Education Quote by Charles Keating

There is a quietly comic defensiveness in Keating's admission: the fear isn’t of computers as machines, but of a world that assumes you were trained for them. By pinning the problem on not learning to type, he shrinks "computers" down from an abstract techno-boogeyman into a single, bodily skill he never acquired. It’s self-deprecating, but it’s also a subtle critique of how quickly modern systems turn everyday competence into a gatekeeping credential.

Coming from a lawyer, the line carries extra bite. Law is a profession built on text, procedure, and confidence in navigating complicated systems. Keating flips that expectation: the master of paperwork suddenly feels illiterate in the new paperwork. The subtext is less "technology is scary" than "the rules changed without asking me". That’s a cultural tension lawyers know well: the sense that authority comes from fluency in the current medium, whether it’s Latin phrases, filing protocols, or now digital interfaces.

The phrase "extraordinarily complicated" does a lot of work. It hints that complexity is partly performative, produced by unfamiliarity and by design choices that punish late adopters. The quote also captures a generational moment when computers were shifting from specialized tools to mandatory infrastructure. Keating isn’t just confessing anxiety; he’s registering a kind of social displacement, where convenience for some becomes intimidation for others, and where not keeping up risks feeling obsolete.