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Traveling with Your Left Hemisphere

In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton describes traveling to an island paradise. The first morning, he sat on the beach, coconut trees leaning toward the sea, jungle-covered hills behind him. He then began to think about

a sore throat I had developed during the flight, worry over not having informed a colleague that I would be away, a pressure across both temples and a rising need to visit the bathroom. A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent: I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

Put another way, he had inadvertently brought his left hemisphere to the island.

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