What It Feels Like

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and the second part of Voice Control on the Macintosh: Why It Matters, and What It Feels Like to Learn It.

I hope you realize by now that this podcast has been talking about the importance of voice control and some of the human elements involved in mastering the skills. So rest assured that in a few days, I will deal into the mechanics of voice control - in other words HOW use it. My philosophy of education it's not to try to dazzle you with information that might be hard to remember, but to carefully explain a concept. And then use tried and true educational concepts by going back and explaining that concept over and over in different ways - ways that help make that concept your own. In future episodes, I intend to talk about specific voice control commands, and even have imaginary visits from historical figures in the fields of computing and literature - individuals such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and the writer of the first computer program - Ada Lovelace.  But before you learn the actual information, I feel that you need to get the attitude towards learning and a different way of working down first. And that is the purpose of the previous and the following few episodes.

Now let me come back to something I said earlier in a broader way: adaptation is not defeat.

I think many people, when they first I'll say that I'd like for you to rest assured that in a few days I'm gonna deal with the mechanics of using voice control in other words and that certainly matters  find themselves needing a different way of working, feel that they are somehow moving backward. They may feel that because something old has become painful or difficult, they are losing ground. But another way to see it is that they are being asked to develop a new form of competence.

And developing a new form of competence is not failure. It is growth.

Transcript

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and the second part of Voice Control on the Macintosh, why it matters and what it feels to learn it. I hope you realize by now that this podcast has been talking about the importance of voice control and some of the human elements involved in mastering the skills. So rest assured that in a few days I will deal, really go into the mechanics of voice control. In other words, how to use it easily and comfortably. My philosophy of education is not to try and dazzle you with information that might be hard to remember, but to carefully explain a concept several times if necessary and in different ways. And then use tried and true educational concepts by going back again and explaining that concept over and over in different ways. Ways that help you, well, help make that concept your own, but in an entertaining manner. In future episodes, I intend to talk about specific voice control commands, how to use them, and even have imaginary visits from historical figures and their possible opinions regarding voice control. Historical figures in the fields of computing and literature with individuals such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and of course the writer of the first computer program, Ada Loveless. But before you learn the actual information, I feel that you need to get the attitude towards learning and a different way of working down first. And that is the purpose of the previous and the following few episodes. Now let me come back to something I said earlier in a broader way. Adaptation is not defeat. I think that many people, when they first say that I'd like for you to rest assured that in a few days I'm going to deal with the mechanics of voice control, that uh you might not be, well, eager about what's coming, but never fear. I hope you're going to learn this stuff. And if you stick with me, you certainly will. Now people may feel that because something old has become painful or difficult, that they're losing ground. But another way to see it is that they're being asked to develop a new form of competence. And developing a new form of competence is not failure, it is growth, possibly hard growth, possibly humbling growth, possibly slower than one would like growth, but still it's undeniably growth. And there is dignity in that, there is courage in that, and there is even creativity in that. Because adaptation is itself a creative act. It says, I will not simply mourn the old ease forever. I will look for a new way. I will build a new relationship with the tools of my work. I will remain in the conversation. And that certainly matters. And it matters especially, I think, for people whose work is not merely functional, but expressive. Writers, teachers, podcasters, artists, thinkers, people for whom communication is not a side issue, but part of identity itself. For such people, finding a new method is not merely a convenience, it's merely a way of preserving selfhood under changed circumstances. That's why I do not think voice control should be discussed only as accessibility software in some narrow bureaucratic sense. At its deepest, it is also about continuity of voice. And voice, in every sense, matters. So if someone listening to this is discouraged, I would want to say something like this. Do not measure yourself against the polished tutorial. If a video, for example, seems to overwhelm you, realize that voice control is a valuable skill, and valuable skills take time to learn. You didn't learn to type overday or overnight. Don't measure yourself against your past ease with methods you practiced for decades. Do not decide too quickly that awkwardness means incapacitability or incompassit incapacity. There we go. Instead, ask different questions. Am I building a small working core? Am I learning a few dependable commands? Am I recovering a little better from errors? Am I finding one more way than that that I had yesterday? Am I just simply continuing? And if the answer is yes, then something