Robert Isaacs on the Rhythm of Writing
My new job consists of pressing buttons in the right order. Before me sits a panel with eighty-two buttons, whose arrangement I know so well I don’t even look down anymore—like a pilot, perhaps, who sends her hands rapidly around the cockpit to pull knobs and adjust dials and nudge the throttle forward, all while keeping her eyes firmly focused out the windscreen, squinting through the rain toward the quavering runway in the distance. My hands and fingers, like hers, have learned the territory and just get on with the job.Article continues after advertisement
Because I engage with them for many hours at a stretch, I’ve invested in high quality, professional-grade buttons designed in France. Each is separately spring-loaded, depressing four millimeters at most (though they can be actuated with as little as two millimeters of travel) before bouncing back with a confirming click. My buttons do not shoulder the load equally—some record hundreds of pushes per day, some only a dozen, and a few may pass months or years without being pushed except by accident—yet while individual buttons vary widely in use, I’ve been told by outside observers that my two hands appear to divide their work equally.
