we're talkin' 'bout practice

on A.I. and AI

There's a video clip from a Philadelphia 76ers post-game conference where Allen Iverson is asked by an inquiring journalist about missing practice. The question is simple as is the response from a man known as A.I., which can be found in the title to this piece or in this excerpt from the press conference:

I've never been an NBA fan, my allegiance growing up leaning heavily instead to the local may-as-well-be-professional basketball team, UConn Huskies. And while my love of sports has waned as I've taken more cycles around the sun, I was at the time an avid watcher of SportsCenter beamed directly from just up the road in Bristol, Connecticut. It was during one of my many mornings watching ESPN in the summer during college when I saw this clip, and the commotion, some may even say kerfuffle, it caused around the league and general pop culture. Had the internet been what it is today, it would have been a meme, or a gif. Alas, A.I. was ahead of his time.

The backstory is that Iverson and his coach, Larry Brown, got into an argument after Iverson showed up late for a meeting which was compounded by the fact the 76ers had just come off a rough season finding the them eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, further complicated by Iverson's fear of being traded. Brown tempered Iverson's concerns confirming he would not be traded, allowing cooler heads to prevail and Iverson to agree to a press conference about the good news. Yet three hours later, Iverson would utter the word practice 22 times when asked about his commitment to it, along with Brown's prior frustrations with Iverson's work ethic. Some would claim he was drunk at the time, using it as another example of his perceived selfishness.

Let us compare A.I. with AI. A.I. was against practice then, was only focused on the outcome, the result of the game. AI isn't focused on requiring someone to learn the craft, it's only focused on producing an outcome - albeit based on "training" that it was forced to do, somewhat ruining my point but stick with me - based on showing up with some minimal prompts. A.I. was against practice because he thought he could carry the team on his own. AI isn't concerned about the people who put in the work to create the content that is mined to produce the final words, the final picture, the final video, the final product. A.I. was all about him; AI is, too.

But AI isn't correct now and A.I. wasn't correct then. In a strange but true story, A.I. lost a game of 1:1 basketball to Bruce Hornsby. While Hornsby required that they played by Piano Hands Rules - each player would get an uncontested shot to protect Bruce's ebony and ivory tickling fingers - he still won by the rules A.I. agreed to play against. A.I. thought he could just show up - which I would normally argue is what life really is all about - and he'd win. But he was wrong. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is.

I've written at least 15 minutes a day, everyday, for 332 straight days. I've learned a little something about practice in that time. What started on September 1, 2023, continued yesterday and will continue today assuming I complete my 15 minutes, and will extend tomorrow, has seen me write 73,951 words, while editing and publishing 24 pieces totaling 58,704 words¹ - including an estimated 457 typos² as a result of using the Shitty First Draft, an approach best described by Anne Lamott³ in her book Bird by Bird⁴, that makes correcting typos on the fly taboo - for you to read. In comparison, I published 17 pieces consisting of 26,810 words over the 25 months prior to that. But it has never been about arriving at an outcomes-focused goal but pursuing a process-driven practice.

That practice has changed my point of view on a number of things. I assumed in the early days I would have some realizations - but as I write these particular words, my daily 15 minutes elapsed and it is late and I decide to retire for the evening to pick up tomorrow - and it is now tomorrow and I return to write, this time outside on the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice, and it is 8:56pm ET and the fireflies are flitting about lighting our backyard on this just a moment ago hot but now slightly cooling evening like the sparks from a fire often lit in certain primarily Northern European countries on this day and it is hard to imagine that all the days from now on, through the summer's heat and seemingly longer days are actually growing, no, shrinking shorter. It's when one starts writing daily, as a practice, that one thinks how it is possible for one day to turn into two which turn into a week and then a month and then a season, each moment spent typing seemingly insignificant yet somehow contributing to the steady growth one gains through the practice. Twilight approaches, three minutes away at 9:04pm ET, and I am nearly seven minutes into my daily ritual.

Like the setting of that bonfire around which people revert to their old, heathen ways, my writing practice takes me back to my younger, ironically even more rigid days. I look out on the darkness of the tree losing its three-dimensional depth appearing instead as an abstract blot against the still - and still - light blue sky. The clouds do not move, but I've been moved by some of the words I’ve written. I've cried unearthing a memory's place in history as I've typed in a near catatonic state. Not catatonic in the Ferris Bueller you're my hero kind of way, a despondent Cameron in shock from the destruction of his father's car, but in the ability to tune everything out, to focus at the task at hand, while channeling something deeper. Though like Cameron, I sometimes awaken from this state with some sort of epiphany.

