Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I still learn new things. I still want to learn new things.

I recently learned how to make the em dash and en dash characters in OS X with keyboard shortcuts. I no longer have to go to the “insert symbols” function to insert these special characters.

One of the disappointing results of this is that I have yet to find anyone who cares about the em dash or en dash or recognizes any value in them.

There are, however, more encouraging results to report. One is that I never knew how to do this before. Now I know and I can complete my writing in less time than before. Hence, I have improved one aspect of my writing. As I consider that, I can denote aspects of my writing that I have improved each of the last thirty years.

There are (at least) two consequences of this experience:

1. Don’t wait until you know how to do it all correctly before trying to do it.
2. Don’t settle for what you now know.

A third consequence is that when I meet someone who doesn’t know how to make the em dash with keyboard shortcuts, I remind myself that there was a time, and that time lasted for decades, when I didn’t know how to do that either.