real is happening. It may not feel dramatic, it may not look flashy, but it is definitely real. And real progress often feels much less glamorous from the inside than it deserves to. So perhaps the deepest lesson of learning voice control is not merely how to command a computer. Perhaps it is how to remain patient with oneself while building a new form of agency. To pass through awkwardness without mistaking it for the truth of the ending, to tolerate repetition without calling it humiliation, to accept slowness without calling it failure, to recognize that practice is not punishment, but the road by which habits are born. And to trust that what one feels, well, maybe foreign today, may one day become one of the ordinary ways by which you speak, work, create, and live. And that to me is really the heart of it. Not just commands, not just software, not just settings hidden in a menu, but the slow recovery of confidence, one spoken action at a time. And perhaps for some of us, something even more than that. Perhaps the recovery of continuity, the recovery of work, the recovery of self-trust, the recovery of a voice. Now, over the next episodes, I want to move from the inner journey to the practical one. I think you've guessed that. The actual commands, the actual methods, the actual habits that can make voice control on the Macintosh not just possible, but definitely livable. I don't claim to have mastered every corner of voice control, and perhaps I never will, but I certainly am gonna try. But I have already learned enough to know that for some of us this is not just a convenience, it's a path forward, and that is worth exploring slowly, honestly, and in depth. Think of it this way: what begins as an awkward spoken command may, in time, become part of the ordinary music of survival. Voice control is not only about compensation, adaptation, pain, accessibility, or endurance, though it is certainly about all of those things, but it's also about creativity. Voice control is not merely a way of coping with difficulty, it can also be a way of remaining in living contact with the creative impulse itself. It becomes a means by which thought is shaped, language is released, ideas are caught before they vanish, and practical goals are reached through imaginative means. Now there's another dimension to all of this that matters a great deal to me. And perhaps it matters especially because of the name of this podcast, Celebrate Creativity. And forgive me if I've mentioned this before, but I do believe that when we hear the word creativity, we really think of the great arts. Writers, composers, musicians, painters, dramatists, and all those who shape beauty are meaning out of human experience. And rightly so. I know that I've spent a great deal of time in the company of such figures, at least through their works and through the life of the mind. They remind us that creativity is one of the great human powers. But creativity does not belong only to the famous artist or the recognized genius. Creativity also lives wherever a human being finds a new path toward expression, meaning, or accomplishment. And that is one reason voice control interests me so deeply. Because using voice control is not merely a technical adjustment, it can also be a creative act. It asks the user to discover new methods, new habits, new rhythms, and new ways of translating thought into action. It asks a person, in effect, to compose a new relationship between mind, voice, and work. And that in itself is profoundly creative. It is creative not in some decorative sense, but in a meaningful and practical sense. It places the user in touch with creativity toward the accomplishment of a real goal. It allows imagination to serve function. It allows language to become action. It allows a spoken command at its best to become not merely an instruction to a machine, but part of a larger human effort to continue making, doing, expressing, and achieving. So when I speak of voice control, I don't want to speak only of limitation, adaptation, or necessity, important as those are. Teachers use creativity to shape understanding. And people adapting to change conditions also use creativity to shape survival itself. A person learning voice control is not merely learning commands, they are often engaging in a creative act of an adaptation, almost a new form of communication. They are finding new pathways. They are improvising. They are discovering how to turn spoken language into action. In a very, very real sense, they are composing a new method of living and working. This is not secondary creativity. This is real creativity. What drew me to voice control, well, was not only the necessity, my hands really hurt, but the realization that adaptation itself can be a form of creativity. I began to see that voice control was not merely a substitute for older methods, but a creative means of continuing meaningful work. The spoken command may be practical, but the act behind it is often creative, a human being finding a new path to expression. In that sense, voice control belongs naturally within Celebrate Creativity, because it reminds us that creativity is not only the making of poems, symphonies, and plays, it's also the shaping of new paths through difficulty toward meaningful work. A person learning voice control is not merely compensating for difficulty. Very often that person is composing a new way of working. They are discovering new rhythms between mind, voice, and action. They are learning how spoken language can become practical force. They are shaping a fresh relationship between imagination and accomplishment. And that, in itself, is profoundly creative. It may not look like writing a sonnet, it may not look like or sound like composing a symphony, it may not resemble painting a canvas, but it belongs in the same human family. It is the creative act of finding a new path to meaningful work. Now, I didn't come to this subject because I was looking for one more shiny feature to discuss, nor because I wanted to dabble in some obscure corner of the Macintosh. I came to it by a much longer road through education, experience, reflection, and eventually necessity. