A Look Into the Inner Mind Theater of Mel

My mind ends up wandering in the strangest places when I'm brainstorming. And when it came to coming up with this subject, I just kept imagining the sort of angel / devil sides of people talking as if they're representing their conscience. Though neither side here is good nor evil. These sides represent the Left Side of the Brain and the Right Side of the Brain. 

For those who aren't 100 percent what left-brain and right-brain mean, it's basically this – The left side of your brain is what controls the logical stuff. It's more rational and organized. There's other characteristics too, but those are the most prevalent.

As you will notice, I am not very left-brain dominant. The only things I really have in common is that I like to read and I'm a dog lover.

The right side of the brain is the more creative side. It thinks randomly and visually.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious this is the side of the brain I think the most with. Though I can't really listen to music or watch TV when I'm studying because I get too distracted. And while I like cats, they're not my favorites. 

So without further ado, here's pretty much an inner mind theater of how my brain ends up working, using this article writing as the main example:

Left Side: Okay okay... We need to come up with a topic and fast. Deadline is looming and we don't want to keep waiting...

Right Side: Oh come on... We got another two and a half hours, we got plenty of time... Come on, let's go to TV Tropes again and look up examples of Wham Lines!

Lefty: You know that's only going to result in us just getting lost in the vast forest of goofy trivia information. We can't do that...we need to focus. 

Righty: Yeah, but remember, if it wasn't for TV Tropes then you wouldn't have discovered Avatar: The Last Airbender last weekend and have began to watch The Legend of Korra...

Lefty: True...but those are kids' shows, aren't we supposed to act more grown up?

Righty: (bleep) that! It's well written, it shows its work, and it's really, really good. Don't try to deny yourself good TV just because of the fact that it runs on Nickelodeon. It's only a kids’ show by name. It's more of a family show. 

Lefty: Stop acting rational, that's my job! And watch your language! I don't think that we want any parents complaining about YOUR choice of language. 

Righty: Okay fine...(scoffs) But seriously, what's the use in trying to focus our energy? It'll come to us. 

Lefty: But what if it doesn't? What if we're stuck here with no ideas beacuse you're too busy trying to read the newspaper! Hey! Pay attention!

Righty: What? I wasn't even reading the newspaper...I was online at ProJo looking at the game results. If it wasn't for you deciding to be all chivalrous and staying that extra hour at Subway, we could've caught the game. 

Lefty: Whatever. Hey, why not write about the Red Sox' lackluster start? [Editor’s note: This was submitted a few days ago. Sorry Mel!]

Righty: Hate to break it to you, but they won today. I know you're the side of the brain who wants to see them lose out because it'd prove your whole rational thinking of starting off with an 0-3 record means doom and gloom. Where's your sense of believing in them?

Lefty: Shut up, I believe in them...I just like to be the realist here. Someone has to be. Especially with Jacoby Ellsbury on the DL. 

Righty: He'll be fine. They got Lin up and Lin is supposedly a dynamo defensively. Well they won today anyway. First time they won 2 games in a row since before Hurricane Irene. That's way too long. I wonder if that Hurricane threw them off their groove. That would explain quite a bit...

Lefty: I swear to god, if you go into your whole conspiracy theory one more time...

Righty: I wasn't even thinking about it until now. Thanks for reminding me. 

Lefty: Oh come on! You're at least smart enough to know that your theory isn't true. 

Righty: Hey, I wouldn't be donning this tinfoil hat if it wasn't for the fact that there were two teams who choked. Remember, the Braves choked just as bad as the Red Sox did. Everybody forgets that. 

Lefty: Yeah, because nobody cares in Atlanta. Plus, they didn't fire their manager for no apparent reason. 

Righty: He lost them. And aren't you supposed to be the rational one? And also, isn't it strange it happened in one night. And the Cardinals went on to win in the World Series with a out of strange things just happening to go in their way?

Lefty: You and your (bleeping) conspiracy theories...

Righty: Hey! Weren't you the one who told ME not to swear?

Lefty: You're right...sorry

Righty: I'm just saying that if there happened to be a conspiracy where the Red Sox players got paid off by MLB to blow games in September so that MLB would be more exciting and get more people to watch, I wouldn't be surprised. I know I'm the optimistic one, but there was just something in the way that some of the pitchers pitched that made me wonder...

Lefty: You're a dolt! Can we please not talk about this, we need to be on topic about something from high school. 

Righty: Dude, high school was quite a while ago. Some of those memories tend to fade away or are forgotten very easily....at least until I randomly mine them out when I'm on my adventures. 

Lefty: Yeah, and whose the one who identifies them? That's right, me. 

Righty: But I'm the one who hunts them out. You would prefer to be boring and try to go with the immediate stories. We know how much you love to go back to that Prom story...by the way, for someone who resents me so much, you seem to love to go to that story. 

Lefty: What are you talking about?

Righty: Whose the one who made the story even remotely amusing? *points to self* If it wasn't for me overreacting and winning out the battle of the thought processes, you wouldn't have a story to fall back on. 

