Typing as Meditation

The "Bottleneck" is Actually Not a Bottleneck

These days I'm practising typing almost each another day, sometimes even everyday. Because of the new keyboard layout, my typing speed was about 15 to 20 WPM 3 month ago, and then it increased to around 55 to 60 WPM and stayed there for quite a while. The more I typed, the more that I felt I have reached a bottleneck. But slowly and gradually, it became clear to me that this might not be a bottleneck, but rather a mismatch between my expectation and the actual outcome.

I think, in this process, I have learnt quite a lot — not only about the typing speed itself, but also about the attitude towards life. But please bear with me, I will start with typing speed first.

Probably there is nothing which is called "bottleneck". It is natural that when we are learning something, the progress-time ratio gets lower and lower. From the typing speed statistic on the website where I'm practising, the trend matches the curve of a log function perfectly — the increament of the typing speed is getting lower and lower, but there is still progress.

The bottleneck happened actually at the time when I believed my typing speed was not going to improve anymore. Previously, I would see the progress everyday, and suddenly I barely saw any progress for a whole week, or even for several weeks. This put me into a panic and questioning mode — "Oh, crap! Am I still going to make the progress? Am I going to stop at 60 WPM forever?" This sort of thinking occupied my head, which made me more anxious and tensed, and I was desperatedly trying harder and harder to reach the unrealistic goal that I had implicitly set for myself. And the result was kind of obviously, because of this anxiety, I couldn't even focus on the typing itself, my head was flooded by the negativities. As a result, my typing speed decreased — I was in the bottleneck.

The change happened after I observed how I typed when I was chatting with other people. I noticed I made mistakes for almost each words, and sometimes even multiple times at the same place. At that time, I thought maybe this was the cause of the bottleneck. But actually I was wrong. Nope, it wasn't. But this indirectly helped me find the real cause of the bottleneck.

For increasing the typing accuracy, I decided to pay more attention to the key that I'm going to hit, instead of constantly forcing myself to type faster. Since the focus shifted, I could manage to keep an peaceful mind while practising. I stopped expecting the high WPM numbers at the end of the exercises, I also wouldn't be upset if I see a low speed.

I thought this will ruin my typing speed completely, but surprisingly, it wasn't. At the beginning of the focus shift, the WPM has dropped for 5. One day later, the average WPM had already caught up with the previous number, with the error rate being halved.

This had supprised and also inspired me. Maybe a lot of bottlenecks are not bottlenecks. It is only the lack of the confidence, lack of the belief that one can do better with the time being. This will cause the anxiety, frustration and even lower ones confidence, and completely ruin the mood and motivation.

And by shifting the focus from the speed to accuracy, it didn't increased the speed, or maybe it has a very indirect impact on it, but it has calmed my mind down. It made me confident again, or rather, don't care about the outcome anymore while practising. In this way, the increment of the typing speed is again back to the "log function" pattern.

So what we actually have to do is to get rid of the anxiety about the consequence while doing. Yes, worrying about the consequence is indeed important, otherwise it is just stupidity instead of being calm. But this must happen before the action, or in the pause between actions. The key is, we need directions, but if we worry too much about the direction while making each step, we will become paranoid and stop making progress.

The "Non-Bottleneck" being Actually a Bottleneck

With the main problem being solved, I just took one step back, asking myself why I was having this problem in the first place. I noticed that, actually the so-called bottleneck, which is actually the anxiety of "not being good enough", "not being productive" or "wasting time", comes from elsewhere.

I am born as a slow poker. The modern society had really put a huge pressure on me, since the society is performance oriented. But slowly, I realised to adjust myself to be performance oriented is completely meaningless and toxic. The world is big, there is a field where craftmanship and the quality are being required, instead of quantity. To have this courage not to be productive, and following ones own pace is probably the most important virtue in this fast-paced society.

Besides, I think the activites of the man-kinds are becoming more and more viable, diverse, direct and short-termed. No matter what you do, you almost get the instant feedback. Otherwise people would lose their patience and move on to the next. In such an environment, we also become more and more short-tempered and have less and less patience. We don't want to wait in the name of "productive" or "time-saving". But actually, most of the thing need an accumulating phase, until it progresses to the next level. Sometimes I really have to focus on the most boring part of my life, no matter how ugly, agitating, scarry or desperating it turns out to be, it is just how it is. I should learn how to accept this kind of life, since it is life itself. I shouldn't really expect more than that.

I found it interesting that I like the minimalist type of music, like dub-techno, ambient house and so on. They are repetitive, the are progressive. If you don't listen to it carefully, you don't even notice the change happening. That's like a lot of road trip that I have made. Road trip is not like flights, where you sit in a chair, and the plane goes above the clouds, and then goes below the clouds, everything suddenly looks fresh and different. On a road trip, everything changes slowly and progressively. You drive, a few hours later, the scenery looks a little bit different, and you don't even know how it changes — you don't find the boarder separating different types of scenery. That's exactly how life is. Life is only dramatical if we look into the illusion of the past or into the imagination of the future, seldomly when we are looking at the present moment. Yet the present moment is actually the only thing that we can grasp about life, and it is the only part that we really have control on.

I feel I am a little bit closer to the truth of myself now.