The child who paces about

This comment does not apply to anyone in particular, but to a whole kind of people in general.

Do you know anyone, child or adult who likes to pace about, particularly while thinking? Does it worry you to see them walking back and forth all the time? Do you think that because they pace they are somehow troubled?

I ask these questions because the common thinking of many people, led by "professionals" who should know better, but usually don't, is that pacing is the sign of some inner agitation. Many of us are entrained to consider such pacing "wrong". But is it? What does it mean?

As usual I never write a post without a good reason, and this post is no exception, you see pacing is NOT the sign of inner trouble that we are led to believe it is. This is a dangerous and foolish misconception. Pacing is, in fact, the normal mode for right brained people engaged in thinking.

Humans are either left brain or right brain dominant. Simplisitically, a right handed person will be left brain dominant. A right brained person will be left handed - or perhaps mixed handed/ambidextrous. What is clear from this is that left-brain types would be expected to be much more common than right brain types. Perhaps that is why this basic misunderstanding of the meaning of "pacing" for a subset of people has come about.

If a right brained person is pacing it means nothing more than that they are in thought. There is no inner agitation. There is no presence of troubling ruminations. This is a dangerous misperception which can lead to real problems for a right brained person. You see, the preferred modality, while thinking, of a right brained person, is to be walking, back and forth. A right brained child - or adult - should NOT be prevented or discouraged from such pacing - for that is how their mind feels most comfortable while in thought.

It seems to me that the prevailing "wisdom" on the issue of such pacing has probably caused great harm to the understanding of the right brained among us. Who, by the way, are the right brained? They are the creative ones - the ones every society most needs.

So, the next time you see someone pacing about, don't judge them - stop and think: is that a right brained person before me? Are they mixed handed? Are they left-handed? Are they in a creative profession? If so, what you are witnessing is not a person with problems, but a person with an IDEA. Leave them to think.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults. Thanks.)