My Keyboard Taught Me a Life Lesson

Copy, paste, save and print are the four shortcuts of word-processing programs that are most linked to plagiarism and the host of negative connotations that come with this word. This is because they make copying information found on the internet far too easy. At least before the invention of computers people had to slowly copy one word at a time from books and other sources, but now the crime can be committed in record time.

You can link this to the postmodern belief that nothing we create today is truly original, and that the computer is merely the physical manifestation of this idea, but you are missing the core concepts. While it is true that the copy, paste, save and print shortcuts are relatively easy to learn (simply the "Ctrl" key and a letter), the more advanced shortcuts which would really save time and effort are not as well-known. Thus, in order to rake in the real benefits of using shortcuts, you must put in a considerable amount of work to memorize sequences of numbers or letters.

Take, for example, the commonly used accented spanish vowels. In order to insert an á, you must open up the symbols browser, locate the desired letter, and insert it into your document. This seems like far too much time spent for a simple letter, and you probably think shortcut for it would be very useful. Manufacturers of PC's were one step ahead of you - they already have the shortcut built in. Unfortunately, the shortcut itself is quite hard to remember: "Alt" + "0225." This itself is not very hard to remember, but it is easy to confuse with the shortcut for é ("Alt" + "0233") or í ("Alt" + "0237").

These shortcuts are essentially a representation of the old idea that you must work hard to get a break. If you want the easy life (i.e. you do not want to spend 2 or 3 minutes to insert a single letter), you have to work for it. You have to go through the trouble of memorizing the specific sequences of numbers, or you will have to use the long method.

It seems that the world of computer shortcuts has always had a secret life-lesson hidden beneath the keys: if you want an easy life later, you must work hard now.