Twenty Six: Makings of a Keyboard Warrior

I think that I am following the path set by some supreme being. I see myself becoming interested in the things that I made fun of in the past. One of the things that I had once made fun of was keyboards. After I built a PC over COVID, I noticed the big presence of keyboard enthusiasts on the internet. People who built their own keyboards, hand-chose the switches, found cool keycaps, modded their keyboards, collected them, etc. I thought it was pretty foolish since it was just something that you use to interact with the real important thing: the computer. However, now I have fallen into the same path as those that I once made fun of. I am now interested in keyboards; specifically, split keyboards and ergonomics.

Why split? Why ergonomic?

To be clear, “split” and “ergonomic” do not mean the same thing. To be “split” is to – obviously – split the keyboard into two pieces. This means that your wrists won’t bend in odd ways to type on a normal keyboard and your arms are in a position that is natural instead of uncomfortably angled into the keyboard.

An ergonomic keyboard is slightly different, but is often combined with a split keyboard. An ergonomic keyboard is one that attempts to respect the natural movements of the hands and arms; for example, a keyboard which is not horizontally staggered. With current keyboards, the keys are not directly on top of one another but rather slightly to the left of the one below it. This is kind of natural for the right hand, but for the left hand, is not at all good practice. The true ergonomic way do use a keyboard is to have the keys directly on top of one another, to respect the way that the fingers actually flex and move.

The great thing about a split ergonomic keyboard is that, for someone like me that spends much of their life interacting with a computer, my wrists and arms will be in much better shape and I am not at risk for something like carpal tunnel. There is an even more important reason to me, which I will go over soon.

Keyboard layout

The one other thing I am interested when it comes to the keyboard is the keyboard layout. The QWERTY layout, while widely used, is a pretty garbage system. It is not efficient, and was not created with effectiveness in mind. If you want a keyboard layout that is actually made for an efficient, intelligent keyboard experience that places the most used keys on the home row, then the choice would absolutely not be QWERTY. It would be something like Colemak or Dvorak.

Frankly, I don’t know much at all about keyboard layouts, but what I do know is that layouts like Colemak were created so that the typing experience has as little finger movement as possible and prioritizes the most used keys first.

The MOST important reason

Funnily enough, my left wrist hurts a little right now while I’m typing this. I think I may be getting a little bit of the early stages of carpal tunnel from typing on a normal keyboard for so long. However, that’s not the biggest reason why I am interested in changing my keyboard lifestyle. The real reason is a much bigger reason.

We have only one life. In my eyes, I don’t want to spend my one life doing things that I think are wrong. Even if I prefer them more, it feels wrong to put lots of effort into a certain aspect of life when there are better alternatives. This is also why I am a big proponent of FLOSS: I think it is the true RIGHT way to do things. I will support the things that I think are right, because life is too short to compromise for the traditional or comfortable way of doing things. I want to learn Colemak and own a split keyboard because I don’t want to spend my life typing on a keyboard that contributes to health issues like carpal tunnel, but rather a new, improved interface that was specifically created to work with the natural movements of my body.

I guess you could call me a hardass for that take, but it is what I truly believe. I’ll make the switch … eventually.