About me
I will share with you one of my favorite texts by the writer Anri Focillon, titled "In Praise of the Hand." These are not two passively identical twin sisters. They do not differ from each other as two sisters - older and younger - nor as two unequally gifted maidservants, one skilled in all arts and the other dulled by monotonous rough work. I do not believe in the superiority of the right hand at all. Without the left, it falls into a heavy, barren solitude. The left hand, unjustly marked as the bad side of life, a dangerous part of space where one should not encounter the spirit of the dead, enemies, or birds, is capable of adapting through practice to all tasks of its counterpart. Built like the right hand, it possesses the same abilities, which it relinquishes to assist its sister. Does it not hold the tree trunk or the axe handle just as firmly? Does it not grip the opponent's body just as strongly? Is its stroke weaker? On the violin, does it not produce notes directly by touching the strings, while the right hand spreads the melody with the bow? It is indeed a blessing that we do not have two right hands. How would various tasks be divided? What is awkward in the left hand is truly necessary for a high civilization. The left connects us with a dignified human past, with a time when man was not yet too skillful, when he could not yet, as the saying goes, "do everything he wanted with his ten fingers." If it were otherwise, we would drown in a terrible wave of virtuosity. Undoubtedly, we would push the skill of jugglers to the extreme limits and probably remain there.