Start looking into bash scripting, for one. Learning a scripting language like python or perl can do a lot of the same things and is valuable in other ways.

To your comment of looking like just one thing is happening, that is understandable to the untrained mind. Let's take an example where I want to delete all the .bak copies of my old configuration files. To do this I would enter the directory and simply type:

    rm *.bak

It's one command, but the star is expanding it to match every file that has a .bak ending. One command line entry, many executions of the 'rm' command.

Yes, context and a trained eye are everything. I like to think that working on the command line is one of many styles of working. It works very well for me in some situations, so I suggest to others to try it out and see if it would fit their needs as well.