On Falling Over

> Within a few weeks I get my typing up to forty five words a minute one-handed. Everyone is very impressed, but what do they know? It’s half the speed I could type before. Am I going to be half as productive?

Typing isn't where people are most productive.

> I refuse help from people. They mean well but they don’t understand. If I start taking people’s help now, then it’s accepting that I’m a broken person. It’s accepting that I’ll need some kind of assistance for the rest of my life.

No! People helping you know are doing so because they know you need help now, so that you'll be okay in future. You need time to heal, and giving you assistance is giving your arm a chance to heal.

> The following is the standard conversation that people had with me, borderline unedited:

People are given advice about this. I think they're told to say something like:

"I had an accident, my arm is paralysed, and it might not recover. It was pretty traumatic. Thank you for asking! But I really don't want to talk about it. Now, about ..."

"If someone offered you this deal, would you take it: You get $1,000,000,000 if your program runs perfectly on the first try. If it doesn't run perfectly, he chops your hand off."

This got my thinking a lot about what being a hacker would be like without a hand. I can bang code near 100 WPM, and I get thrills from flying around Vim like a wizard. Reading this article has definitely strengthened my position that I would not take the bet.

"Within a few weeks I get my typing up to forty five words a minute one-handed. Everyone is very impressed, but what do they know? It’s half the speed I could type before"

I know that feeling for sure, been monitoring my typing speeds for a while since I lost dexterity in my left arm.

bro fists with strong hand