I learned to type by trying it. By writing, then by typesetting (a few thousand pages, easily), then, strangely, by playing text games that required rapid accurate textual interaction in order to prosper and survive. I am not the greatest typist, but my skills are also unique, because, like nearly all of my skills, they are self-acquired in the sense that I acquired them by trying, observing, watching, doing. Perhaps, in truth, all such things are thus.

In any case, I am now a reasonably quick and accurate typist, however, my skills are beginning to degrade due to circumstances beyond my control. I have only a few times before attempted to type without examining my hands and the keyboard, as if translating directly from my mind, for example, although, strangely, as I am writing this, I now realize that although the keyboard is within my visual radius, it is peripheral, and thus I have only a peripheral grasp of key identity and location (that is, extremely general, and uselessly blurry).

Yet there is something happening here which amazes me. For when I turned, just now, to copy something from a book, at first I was attention-switching, back and forth between the book and the keys. Then I sort of got into the swing of it and was able to largely ignore the keys, and just type what I was reading, not as quickly, but very quickly, and with very few errors. In fact, the more closely I attended the keyboard, the slower and more error-prone my work became, whereas the more I simply allowed my fingers to flow (a description by which I mean to pay no conscious attention to them), the faster (and more accurately) my transcription became.

All of this is, of course, common in many complex manual or physical behaviors, but I felt a pleasant sense of surprise when I realized I was more at home with liberty, almost effortless excellence and grace — than fear, balking and stuttering error. And I was surprised to be so pleasantly reminded that my hands had developed their own intelligence, so to speak, and were perfectly able to navigate the keyboard, even with my eyes closed.

Just as I have typed these final lines.