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next episode. Now for a long time I've been deeply interested in accessibility, communication, and the ways human beings continue to think, create, and express themselves when ordinary methods are difficult or unavailable. That interest was partly academic. Yes, I studied such questions formally, and they definitely left a lasting mark on me. But it was never only academic, it was also human. I had direct experience with disabled individuals, and with the ingenuity, patience, and resourcefulness with which people learn to make or meet a world that is not always designed with them in mind. And over time I came to see that what many people call limitation is often only part of the story. Because, yes, there may be real limitation, real pain, real frustration, real barriers, but if you stay around actual people long enough, and if you listen carefully enough, you begin to notice something else. You begin to notice adaptation, improvisation, workarounds, problem solving, new pathways being formed where the obvious road is broken off. And I I would say something even more than that. You begin to notice that old bugaboo, creativity. Not creativity only in the grand capital letters sense of famous artists, composers, novelists, or painters. Though of course I care deeply about that kind of creativity too. But um, well, my podcast is called Celebrate Creativity for a Reason, and you know I'm really into uh thinking about writers, musicians, composers, and the many ways that human beings shape beauty and meaning out of experience. But creativity on another level does not belong only to the recognized genius. Creativity is also present whenever a human being finds a new path toward expression, understanding, usefulness, or accomplishment. Creativity is present when someone refuses to let difficulty have the last word. Creativity is present when a person invents a method, develops a new rhythm, or finds another way to remain fully alive in work and communication. That too is creativity. And that stayed with me. Then in time, this whole subject became personal in a much more immediate way. I may have talked about this before, but it's true that after years of creative work, writing, speaking, shaping episodes, using my hands in repetitive ways, all kinds of papers and thesis and that kind of thing, and doing the thousand ordinary physical things that go into intellectual and artistic work. I found myself dealing with the previously mentioned hand pain and overuse. As so happens, the realization did not come all at once like a thunderclap. It came gradually, more strain, more discomfort, more awareness that the old ease was no longer quite so easy. And that can be a most humbling thing. Because when we've done something for years, it becomes well almost transparent. The hand reaches for the mouse, the fingers move across the keyboard, the body performs its little miracles so quietly that we stop noticing them. Thought blows into action almost without ceremony. Then one day you begin to notice the effort. And unfortunately, this seems as though it's something well that will happen to almost all of us. You notice the friction, the cost, and then a question arises how do I continue? I might be able to dictate, but how can I keep doing the work that matters to me? How do I keep writing, thinking, speaking, revising, shaping ideas and remaining creatively alive? How do I continue when an older method begins to exact too high a price? That's where voice control entered the picture for me in a deeper way. Not as a gimmick, not as a curiosity, not as some little demonstration to be admired for five minutes and forgotten, but as a serious possibility, a possibility of continuation, a possibility of adaptation. And yes, a possibility of creativity. Because what drew me to voice control was not only necessity, it was the realization that adaptation itself can be a form of creativity. A person learning voice control is not merely compensating for difficulty. Very often that person is composing a new way of working. They are discovering new rhythms between mind, voice, and action. They are learning how spoken language can become practical force. They are shaping a fresh relationship between imagination and accomplishment. And all of that is profoundly creative. Again, it may not look like writing a sauna, it may not sound like composing a symphony, and it may not resemble painting a canvas. But it belongs to the same human family. It is the creative act of finding a new path to meaningful work. That is one reason I believe voice control belongs naturally within the world of celebrate creativity. Remember that creativity is not only the making of poems, operas, novels, and paintings. Creativity is also the shaping of new possibilities under changed conditions. It is the art of not surrendering too soon. It is the discovery that our practical goal can still be reached through imaginative means. In that sense, voice control is not only assistive, it is expressive. It is not only a workaround, it can also be a creative pathway. And that matters to me deeply. And I invite you as an audience to participate in that form of creativity. And that's the purpose of this podcast episode, or these podcast episodes. You know, I think accessibility deserves to be spoken of in more human terms than it often is. Too often it's presented as a checklist or a category, something bureaucratic and dry. But at its heart, accessibility is about whether people are able to take part in life, in work, in thought, in communication, in art, in meaning. It is about whether doors remain open. And technology, when it's at its best, can keep those doors