The slow student’s despair
====

Master Wq was eating his luncheon when a student burst into
his room and knelt at his feet. Tears were in his eyes and
he seemed profoundly frustrated. Master Wq put down his bowl
and asked, "What upsets you so, young man?"

"Master," he said. "I give up. I will never attain mastery
of Vim! I will never learn the ways of the great patriarchs!
I will never attain the brutal simplicity, the divine
emptiness of perfectly efficient Vim usage!"

"Why do you say this?"

"I am your worst student, by far. When I am struggling with
writing a simple macro, my fellow students are writing
recursive macros with ease. When I am trying to remember the
regular expression for white space characters, my fellow
students are writing cyclomatic complexity tests in
Vimscript. I am too slow, and I am ashamed, and I am afraid
I have failed."

Master Wq stood up. "Come with me to the window," he said.

The student got up and followed Master Wq to the window, and
looked across the street to Master Wq’s neighbour’s house.
Through the window, the two could see a young man in suit
and tie, working on a document.

"What do you see?" asked Master Wq. The student watched for
a while.

"That young man is using Microsoft Excel to generate a
spreadsheet. He is updating every single cell by hand. He
doesn’t even know how to use formulas. He makes capital
letters by pressing Caps Lock, and then pressing it again
when he is done. He is so slow! I do not understand. How can
he be so content?"

"Seeing this young man, how can you not be?" returned Master
Wq.

The student was immediately enlightened. His name was Qa,
and he later became one of the great masters.