Zenclavier: Extreme Keyboarding

I’m not talking about sitting for hours on end, clicking from one web page to the next as trivia trickles passively in. I’m talking about actually creating or seriously manipulating something, not just impersonating the couch potatoes down the hall in the TV room. You’re in the groove; you’ve got all the right moves down so pat you don’t even think about them. The world again fades away. There is the computer. There is you. There is nothing else. And this is good.

This blissful state of being one with your computer doesn’t actually have much to do with your computer. Paradoxically, the computer just gets in the way, a constant reminder of irrelevant physical constraints and realities. As long as your brain needs to spend time thinking about hardware, like the keyboard or the mouse or a flickering monitor or a groaning disk drive, you won’t be able to attain this special state of mind. That’s because it’s not the computer itself you’re trying to become one with. It’s the virtual world of software that you’re trying to enter. Only when the physical world recedes from conscious awareness can enlightenment become possible.