open. Now, unfortunately, it's true that not all technology does this. Some merely dazzles, some merely complicates, some exist to impress rather than to serve. But when technology helps a person continue meaningful work, continue communication, continue expression, then it's done something humane. And that's the kind of technology I care about. And that's why I wanted to spend real time on voice control on the Macintosh. Too many discussions of voice control are shallow, flashy, or incomplete. They might show what's possible, but not what is practical or lived. They might show a trick, but not a process. They might show the command, but not the human being learning to trust it. And I'm deeply interested in that human being, in the learner, in the struggler, in the adapter, in the person trying to remain expressive, useful, and fully present under changed conditions. So that's where I am coming from. Yes, I do come to this subject with a background in accessibility, with personal experience of the need to adapt, with admiration for those who have learned to work through perceived limitations, and with a growing conviction that creativity is present not only in great art, but in the practical remaking of one's methods or doing work. And that brings me to the larger question. What is it actually like to learn voice control? Not just in theory, not just in a menu, not just in a polished tutorial, but in the real world. Learning voice control on the Macintosh is not only a technical process, it's a human process, an emotional process, a psychological process, and I would say a creative process. That last word matters to me, creativity, and I want to linger over it. Because when most people think of voice control, they may think first of accessibility, and well, rightly so. They may think of pain, fatigue, disability, injury, overuse, or the need for another method. They may think of settings, commands, overlays, grids, names, and numbers. And of course, all that is real. But there's another dimension too. Voice control asks a person to create a new working method. It asks for invention, experimentation, patience, and improvisation. And there's a strategy and a method to all this. Because it asks their learner to discover new roots between thought and action. In a very real sense, it places the user in touch with meaningful creativity toward the accomplishment of a practical goal. And when that is accomplished, you definitely have a beautiful thing. Because it joins two things that are too often separated, usefulness and creativity. But in real life, some of the most meaningful creativity is useful. Writers use creativity to shape language. Composers use creativity to shape sound. Teachers use creativity to shape understanding. And people adapting to changed conditions use creativity to shape their very survival, continuity, and work. So, yes, voice control can definitely be practical, but practicality does not diminish its creativity. On the contrary, it may reveal it. Now, another thing I'd like to say about learning voice control is that many people are misled by the way technology is often demonstrated. A short tutorial may make everything look smooth, immediate, and almost effortless. Someone says a few commands, the machine obeys beautifully, everything appears elegant, and everything seems to be quite controlled. And then the learner sits down and discovers the middle ground, the awkwardness, the repetition, the missed commands, the need to slow down, the need to try another method, the need to recover from errors without losing heart. That middle ground is definitely real, and it is not failure. If voice control feels awkward at first, that does not mean you are doing it wrong. It means you are in the ordinary human stage of learning a new skill. That's very important because many of us unconsciously compare our first days of voice control with our decades of keyboard and mouse use. And that's deeply unfair because, well, the keyboard naturally feels uh comfortable and easy to use if your hands have lived with it for years. Of course, the mouse feels natural if your body has practiced its motions thousands upon thousands of times. Those methods are old comparisons. Voice control, by contrast, may be a new one, and new companions require time before trust becomes second nature. So, yes, voice control may feel slower at first, but it feels slower not only because it may be literally slower in the beginning, it also feels slower because it is still conscious. You are remembering commands, you are deciding now which name or number or grid should I use? You're watching whether the machine understood you. And I'll be showing you a way uh where you can always find out if the machine is understanding you. But anyway, you are correcting, adjusting, trying again, and that takes energy. So I think one of the most helpful things to say is this do not mistake conscious effort for permanent, incapacitate, in being unable to or being incapable. What feels cumbersome now may later feel familiar. What feels strained now may later feel fluid. What feels foreign now may later become one of the ordinary instruments of your working life, but only if given the chance. And sometimes you use grids, one of the most practical and liberating tools in the whole system. And we'll get into this later and I'll explain what grids are. But see, a grid lets you aim by location rather than by name. It says, in effect, never mind what this thing is called, where is it? That is probably a lot more powerful than you might imagine. And it's also in its own way very creative, because the learner begins to discover that there's not just one method, but many. If the name fails, perhaps the number will help. If the number fails, perhaps the grid will. If the page is awkward, scroll first and reposition the whole field. If dictation goes wrong, correct one phrase at a time instead of declaring the whole task a disaster. And let me