May i recommend using your thumbs

This is my entry to the may 2026 emacs blog carnival hosted by Sacha Chua. It is common knowledge that the default emacs keybindings can be a bit of a strain on the old hands. A common suggestion is to remap the caps lock key to act as control, and i did that for a while, but i don't think it's the perfect solution that is often suggested: stretching the pinky finger sideways and holding it down still results in pain after a while for me. Luckily i have the perfect solution with zero drawbacks: use your thumbs! The first time i tried this was about five years ago. I put control on the key directly to the left of the space bar, and alt on the key directly to the right of the space bar. The thumb is very good at moving in this sideways motion, and i could immediately feel how much more comfortable my hands were with this layout. The trouble with this, though, is some keybindings using the thumb and fingers from a single hand still feel a little bit clumsy. Although the control and alt…