A Whole New Book

I picked up Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind over Spring Break with some interest. In fact, the book caught my eye when I first bought it in January. I had heard of the contention between left-brain and right-brain thinking and was quite intrigued by it. In fact, in high school a few teachers told me that I was a "right-brain thinker", but I didn't quite know what they meant. I read through the first 100 pages of the book quite quickly and with interest. The best point Pink has made so far is that:

. . . logic without emotion is a chilly, Spock-like existence. Emotion without logic is a weepy, hysterical world where the clocks are never right and the buses always late. In the end, yin always needs yang.
This is especially true when it comes to our brains. The two sides work in concert--two sections of an orchestra that sounds awful if one side packs up its instruments and goes home . . . In other words, leading a healthy, happy, successful life depends on both hemispheres of your brain. (25-26)

Although most of this book is dedicated to educating readers as to the functions of the right side of the brain, Pink emphasizes the importance of utilizing both sides together for a "healthy, happy, successful life." The right side is not to be ashamed of or ignored, but embraced.
Pink also discusses outsourcing and its effects on our brains, in a sense. Although I consider myself a liberal, I'm not entirely against outsourcing--although there is much more to the topic, outsourcing allows for people to be freed from the mundane jobs and are able to focus their efforts on the "big picture", as Pink suggests:

[Outsourcing] is precisely what happened to routine mass production jobs . . . and just as those factory workers had to master a new set of skills and learn how to bend pixels instead of steel, many of today's knowledge workers will likewise have to command a new set of aptitudes. They'll need to do what workers abroad cannot do equally well for much less money--using R-Directed abilities such as forging relationships rather than executing transactions, tackling novel challenges instead of solving routine problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component. (39-40)

Pink also spends a lot of time discussing Design. The fashion industry is perhaps one of the largest operations in America and Western Europe. Designer jeans can sell for as much as $1000, and people buy them! Pink suggests that design appeals to our right-brain tendancies. This brings to mind art and even writing, as writing is "designed" in a sense. Design is undoubtedly something that makes us human, as everything around us was designed and we yearn for even more.
So far I've thoroughly enjoyed Pink's book and I can't wait to read more!