interject here. If some of the concepts I just mentioned seem totally foreign to you now, well just stick with this podcast and they'll become as comfortable as an old shoe. Now, such learning is not merely technique, it's a form of creative adaptability. You begin to improvise, you begin to choose among methods, you begin to shape the path as you go. And that I think is one reason voice control can eventually feel empowering. Not because it never goes wrong, but because it teaches you that when one route fails, another may still be open. Now, uh here we come to one of the emotional difficulties. Voice control failures can feel more personal than mouse failures. If I miss with the mouse, I think, ah, I missed. But if I speak and the computer misunderstands me, it can feel, however, irrationally, like being unheard. And being unheard always has some sting in it. That sting or perceived sting is real. And it matters all the more when the reason you're using voice control is not simply for convenience, but knee. In that case, frustration may brush against beer. Can I still do my work? Can I still write? Can I still revise? Can I still create? Can I still remain myself in the way I work? Those are not small questions. And so part of learning voice control is learning not to treat every era or E-R-R-O-R as a final verdict. Easier said than done, but necessary. A healthier response is something like this. That didn't work. What's the next approach? That sentence contains a whole philosophy. It shifts the mind from resentment to strategy, from humiliation to problem solving, from past or fail thinking to creative adaptation. And creative adaptation is exactly what this whole process demands. Now, I also think there's another layer that deserves attention. Learning voice control can feel strange because it externalizes what used to happen silently. Many of us have spent years thinking privately while our hands did the public work. Voice control changes that arrangement. Now thought becomes audible. Now action is spoken. Now the ordinary machinery of work acquires a voice. At first that may feel formal, artificial, even faintly absurd. You might find yourself alone in a room saying, Show window grid, and thinking inside, well, this is a new chapter, and indeed it is. But strangeness is not the same as wrongness. Very often strangeness is simply the earliest phase of usefulness. What feels artificial can become natural through repetition because it becomes functional. In other words, you see that it works. We do not always fall in love with new methods at first sight. Sometimes we grow into them by finding that they allow us to keep doing what matters. And that is why small victories are so important. Not flashy victories, not instant mastery, not theatrical displays of perfection. Small victories. I opened the app I needed. I clicked the difficult button. I got through the cluttered web page. I corrected that sentence. I used the grid instead of giving up. I finished a task that truly mattered to me. These are not trivial things, these are real milestones. Those are how confidence is built. A flashy tutorial may overlook them, but real life is made out of them. And confidence, once it begins to grow, changes the whole atmosphere of the learning process. What first felt like an exam begins to feel like a tool. What first felt like a performance begins to feel like work. What first felt like a puzzle begins to feel, little by little, like a language. That is a beautiful transformation when it comes. And it comes through habit. The first time you use a command, it feels like remembering. The tenth time it begins to feel familiar. The hundredth time, it may begin to disappear into the working self. And that disappearance is definitely not a loss. It's the goal. It means the command is no longer standing in front of you demanding attention. It has become one of the quiet instruments by which you work. It has become a part of you. This is when voice control starts to stop feeling like a demonstration and starts feeling like part of your life. Well, this is just the way things should be. Now let me return to creativity in a broader sense. As I mentioned before, when people hear the word creativity, they often think first of masterpieces. Great books, great music, great art, great performances, and of course, that is part of creativity. But don't forget the creativity that deserves honor too. The creativity of adaptation. The creativity of finding a new way to main expressive. The creativity of shaping a new workflow under changed conditions. The creativity of turning spoken language into action. The creativity of preserving continuity of work when an older root has become painful or uncertain. That too is worthy of celebration. And perhaps that is one of the most important things that I want to say in this episode. And I just noticed that this episode is nearing 40 minutes, which will make it probably the longest episode that Celebrate Creativity has had. But anyway, voice control itself is not only about coping. It's not only about sore hands. It's also about creating. It's about creating new methods, new rhythms, new habits, and new possibilities. It allows the voice not merely to instruct a machine, but to participate in meaningful accomplishment, ultimately faster and with far less effort. So in the episodes ahead, I want to move from this larger human and creative picture into the practical realities, the commands, the habits, the grids, the names, the numbers, the fallback methods, and the daily rhythms that can make voice control on the Macintosh not merely possible, but genuinely livable. Because if creativity is the finding of meaningful form toward a real end, then perhaps even a spoken command can become an essential part of that larger work. Join this podcast for our next episode entitled Looking at Life from Both Sides. My name is George Bartley, and thank you for listening to this podcast.