Is Your Typing Too Quiet? Here Are the Consequences of Your Posts

Sometimes I notice myself typing lightly.

I’m not referring to lexical delicacy or neglect in choosing a topic.

I mean exactly the amount of pressure I apply to the keys with my fingers.

Usually, I’m quite loud. This also depends on the type of keyboard, of course, and mine isn’t the quietest. It’s still the one that came with the computer. Not much better than a model you’d find at a discount store.

My wife often calls out from the living room, pointing out that I’ve exceeded the allowable decibels in our home, interfering with her TV programs, and she asks me to type with less fervor.

So I ease up on the pressure and make my typing a mere whisper, still fully exercising my right to express.

Sometimes, though, I realize my fingers are a breath of wind even without her pointing it out.

It just happens, out of nowhere.

Now let me tell you when this happens.

On some things, I’m really easygoing

I start with an apparently harmless title, and after a few sentences, my typing becomes very light. Like a pen barely grazing the paper. As if I don’t want anyone to see my thoughts, holding them back in my fingertips, among my fingerprints.

I look at the screen and see omissions. It’s mostly the last letters of words that suffer the most. They get stuck between the keys like crumbs from a sandwich I don’t like, but eat anyway because there’s nothing else in the fridge.

Even the spaces suffer, though the spacebar is long and visible, and I have a thumb on each hand to press it at will. The words, however, become very long. Trains of words where all the passengers talk loudly and make noise without glancing at the passing scenery outside.

The double consonants also disappear from view. Sometimes entire small particles that link incontrovertible parts of the discourse vanish, making it surreal and comical. In a word, unpresentable for the intended context.

So, I begin by waving a bellicose title, and this turns into a journey that I must redo or continue at all costs, even if in tatters.

This is binary code

But computer science doesn’t allow for any middle ground. The signal is either there or it isn’t. It’s either 0 or 1.

My lightness is a pure illusion. What grazes becomes a mark.

The initial intention was obvious, like the direction my fingers took towards the individual keys.

It’s solely a matter of force dosage and balance.

The words come out straight, in the silence of the keyboard mechanics, but they come out nonetheless.

I pause for a moment to understand the mechanism behind such lightness, and I grasp it instantly, without further thought.

Why do my fingers type so lightly?

I fear that what I’m writing is too strong and aggressive. I worry that once published, it could offend someone’s opinion and thus compromise my peace of mind as a writer.

Or maybe I’m not fully convinced of what I’m writing. Perhaps I haven’t done enough research. The fear that someone might discover my gaps and make them public is truly unwelcome.

So, I type very softly, quietly, and lightly, but the result is the same.

What was once in the embryonic state of a print now becomes a trace and finally evolves into the path that outlines my thoughts.

There’s no point in typing quietly anymore as if I were working in the dead of night and didn’t want to reveal my furtive activity.

The 0–1 process is now underway, and above all, it’s irreversible. There’s no turning back.

Once I understand the reason for this lightness, ideas convert into groups of printed characters without the mediation of the expectation of something unpleasant that could happen.

I’m ready for anything now.

It’s about exercising the right strength

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always very moderate. I often propose somewhat counter-trend theses, but I try to do it delicately, without imposing anything, and always leaving myself open to changing my mind.

In the end, I realize that my fears are almost always unfounded. Maybe it’s just an excess of caution or a desire to please all the readers who come across my posts.

My biggest fear is always losing what I’ve worked hard to achieve. Gaining a reader requires attention and effort. Losing a hundred requires just a moment of inattention.

But trying to please everyone is really an improbable endeavor. There will always be someone who won’t like something or won’t agree with how I’ve addressed a topic among my readers.

It’s an option as inevitable as it is unpredictable for every single post I write.

The best solution is to always type with a consistent pressure on the keys.

What is the climate of your writing room?

Too much aggressiveness, an excessive noise of keys clattering, is not a good sign of calm and wisdom. Something is boiling in our thoughts, and we might write things we don’t truly believe when we are calm.

When there’s too much noise in the writing room, it’s not us writing, but our neurotransmitters.

An almost imperceptible typing shows a self-esteem that urgently needs to be reviewed. Something we should bring back up, maybe by rereading a previous post that gave us satisfaction, or some comment we received that pleased us and strengthened our self-image.

A too-sharp silence in the writing room will soon fold in on itself. We’ll surely find ourselves in a dead end, short of words and devoid of enthusiasm.

And now to you, my friend, who I’ve managed to keep here until now. Do you sometimes find yourself in this situation, feeling your fingers very light on the keyboard because you’re not convinced of what you’re writing, ashamed of your words, or afraid they are too aggressive?

What do you do in these cases?

***************

If you liked this article, you will also like my The Quite Page. I write every day about writing, about how writing can change your life for the better, and I also write a little about life.

***************

The text you just read is the property of the author, and was first published on Medium. You can find it at this link.