Left handed

I saw a 30 second video which was a little bit stupid, but it still made me laugh. I don’t have the link, so I’m going to have to try and awkwardly describe it. I think it may have originated on TikTok, but it journeyed through the internet and found its way to me. Anyway, this video started with “how right handed people open the door” and the person opened the door normally. Then it was “how left-handed people open the door” and the person opened the door into their face.

I’m not left handed myself, but this little video got me thinking about what daily life must be like for the left-handed. I know that left handed people can obviously open doors, but there’s lots of little things that weren’t really made with left handed people in mind. The most obvious example seems to be how left-handed people tend to smudge their writing. When you write from left-to right (as you do in English), it means that your hand will smudge all of the letters.

There’s lots of other things too. Some googling revealed that lefties struggle to tie knots in the conventional way, face struggles in some sports, and have to handshake with their non-dominant hand. It just feels strange to me that so many people (through no fault of their own) are at a disadvantage when it comes to such fundamental activities.

I guess it’s the result of living in a society where most people are different to you in some relevant way. If you were 7 feet tall, you’d find lots of things just didn’t fit your height. You’d need some kind of accommodation to be made to access what other people could.

The thing I like about left-handedness is that even though there is this difference, people have identified practical alternatives to accommodate left handed people: like left handed scissors. There was a need there, and someone just figured out a way to sort it out. It’s a weird thing to be happy about, but I really like that left handed scissors are just taken for granted. I’m curious to know if there are other struggles faced by any left handers reading this. Until I’m proven wrong, it’s nice to think that we live in a world of equal handedness.