Vim knowledge. Transcendant keyboarding.

I’ve been absorbing a lot of vim knowledge the past few days, working through the vimtutor and a bit of the user manual, along with a few websites, and have begun incubating a vim lifestyle for myself. All in preparation, ultimately, for doing most if not all of my text editing there — particularly during NaNoWriMo.

One other thing I’m trying to do is turn to Quicksilver a lot more as an intermediary for opening URLs in Firefox. This is one instance where inserting a ‘middleman’ actually saves time. By hitting CTRL-space, then typing a URL in the Quicksilver window that comes up, I save switching to Firefox, opening a new window or just switching to the location field, and then typing. In other words, eliminating as much time between thought and action. This goes beyond Reducing Friction and into a new territory that I don’t have a name for yet.

Immersion?

Willing suspension of disbelief. :)

Actually, it’s touched on in that Tom Christiansen article I linked to a few days ago, Zenclavier: Extreme Keyboarding. He starts with a stanza from The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’, then talks about that ‘transcendent state of consiousness’ you get in, becoming ‘part of the machine’.

You were in an altered mental state—a high, if you would. And like any other high, pinball zen is a bit addicting. Not only will this high leave you a lot less poor than plenty of others would, the only physical side-effects are apt to be some sore pects the next day. This pleasant state of mind is hardly limited to pinball. You can become one with your skis and the powder you’re flying over. You can become one with your musical instrument of choice. And, if you’re a hacker, you can become one with your computer.

That’s just about what I’m talking about. Add in a little of that cartoon physics where Wile E. Coyote can run off a cliff, but not start falling until he looks down.