Your brain, like a boat, has two sides—or hemispheres. Unlike with boats, your brain’s sides differ greatly in structure and function: how they perceive and interact with the world.

The port hemisphere is more analytical, logical, and focused on details. It excels at breaking things down into parts and categories, using language and symbols, and following rules.

Whereas, the starboard hemisphere is more holistic, intuitive, and creative. It sees the big picture and the connections between things, using non-verbal communication and gestures, while being flexible and open to new possibilities.

(Lore provides a way to look at this:

port side is for what you already know what to do starboard side for what you're trying to figure out)

Unfortunately, while both port and starboard are valuable and complementary, the modern world pushes us to overuse our brain’s port side. The world’s wind and waves lashing our port side prefer certainty, clarity, and simplicity over ambiguity, complexity, and nuance.

That’s the thesis of psychiatrist and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist, especially as laid out in his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.

This leads to many problems such as loss of meaning, alienation from nature, fragmentation of knowledge, reductionism in science, bureaucracy in politics, consumerism, and our current culture wars.

We need to develop our starboard side.

On boats you can merely re-arrange when you choose to be on tack : you can’t increase your time on starboard tack. Fortunately, your brain doesn’t have such geometric/geometric restrictions.

We can restore that balance in many ways:

• Sing Shanties: Engage in activities that stimulate your imagination and creativity such as art, music, poetry, storytelling or humor.
• See the Sea: Spend more time in nature or with animals where you can appreciate the beauty, complexity and diversity of life.
• Single-Hand?: Practice mindfulness or meditation where you can be present with your senses, emotions, body, intuition, empathy, or spirituality.
• Skill up: Learn new skills or languages that challenge your brain to adapt, improvise, problem-solve, or collaborate.
• Sail More: Seek out experiences that broaden your perspective such as travel, reading books, volunteering or meeting people from different backgrounds or cultures.

To stay on the right tack, you need the right knacks (skills or abilities to do thing easily and well).

Sailing either provides or facilitates practically all the above. Sailing is (at least?) Sailing’s 3Ms. While dealing with machines is left brained, dealing with men and mother nature is right-brained.

“Neurons that fire together, wire together.” – Neuroscientist Donald Hebb