TYPEWRITER –  What my typewriter taught me ?

One can learn many things from anything around you, correlating with your life. Learning is essential to our existence.  Today, continuous learning forms a necessary part of acquiring critical thinking skills and discovering new ways of relating to people from different cultures.  Now, to live a life without continuous learning is unthinkable.

Gone are the days when the typewriter – invented in 1874 by Christopher Latham Sholes –  was used to type a letter – a communication tool between the two.  The typewriter is a mechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. It was widely used for writing and office work before the advent of the computer and word processing software.

I remember when I was a school student and used to go to school passing through the bazaar, where there was a commercial college and used to see the pass-out students moving their fingers on the typewriter.  When I completed my schooling and did a Diploma in Mechanical, the curiosity to learn the typewriter was still alive in me.  I insisted on learning it. One of my cousins encouraged me to go ahead but also learn the Pitman’s Shorthand – a language of signs,

Pitman’s Shorthand is a system of shorthand writing developed by Sir Isaac Pitman in 1837. It is considered a “language of signs” Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle strokes to represent consonant sounds.

Learning new things gives us a feeling of accomplishment, which in turn boosts our confidence in our capabilities. Also, you’ll feel more ready to take on challenges and explore new business or service ventures. This could earn you more money.

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and only cease at death”, Albert Einstein rightly said these words.  And later on, this typewriter and Pitman’s shorthand helped me in my service career.

Putting my hands on the typewriter helped my father who gave me a typewriter  in 1970s – which I am still preserving and is in working order – which we used in our business. But now this device is outdated, with the invention of the computer but there is no change in the keyboard.  Only the difference is, on a typewriter whenever there was a mistake, it was difficult to erase with rubber (Typing Eraser) even leaving the impression on the paper of having committed a mistake in typing and you had to type very diligently but in computer, it is very easy, you can correct it as many times as you want – what a marvellous invention which has brought revolution in the world of ‘writing world’ with many more features.

Frankly, at the end of life, I realize, as I said at the beginning, that we can learn from anything. This typewriter also taught me that practice makes perfect. If you have practised well on the keyboard, you will not make typing mistakes. The second thing was taught that whatever we do in our life, we should do it diligently without any mistakes, understanding that this is our first job and we will not get another chance in our life.