When first learning to juggle, you try consciously to work out what you should be doing logically. You have to throw this ball just before you catch that one and… let's just say that if the initial efforts of these captains of British industry were anything to go by, John Major was absolutely right when he ran away from the circus to become an accountant.
Juggling figures
Persevere though and something strange happens. As you become accustomed to the moves and they become second nature, you find that suddenly you're juggling. It's rather like driving a car or playing squash or any one of hundreds of physical activities. If you hesitate to think, it's too late. You have to respond instinctively, immediately.
This demonstrates how the two halves of our brains operate and interact. The left is responsible for logical thought as well as the right side of the body; the right controls the left body and is the source of inspiration and subconscious responses. The right-hand side reacts thousands of times faster than the left, which explains why, at times, conscious thought can actually hinder achievement.
In his role as head of TMI Technology, Ron Young has met scores of high-fliers. The one thing that links them all, he says, is that they are right-brain people. They tend to be inspirational entrepreneurs with low boredom thresholds who hate delays. They're visionaries. As if to prove his point, one of the delegates present at the seminar agreed that this was a perfect description of his boss. He works for Virgin.
But, while a world run by Richards Bransons would undoubtedly be a lively place, without structure their ideas would have little opportunity to flourish. According to Mr Young, super-achievers are people who are able to free their inspirational sides for new projects and problem solving, but can also call on left-brain logic – or at least the talents of a well-grounded management team – to implement their brainstorms.
Hence the juggling balls. Having spent 45 minutes learning the theory, we refreshed ourselves with 10 minutes of tossing balls all over the place. It was play, pure and simple, but it stimulated the creative side of the mind. And instead of feeling numbed at the end of an intensive one-day seminar, most people appeared to be refreshed – even inspired.
It certainly reached parts of my right brain that certain brands of lager never will. I began to wonder if there might not be a computer equivalent to those juggling balls. Then I realised that there is. In all but the most cerebral games, you have to engage your inspirational and instinctive faculties. Nowhere is this better seen than in that granddaddy of all genres, the shoot-'em-up.
Spaced out
Most people have played Space Invaders at some time in their lives. It is hard to explain its eternal appeal, but an enhanced version is about to appear from games publisher Domark. Endless rows of invaders, all following the same path, descend from the top of the screen to the bottom where your cannon moves in the horizontal axis to target them.
Like some biblical king, Space Invaders begat Galaxians which begat a flourishing family of games. But, though your earthbound cannon has become a spacecraft which can move freely around the screen and the invaders have finally realised that they need a rather more sophisticated plan of attack than marching into your line of fire, the basics remain the same.
The secret of saving the earth stays similar too. You learn the flight paths of the aliens and where the major hazards lie, then switch off your mind and get into the rhythm of moving around the screen, blasting everything they throw at you. All of which involves a very similar process to the left-brain/right-brain switch employed in the act of juggling.
This might help also explain why even established PC gamers tend to avoid playing arcade style titles. They're being asked to engage a side of their minds not normally associated with their roles as serious computer users.
Neuroglia reactor
I'm sure that arcade games are not the only way to exercise your inherent inspirational nature. Any one of the many combat flight simulators on the market calls for equally fast reactions. But the sheer multitude of controls to learn and data to monitor before dogfighting can become second nature inevitably makes for a far longer learning curve.
Similarly, the best adventures demand more than mere logic; they require a spark of lateral thinking to untangle their puzzles. And in strategy games, the greatest virtual generals are the ones who can turn an unexpected manoeuvre into a victory.
There is probably a lot of truth in the old maxim that suggests all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Play enables Jacks and Jills to experiment in a safe environment. That in turn allows them to try out potentially risky ideas, which emanate from the right brain, without having to suffer serious repercussions – depending, of course, on how enlightened the boss's attitude is towards your super-achievement aspirations during work time. And gaming may, if Ron Young's theories are right, open the door for those aiming to become the top dogs of tomorrow.
So, as you can see, juggling is not just a lot of balls. And, by that token, neither are computer games.
