one of my secret talents. well, past secret talent.

seeing the AnD crew last night, i felt pretty bad that i had not blogged for quite a while. work, travel, and some family stuff got in the way... but anyway.

watched quentin's documentary 0506 - for those who have the kind of dual fob-abc mentality, this was definitely thought provoking. having spent 4 years of high school and 4 years of college in US definitely gave me this weird bipolar personality where at times i could not really figure out where i belonged. then, the cynical part of me would kick in, and ask why the heck i needed to belong anywhere. and why would anyone care at all. at some point i'll blog a bit more about that.

so, to make up for the 35 days of non-blogging, i am divulging a rather strange and closely guarded hobby i took up - and i am posting it in its entire glory - word by word of what i wrote during my senior year in college on my personal homepage (we called them homepages back then), when i truly had nothing better to do. (i had 2 days of classes a week - and frankly i do not remember what else i did for the other 5 days). this really is a secret as i think 90% of the people in my company have no idea i used to take regular classes etc in this. thats also why i'm a bit wary to ask my colleagues to join AnD... but that's another story.

so here goes - and please bear in mind i was young, clueless, and ignorant back then. now i am older, more clueless, and more ignorant.

Palmreading is a hobby of mine. The basic idea is that your brain is most closely connected with your hands. Think of your palm as a window to your brain: thus what you did, do, and will likely do will be reflected in some way in the patterns of lines on your hand, and the good, bad and ugly will show up. Contrary to popular belief, its predictive abilities are limited, because the lines change over time, and for any given moment only gives a snapshot of what your current outlook on life is. I DO NOT give consultations over email, so please do not send me scanned images of your palms.

A primer on palmreading

There are 3 major lines that almost everyone has, the heart line, the head line, and the life line. The heart line is the one that is horizontal and closest to your fingers. The head line is the middle one, and the life line is the one that droops downwards starting from above your thumb.

The heart line tells you about your relationships. In general, the more criss-crosses you see the more unstable your relationships will be, and if it is pretty much a nice smooth line, then the same goes for your relationships.

The head line tells you about the way you think. In general, the more horizontal it is, the more analytical you are, and the more it droops down towards the base of your hand the more romantic you are. Generally, the longer the head line the better.

The life line tells you about your health. Again, the smoother it is, the more healthy you should be, and vice versa. A short life line does not mean you will have a short life: I have seen 80 year olds with short life lines. However, it does mean more care should be taken.

These are the very basic lines on the palm. Many other considerations, including length of each finger, shape and thickness of palm, finger nails, flexibility of hand, various minor lines, are all factors that have interpretations.

Finger Lengths

The thumb, possibly the most important part of our hands (try holding anything without your thumb), typically determines basic human thought patterns. The fleshy part of your palm right under the thumb determines the energy that you have, and is proportional to its size. Thus the fleshier it is the more energy in life you are likely to have. Your thumb can be divided into two halves. The bottom half denotes your rational side, and the top half your willpower or your impulsive aspect. Thus if you have a large top half you probably are more impulsive, your heart taking over your rational bit of you at times. On a side note, some palmreaders also say the same thing applies when you have part of your heart line touching your head line.

The second finger usually denotes dominance and leadership. Those with a strong second finger (denoted by having the finger to be either long, thick, or "good-looking") tend to have the ability to be dominant in relationships, in the workplace, and generally show leadership traits, but not necessarily leadership abilities.

The third finger is the more mental. Those with an extra long middle finger usually indicates over-sensitivity. A short middle finger supposedly means the opposite, although I have actually never seen a middle finger that is noticeably short.

The fourth finger generally indicates artistic ability as well as how much of a risk-taker you are. Again, the stronger it is the more of these traits you are likely to show. Also important is the difference between the fourth finger and the second finger. If the fourth finger is noticeably longer than the second finger, these traits are also emphasized.

The last finger determines ability to talk. Those with extra long last fingers may talk too much, although they are likely to be good at talking. Those with extra short fingers are supposed to be versatile, although generally a bit more quiet. One thing to remember is that a weak finger those not generally show a deficiency in the said trait.

Palms should always be evaluated as a whole, thus do not jump to conclusions before examining all the relevant parts of the palm for a particular trait you are interested in. All these said, the textbook type "normal" length of fingers is as follows. The second and fourth finger should reach the middle of the top segment of the middle finger, and should be approximately the same length. The last finger (pinky) should be just a bit shorter than the bottom line of the top segment of the fourth finger.

One of these days I will try to create an interactive decision tree so you can click through to find your own reading.

now - the bad news - i haven't done this for several years now and have forgotten most of it. so... i really remember little about all this, before you email me a photo of your palm...

there's one more thing i MUST brag about. when google first started out - it was hailed as the best search engine because it based its results on the number of links to the page. i think i must have been one of the first to write an actual "primer" (afterall, who in their right mind would do this), and i ranked #1 on a google search . i absolutely swear. i even printed it out back then. wish i could find it just for posterity...