When the mechanical keyboard moves to the periphery
Even a cursory view of my website will tell you that I write at length and in depth. The keyboard is an essential tool for my computing experience. It connects my brain to the machine. Words in my head get converted to characters on the screen through key presses that are embedded as muscle memory. The creative process is as much a matter of thought as it is a sensory experience.
All the configurations I make converge on a single goal: to close the gap between mind and matter. I want there to be as little friction as possible between me and the computer. This is how I avoid distractions and remain focused on the task of expressing myself in earnest.
Having a refined interface is of paramount importance. Such is a maximalist approach, for it demands attention to every aspect of the whole. It is why I am deliberate about my GNU Emacs setup—why I even picked Emacs to begin with—and why I am so attuned to colours and typography (I have designed the Aporetic fonts and have 40+ original themes for Emacs).
My split mechanical keyboard is here to improve the ergonomics of typing. It augments my ability to input commands and write as much as I wish. I am otherwise not especially interested in keyboards as a hobby. They are cool, sure, though there is nothing in them that captures my attention independent of the utility they offer me.
I nonetheless spent a considerable amount of time researching the constituents of a mechanical keyboard. I developed a reasonably good understanding of keycaps, switches, and relevant materials to the point where I can reason about which arrangements suit my preferences. The product of these efforts is something I greatly enjoy though I know that it can, in theory, be optimised further, as I have documented in previous entries to this section of my website.
Optimisation has diminishing returns to scale. The more you try it, the less you gain out of every additional unit of effort. This, however, assumes that optimality is pursuant to another goal, for only then can it have a constant against which it is assessed. In my case, I tweak the relevant variables in order to facilitate my creativity. This is true for the keyboard but also for every other part of the broader computing environment.
Put differently, the keyboard project is subordinate to the rigours of the creative process, which itself contributes to the superordinate objective of personal wellness, which in turn involves a commitment to wellness at-large emanating from my immediate milieu outwards.
By being creative, I remain content with myself. This is the outlet for my innate curiosity and attendant inquisitiveness. I work towards an end that adds meaning to my life. It is what I can unequivocally consider worthwhile and never have regrets doing. In effect, I find fulfilment in the adventure of exploring this world in a manner that feels appropriate to me.
The pursuit of optimality yields negative returns to scale, i.e. is wasteful, whenever it obfuscates and then usurps the ulterior motive. If I keep tinkering with the keyboard, or Emacs, or my tiling window manager for Linux, or anything else for that matter, at the expense of my creative output, then that is a clear sign that I am moving down the wrong path.
This is not exact science. It is alright to have some downtime to build capacity. Though it has to be couched in terms of practical reasonableness: do the tools actively inhibit you right now or do they already work mostly okay? The former is a clear-cut call for more effort on the fundamentals of the configuration. Whereas the latter suggests that time can, at the very least, be divided between tinkering and creativity.
Such has been my reality in broad terms for several weeks over the course of the past few years. Though I have reached a point of stability where the gap between my mind and my computer is so small that bridging it is of no import. I can produce at will and am highly effective in this regard.
My consistency hints at a well-designed setup that is conducive to the actual target I am aiming at. It has all I need and does what I expect. I am writing this essay right now. Yesterday I wrote another that reached the 2000-word mark and then spent 3 hours programming during a live stream, among other tasks. Such is the norm for this week, and the week before, and the months prior, and so on.
I enjoy what I am doing because I effectively cleared the space at the centre of my conscience. It is a receptacle for every activity I engage in: I can direct my undivided attention to the given task in full confidence that everything else will perform up to the standard I have set.
The keyboard, Emacs, and all the rest, are still here without me having to periodically confirm as much. As I am typing now, I am looking at my carefully designed Emacs environment which uses my Aporetic font design. I am running one of my themes and am benefiting on a daily basis from several thousand lines of Elisp code that I have programmed myself on top of the free software that the Emacs ecosystem makes available. This keyboard shares the same quality of thoughtful consideration throughout. It has a particular style that fits my use-case and copes with the task splendidly.
This extended interface is not at the forefront of my attention at all times. It is right now while I am describing it. Though it otherwise moves with ease to the periphery of my conscience, allowing me to channel my vitality towards whatever field of endeavour I am involved in.
As I am typing, I have a consistent feedback which I can be attentive to though also let disappear into the background. The keyboard is not perfect, though it occupies that notional spot of being “good enough” without demanding the equivalent of a full-time job’s effort to excel at what I need it for. Everything from the keycap profile to the switch type contributes to an emergent quality of flux: it flows from the centre of consciousness to the periphery and back.
What bothers us, in essence, is that which does not move away from the centre; that which resists shifting to the periphery of our attention. I design my system to achieve this mental fluidity so that it enables me to control it. Part of that effort is down to the innate properties of the interface: to organise it in such a way that no part of it is bothersome, else misaligned with my immediate and ultimate ends. Though the other part is strictly a matter of attitude. It consists in mindfulness, in the awareness of my ranked goals.
We liberate themselves from distractions and false wants as soon as we are able to articulate our priorities and values. We must have a clear sense of our most cherished good, else that towards we are moving. Those who have not yet made such a judgement are effectively stranded in the desert without means of reorientation and are beset by a pervasive sense of dread.
The end goal is what empowers us to course correct. By having the lodestar in sight, we can tell when we are drifting away from it. Concretely, if I spend all day messing around with the computer without ever finding the time to write, then I start to feel bad about myself.
My sense of failure can only be understood in relation to my intuition of what success might look like. I cannot experience failure about something for which I have no notion of its success state or, indeed, no concept of it at all. For as long as I feel wrong about something, I can reason about its benign expression even if I may not be able to grasp it completely.
In my case, the goal is crystal clear. All the work at the level of the interface sets me up for a lifestyle that is defined by streaks of succesful creative sessions. I keep firing on all cylinders because (i) I know what I want and (ii) have cleared the space so that I can do it.
Keyboards are fun in their own right. Just how Emacs is an interesting program as such. Though I am not obsessed with the keyboard or Emacs, in the sense that I do not care about either of them in themselves. When I go places, I never talk about these areas of interest I have. I would rather learn something about the world and the forms of life throughout. I prefer to listen to people, to understand a little bit better the actualised possibility they embody, and to broaden my mind accordingly.
It is exactly due to the aforementioned flux that I do not mistake the interface to the computer with my identity. It contributes to my goals and does not detract from other parts of life. I enjoy it insofar as it is not trying to be the epicentre of my conscience. Now it is here, then it will be there, which is nice.
I am thus able to effectively travel between worlds, from the immediate reality of my place to the cosmic mind in which what is thought is present, such that the potential and the actual are one. The keyboard project cannot be reduced to a mere keyboard project in my personal case: it is a part of the whole and therein lies its utility.