Since text is pretty much dead these days, I figured I may as well share my story on how I beat everyone in topicals
I was born with an epileptic medical condition that caused me to have severe seizures, they were infrequent at first but gradually became more and more common in regularity as the years progressed. We had constant visits to different medical practitioners, and institutions, for diagnosis and referral etc over the years, until finally a specialist suggested surgery to my corpus callosum as an attempt to try and treat the root cause of my epilepsy. I was still a young child, weary of any operation, listening intently as the doctor described the surgery and risks involved to my parents — but I couldn’t fully comprehend what was about to happen, or why.
I remember the proposed surgery came around many, many months later and essentially it involved the left and right hemispheres of my brain needing to be surgically separated from one another. The two sides would no longer communicate the same as yours would. My parents explained this to me in a simplified form, told me about the chances of complications down the line, but I understood the reasoning and this is why I chose the name Baron (Barren) Mynd (Mind). While the human brain usually relies on a combination of its two hemispheres to communicate, mine no longer would, and I lived with this idea that my brain was unlike everyone else’s. Mine didn’t work properly, is how I understood it, there was something inherently wrong. That is, up until around my 8th birthday…
At school I was already exhibiting that I excelled my pier group in subjects like English, Mathematics, Science and more. I was not only top of the class, but top of the class two year groups ahead of my own. At home I would immerse myself in literature, consuming several books at once over the course of an evening, between writing and self-illustrating my own wholly original works. I would regularly read two books at once with them positioned side by side, turning both their pages as I finished them, able to process their information quickly and this was tested once my parents had noticed and reported it to the health professionals. I was quizzed to read multiple pages from different books at the same time and then asked questions about what had happened from both stories. I answered with 100% accuracy, which surprised even the specialists involved at the time but highlighted my ability. Further tests later confirmed that the two hemispheres of my brain were working independently from one another. Once the nerve fibres had been surgically split through callosotomy, they no longer relied on each other for communication. I had no issues with my speech or bimanual movement, if anything only the benefits of effectively having “two” brains was noticeable.
The two individual hemispheres have their own creativity and thought processes, and in my case this helped manifest itself into my hobby of topical battles, allowing me to produce multiple verses at the very same time. I wrote many verses simultaneously, often competing in several leagues at once. I was signed into up to 10 leagues at a time, and at a time when these were not seasonal leagues - but weekly leagues - such as RapMusic.com’s RSTL which was an on-going weekly league that ran continuously without end. While I am not what I would describe as fully ambidextrous, I do exhibit a high degree of ability to write legibly with both hands and I don’t seem to have a “dominant” preference of hand I write with — tending to rely more on whichever one my pen is closest to at the time rather than anything else. I write frequently and often, switching from left to right accordingly, without paying it much thought in truth. In my younger years as a text battler, bear in mind I was yet even a teenager, I kept a recorded log of the battles I had, the websites league, the date and the final result (W/L/D) as well as the vote count (For/against). Frequenting up to 10 leagues a week, I finished the 12 month span with a record of 416-33. The losses were mostly from late showings where I posted a few hours after the deadline due to time zone differences (and unaccomodating mods refusing my late submission). So there you have it, I’ve had a somewhat unfair advantage over you all this entire time as I utilise the power of two brains instead of one during the creative thought process. It can’t be taught, I just essentially have double the IQ of you all.
Peace.
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