okay,
Now I don't just mean electronics but tools of any sort. I mean think about it. Look at how notebooks are made with their bindings on the right side. Don't get me wrong; it only makes sense since us westerners read from right to left and so on. What I am really talking about is the dreaded spiral notebook. If you are left-handed like I am then you know full well what I am talking about. If you are not, and there is about a 90% chance that you are not (according to a study I looked at), then let me explain to you our dilemma.
Imagine sitting down at your desk, or wherever you happen to plant your butt and decide to scribble out a few words. You have in your possession a simple, college rule notebook and a freshly sharpened graphite pencil (I prefer pens myself). Your mind is racing with ideas. You can feel a 20 minute session of purely brilliant composing burning inside of you. It's calling to you. You have to write! You throw back the cover to your notebook, gripping your pencil in your left hand. The blank pages are ready for you. Ready to be the medium of your art. You go to place your hand down in a comfortable position to start - but wait! What the hell is this? Thin, jagged, metal rings are cutting into the flesh of your delicate hand. Perhaps the pain will subside. Perhaps you need only endure for a short time. No. It only gets worse...
I'll stop there. I think you get the idea. It's a pain in the ass (the hand and the wrist if we were going to be literal). But this is only a minor grievance because, honestly, who writes in spiral notebooks any more? Any thing I write in, or on, is free of spirals and I haven't had to deal with that particular issue since I was like sixteen. So fine, I admit, that was just me bitching about something from my childhood that always bugged me.
Actually, I won't even talk about handwriting anymore since it is slowly being phased out of human life. That also means, lucky for you guys, you won't have to hear me rant about how (most) scissors are designed for the right hand or anything like that (P.S. zippers on pants are covered by a flap from the left making it awkward for lefties to use their left hand to zip up their pants).
I'd like to move this forward into the real point of me even beginning to write today but frankly I think this is starting to get long (and you're like "Yeeeeah. Only starting to get long...") so I will end this here and pick it back up at a later time. If you're interested you'll have some things to look forward to. I am going to talk about keyboard, mice, basically all things computer that are messed up for left-handers. After that I will (hopefully) get started on the upsides to being left-handed and why we are better than you silly, tyrannical right-handers. =]
To whomever actually endured reading all my nonsense: Thank you and I'll remember you when I start a left handed revolutionary movement.
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