Lefty: .....I hate when you're right. And come on, I haven't gone back to that story in ages. I see you keep trying to go back to it to write a story yourself but you keep stopping short. By the way, you need to use the spellcheck a little more often. 

Righty: Sorry man, the mood has to hit me when I get writing. 

Lefty: You know, we'd make a great sitcom. We'd be like the Odd Couple except female and a lot more bickering. 

Righty: Dude, that crap's been overdone. If you want to be a great sitcom, you need to do something different. Look at Community. That's a fine sitcom. It breaks the boundaries so much. And How I Met Your Mother is unique for its storytelling framing. 

Lefty: Yeah, but it could still work! Look at Two and a Half Men...wait....that's a terrible comparison.

Righty: I'm borderline insulted. Then again, I don't expect much from the side of the brain who is trying desperately to be like everybody else and call Kristen Wiig the finest comedienne this side of Lucille Ball. 

Lefty: Well excuse me for wanting to see what they see in her! There's obviously something more to her if everybody keeps heaping praises on her. 

Righty: Yeah, that's because they have crap taste in comedy. Oh yeah, Kristen Wiig plays a character with a strange voice, awkward, and hogs the spotlight from everybody else. That's every character of hers in a nutshell. 

Lefty: You know that's not all there is to her. You could blame the writers for their lack of creativity. 

Righty: Oh don’t get me started on the writers on SNL this season....so much promise surrounded by so much crap....

Lefty: Wiig does have comedic chops, if you look at it analytically. She does have the sense of timing down and she does well when she isn't creating things herself. And knows how to calm it the eff down. 

Righty: Yeah, but does she? No. And it's insulting to real comedy nerds such as myself. Though, I do give her points for facial expressions. She does some pretty funny ones. And that IS an underrated portion of comedy...oh god, I'm starting to sound like you again. I still stand by teh fact that she's overrated. 

Lefty: No argument here. Okay, we just completely veered off topic again. Let's get back to task!

Righty: I feel like playing video games right now...I could be playing Kirby right now. 

Lefty: I have no idea why you like that childish pink blob of whatever it is. The games to too easy. 

Righty: That's the point. The games are easy, but that's what's awesome about them, they are good to just play through and distress. And those colors and those backgrounds really do the job. 

Lefty: But you could get all that plus some challenge with Mario games. 

Righty: But I wanna play as Luigi. 

Lefty: You and your weird fixation on that guy in green...he isn't even the hero. 

Righty: Yeah, but he knows what it's like to be thought of as a joke and not taken seriously enough....Lefty....

Lefty: I'm just saying that your way of thinking has no business in so prevalent. 

Righty: And I'm saying that your way of thinking shouldn't be the only way of thinking. Some of the greatest thinkers thought more off the wall and came up with ideas on a whim or by accident. I mean, a microwave oven was invented because someone forgot to take a candybar out of their pockets. And in essence, the TV dinner industry would be nonexistent...and what about that sweet nectar that you love known as Coca Cola? Someone was trying to made medicine and came up with it. It was a pharmaceutical remedy that turned into a soft drink. Now that's pretty spiffy. 

Lefty: Okay okay, maybe I should let you take the wheel sometimes...but at least let me be there to ground you when you get too crazy

Righty: Hey, that's all I ask of you. And I hope you let me be there when you need some kind of inspiration to get you going! 

Lefty: Okay okay, fine...but let's get this article going okay?

Righty: Actually, I think we have the article done already

Lefty: How so? We haven't even written anything of substance. We've just been conversing trying to get you on task. 

Righty: Yes...but that was the plan. 

Lefty: What the (bleep) are you talking about?

Righty: Well my profane friend, I figured that perhaps by trolling you about slacking off, I'd get you worked up about me slacking off again. And that would then prompt a discussion about how we work to get ideas properly mined. So I just feigned laziness and all this time, I was just secretly keeping notes so that we can get this article done. 

Lefty: Are you just trying to come across as a genius or did you just make that up on a whim. 

Righty: What's the use in revealing my secrets? I like it when people don't know how I come up with things. It adds mystique. 

Lefty: Mystique?! What are you, a Yankee fan?! 

Righty: Ow....that cut deep, man!

Lefty: Sorry...but you're acting way too weird again. 

Righty: Am I? Or are YOU the one whose weird?

Lefty: I'm not the one whose weird...I'm designed to be the rational one...

Right: Oh....well, whatever man. Hey, let's go hit up TV Tropes. We got time now!

Lefty: I'm coming I'm coming....I could use some more information to store about silly trivia. Maybe we can win some money someday doing bar trivia....

-FIN-

And so, that is a look in the inner mind theater of my brain. Right now, Righty and Lefty are working in harmony to get this article done so that I can go onto reading more silly things. Also, I'll confess that this was also an excuse to write silly dialogue banter. It's one of my absolute favorite things to write. 

So as you can see, I'm more of a right-brained thinker. Doesn't mean that the left side is neglected. The left side is the driver, but the right side is the navigator. They work well together even if there's disagreements. But the world needs creative thinkers just as much as they need rational thinkers, and we need to remember that.