With the end of the year, I have begun to think about the enduring things that do not change no matter how much time passes. They are not intangible things, but practical, just like the arrangement of letters on a keyboard. That qwert on the left compared to the poiuy on the right fascinates me and I am one of those who write with almost all of my fingers (it must be of some use that my mother forced me to study typing), even without looking at the keyboard, a skill achieved after years and years.
First on a turquoise Olivetti Lettera 42 typewriter, which I still have; then in an electric IBM, in which the letters were engraved in a ball that drove the ink ribbon and almost went through the paper, and then in the mamotreto computers until reaching laptops as light as an advertising brochure and, of course , to mobile phones. Change the machine, the letters, in addition to physical keyboards, appear on the screens, but their arrangement does not change, you always find them in the same place, the a next to the that, even that be next to the ve so that, From time to time, you seem uneducated. Is not it wonderful? Keep order and order will keep you, as my father said.
The Qwerty keyboard was designed and patented by Christopher Sholes – a journalist he had to be – in 1868 and his invention still endures like so many others, much simpler but equally useful, such as the safety pin that held diapers in place and now prevents a neckline from popping out. clothespins, made of wood, of course, which no gale can blow off the clothesline. Things that do not change even if centuries pass; gadgets that have accompanied several generations without, as happens with cutlery or tableware, having been vilely colonized by design and fashion, although nothing like a round plate, be it deep, flat or dessert.
At this end of 2023 that gives way to 2024, it is worth remembering all the things, objects, even people that have been accompanying us, that never age, that remain faithful to their form and substance.