The Terminal State of Mind

I use the terminal. Not because I am a command-line wizard or particularly efficient with it, but because the GUI has never given me the rhythm and flow I need.

The GUI Does Not Fit My Mind

I have tried. I have used Gnome and KDE when they were just toddlers. I developed with both GTK and Qt, back when Qt had not yet seen Nokia coming. I know how powerful desktop environments can be. But they never worked for me the way I wanted.

I do not run a desktop environment anymore. I use a window manager, a Web browser and a terminal emulator. That is all. I do not even have a file manager.

Not a Wizard, Just a Survivor

I envy the real terminal wizards. They juggle panes, navigate the code as if it were nothing, and configure things I did not even know were configurable. I have seen people eating escape sequences for breakfast!

Me? I muddle through. For nearly 20 years, I was stuck with Emacs, not because I mastered it, but because I could never really wrap my head around vim keybindings. Emacs let me use commands and functions if I could not remember the keybind. That just made sense to me.

Even now, I do not consider myself a power user. There are these modern tools I always wanted to add to my workflow, like fzf, ripgrep, fd, bat. I did not have the time. But recently, I find myself reaching for bat and fzf more and more. They reward even a shallow investment.

Better Late Than Never

Take tmux. For years I used screen, mainly because it was what I knew and it worked on my remote hosts. Since I relied on tabbed terminal emulators on my workstation, I never felt a strong need for tmux.

But eventually, I gave it a shot. And after a few days of poking around and learning just enough to do my job with it, it clicked. I am not a tmux expert. I probably never will be. But even my simple understanding has made my work more comfortable.

The same thing happened with neovim. I used vim only when I had to, usually over SSH. However, there was so much excitement around neovim lately that I felt like I was missing out. So when Emacs started giving me trouble, I gave it a try. The muscle memory was not there. The command prompt felt awkward compared to Emacs. But I stuck with it, and eventually, I became productive.

The Pattern Is the Same

In both cases, the pattern repeated: a few days of grinding, a little reading, some trial and error, and then progress! Like learning a language or picking up a new instrument, there is a point where you stop struggling and start expressing.

The key is patience. Once you reach that threshold of effectiveness, everything gets smoother. And the more you practice, the more efficient you become.

Neurodiversity and the Terminal

Lastly, I want to touch on a topic that I did not expect to write about.

I easily get overwhelmed by visual clutter and decision fatigue. The terminal helps me quiet all that. My terminal-first setup is not about flexing or showing off, not even about efficiency in the traditional sense. It is about being less distracted. There is a calm to it.

Also, the mouse! When I reach my mouse and my eyes start looking for the pointer, I get anxious: Locate, aim, and shoot! This completely breaks my flow.

This got me wondering: what if the choice of terminal-first setup over more common GUI setups is not only about tradition or efficiency, but also about how the mind works?

Disclaimer: I am not diagnosed with any neurodivergent condition. But I am somewhat exposed to the literature and discussions around neurodiversity, in particular dyslexia and ADHD. I do not know if what follows holds true from an expert’s perspective, but I will still share my opinions.

Fewer visual distractions, clear constraints and feedback, easier deep-work, and most importantly, reliance on logical and mental frameworks rather than muscle memory are all reasons why terminals might work better for people with neurodivergent conditions.

Don’t get me wrong, GUIs might have their own benefits, too. But I can approach TUI applications like neovim or tmux with a similar mindset to GUIs: Discovery is easier, multi-tasking feels more natural and transparent, and they offer better environmental control than plain terminal commands.

Again, this is just my experience, but I find it interesting to consider that our choice for interfaces might be due to deeper patterns in how we think and process information.

Or maybe it is much simpler; it might be just about finding a space where we can think clearly and work effectively.