A paper that knoweth not the bounds of ink and press: VII- Oppression In Society

The School System
You don't necessarily have to watch a documentary on how poorly teachers are paid, or take half your k-12 classes inside of alternating portable buildings and decrepit facilities to know the school system doesn't get a lot of money thrown at it. Still, i have learned quite a few useful things, in no particular order:

How to glue
Do pointless work
Interpret depressing books
'Sitting Endurance'
How to turn in work you aren't proud of
Deal with imbalanced people in their late 40's and 50's
How to Read, blah blah blah

What a marvelous time I had at school, however their biggest failing wasn't sending me into the world generally unprepared. This shortcoming is due to their own laziness and a general practice that started many years ago, and is very strange and inconsistent with their other policies. Don't like math? Too bad, here's 40 pages of arithmetic to practice. What I am referring to: not teaching me to be ambidextrous.

You Made Me Like This!
Maybe I have a different perspective of this "hot-button" ambidextrous issue because I am left handed. How lazy are the teachers who didn't teach me to use both hands equally. It is strange and peculiar. I'm sure they have some type of company-line defense along the lines of:

"You don't need to be ambidextrous" or
"It would take to long to teach"

I'm sure they saw me pick up a crayon 10 times, 6 times with my left hand and slotted me in the minority oppressed left handed group. Well, with my one usable hand, balled into a fist and thrust in the air, I say buck the system.

You know what takes a long time? Learning everything in reverse of how 89% of people do it. One of the creeds I live my life by is "Look out for yourself, because no one else is going to". You know how I know I have the capacity to learn things with both hands? Because after a certain age (about 12 years old) the majority of things I have learned, I have learned to do right handed.

Here's a little breakdown:

Things I do Left Handed "Naturally" (AKA Oppressed Left Handed):
Write the English Language
Draw
Throw a baseball
Kick a Soccer Ball
Ride A Skateboard
Boxing
Swing a golf Club
Swing a Baseball Bat

Things I do Right Handed (With the rest of the society)
Play Guitar-More on this below
Use a Computer Mouse
Drive A Manual Transmission Car
Play Video Games

Things I can do with both hands, overcoming the disabilities of my under-developed right hand
Type on a Keyboard
Text on my Cellphone
Swing a Tennis Racket
Dress Myself
Lift Weights at the gym
Choke Homeless People

This isn't a Waka Flocka Flame song, I would like to use both my hands. Imagine if I had to import a car from Europe to be able to shift gears with my left hand. That isn't much different from having to buy special scissors with "LEFTY" engraved into the blades. You might as well stick a gold star on me.

Playing Guitar

Steve Vai, doing his thing

During high school, I learned to play guitar and spent the majority of my time playing bass guitar. When I decided to play guitar, I decided to play it technically "right handed", which left handed people should do, because:
A. Like everything, it will be 100 times easier to find gear left handed, and
B. Your left hand is what you would use to fret, which the majority of the time is the tougher assignment. Picking strings is easier because you have a general "home" location for your right hand as a point of reference for picking (or in the case of bass, fingering) the 4,5,6,7 strings. Fretting becomes difficult as you have to contort your left hand in constantly variable scales, chords, etc. More on this below...again.

Playing Xbox
The xbox controller is designed for right handed people. The majority of the buttons to be used are located on the right hand of the controller. This has not been a hindrance for me in the least. How crazy! Same thing with the computer mouse. Teach me how to hold a #2 pencil? Your beyond our help, you scrawny kid.

The Left Handed Low-Down- This is one of the best Wikipedia Pages I have ever read. "Peoples of the Andes consider that left-handers possess special spiritual abilities, including magic and healing."

"Because the vast majority of the world population is right-handed, most everyday items are mass-produced for ease of use with the right hand. Tools, game equipment, musical instruments and other items must be specially ordered for left-handed use, if they are even produced."

"Other items which could prove to be inconvenient for left-handers include cameras, train-station turnstiles, can openers, potato peelers, corkscrews, rulers, computer mice and keyboards, watches, chequebooks, spiral notebooks, fishing reels, boomerangs, measuring cups and pencil sharpeners."

-Thanks wikipedia, why don't you just say "EVERYTHING EVER MADE, SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME."

Left Handed Culture
Every group has their heroes. Despite overtly complaining about having to use my left hand, I do generally like being associated with my left handed brethren. I would simply like the choice, such as someone being bilingual deciding when where to speak which language. I would like to have it be a preference, not a law. Maybe this reason of having to overcome adversity is the reason left-handed people are generally thought of as inventive, etc.?

Famous Left-Handers. I don't know if you have heard of.......

Julius Caesar
Napoleon Bonaparte
Alexander the Great
Charlemagne
Michelangelo
Tolstoy
Mark Twain
Picasso
Mozart
Beethoven
Bach
Aristotle
Nietzsche
Thomas Jefferson
Albert "Please say the Baby" Einstein
Justin Bieber

Maybe this reason of having to overcome adversity is the reason left-handed people are generally thought of as inventive, etc.? I know what you are thinking- "I'm right handed and that's offensive and untrue". If only it was, wikipedia strikes again! BAM

"In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand,^[27] Chris McManus of University College London argues that the proportion of left-handers is increasing and left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. He says that left-handers' brains are structured differently in a way that increases their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centres of the brain."

It's all so clear to me now. It's so clear. The right-handed monarchy in this society decided to oppress the left handed people because of our propensity to be high-achievers, and our magic and healing powers. I'm sure books have been written about this, but the ink probably smeared beyond legibility.

Two Heroes of the Left
Throughout history, left handed people have paved ways for society as a whole (including the 89% dead weight). I want to honor two of them here, who decided to buck the system.

Leonardo Da Vinci
My man even had a Ninja Turtle named after him. This guy is "the inventor". Listed on Wikipedia as "Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer." One of the greatest humans to ever walk the planet.

Hardcore Left:
I made a reference to ink smearing as you write normally for a left handed person, left to write. Not this guy. Da Vinci PROPPED A MIRROR NEXT TO HIS JOURNALS AND WROTE BACKWARDS. He did everything in these journals, such as literally, write grocery lists to draw war machines, and write down who owed him money. Lemme ask you this- you want to owe someone money who draws war machines on the next page from your name? #1 lefty in my book, getting it done!

Jimi Hendrix

Okay, I'm finally going to wrap this guitar thing up. Jimi Hendrix, one of the most innovative people on a 6-string was left handed. Although Clapton has the reputation and nickname of "lefty", Hendrix was more hardcore.

Hardcore Left

Look at the picture. If you have ever played guitar, you would notice the problem immediately. HENDRIX TAUGHT HIMSELF HOW TO PLAY GUITAR UPSIDE DOWN. He took a regular right-handed Stratocaster and flipped it upside down. Why 99.9% of people don't do this: Strings are on the guitar Strung from Low E at the Top, High E at the bottom. He had to re-string his guitar different from all other guitars, even left-handed guitars. On top of that, the controls are in direct interference with your strumming position. On guitars like the Fender, all the tuning nuts are on the bottom instead of the top as well. Jimi Hendrix, getting it done! He also had a band named Gypsy, Sun, and Rainbows. oh and Rolling Stone named him the #1 guitar player of all time.

Wow, this was a long blog. New Blog on Monday!

Da Vinci didn't play guitar, but Hendrix did. That's why he gets the video.