But epiphanies are only an instant's realization, of days, months, and years of practice. The time I've put into living is magnified by the reflection I've made on that time spent and then reduced to the moment of clarity of what it all means. I initially wrote setting out to talk about my absolute apathy towards cars at best, bordering on hatred at worst, only to realize they've been in the driver’s seat along life's highway.⁵ When I write about my tendency to leave things unresolved I stir remembrances not of traumas past but of avoidance of something potentially traumatic that likely would amount to nothing. I have conversations with people - friends and strangers alike - seemingly unrelated to the topics I write about only to realize that one of the pieces - about New England, about sports, about cars, about coffee canisters - are things about which I now have deep knowledge and a point of view to share. Most of that knowledge is about me.

As kids growing up in the 80s and 90s, it was normal for every player on the soccer or baseball team to get a trophy, for every student to get a First Place prize in the invention convention - I got one of 43 First Place prizes for my Garbage Can Collector in First Grade - for all of us to all be winners. And that has caused a generation of entitlement that we've passed down and multiplied to the next generation. That we all have attained the ultimate outcome: we’re all the best.

What if we instead focused not on the outcome or trophy for nothing more than participation while somehow elevated in our own minds to something much more, but on the "good effort, tries hard" report card comments our teachers used to give? As kids we thought this was a joke, thinking who cares about effort, who cares about trying. I read recently, though can't recall where, that in England, the top marks went to the person with the highest grade who also put in the least effort. As they say, that’s bullocks. I've written before about how it's more than just the thought that counts, that it's thought plus effort that truly matters. While I meant this in terms of how we show love and affection for one another, to show that we care, it could also be applied to the example above. It's not just the thought, or in that case intelligence, that matters, it's applying that thought with effort. With work.

And that's what practice is.

Playing the saxophone came easy to me as a kid and I rarely practiced. Math used to come easy to me, too. I got good grades without much effort, so much so that I majored in it. But this is the lazy man’s way.

Being good at math and at the saxophone without much work was something that I took pride in as a kid, but now I see was fool's gold. Being naturally good at something naturally should never be where one stops; it’s simply that one's starting point is further along a path towards mastery. Being good at something that comes natural is like inheriting wealth - it's misleading, misguided and misbegotten.

Reading and its related comprehension was not something that came natural or easy to me growing up. Writing harder still. I wish I practiced both more as a kid. But there's always time to apply effort to something that needs kindling.

And like kindling used to build a fire, practice can be a ritual. When I set out to begin my daily writing practice, Brandon asked when I planned to get it done during the day. Knowing I'm a morning person, I said I assumed it be like the vitamins Jesse Itlzer talks about taken first thing in the morning to avoid potentially missing it as the day gets away due to other obligations. Instead, it has become a nighttime ritual serving as a 15-minute mental commute before the 15-foot walk from my home office into the kitchen and living room to join the rest of my family; serving as a wind down at the hotel when I'm traveling on business, the day's thoughts providing fuel for the continuation of a piece started a day, week or month before; serving as the companion on part of the 37-minute express train ride home from a day in the city like I take today, typing while intermittently looking out the window at the setting sun to my left and the darkening skies to my right while the man ahead of me laughs at the video playing on his phone propped up between the seats in front of him, earbuds firmly planted in his ears while I observe. And that repeated word - serving - and its derivatives is appropriate. I am in service to practice; practice serves me.

In business, they talk about servant leaders, about those who get better results by being in service to their teams, leading with traits of empathy, self-awareness, stewardship, commitment to growth, and fostering community. In practice, we become our own servant leaders, our daily work allowing our future selves to perform better, but without the future self demanding that of us through force, through command and control. We understand what it's like to be unprepared, so we practice; we understand our current limitations, so we practice; we understand we have to show up on time, to be dependable, so we practice; we understand that skills and muscles require time to grow, so we practice; I'm attempting to build a community, so I practice.

But practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes and marks progress. It uncovers things about ourselves that we didn't know and in unexpected ways. Writing daily has changed the way I see the world, on things that can inspire me to create an inkling of an idea that could blossom into a full essay. Or not. It's allowed me to enhance a conversation by drawing forward a recent essay I've written - to share my perspective - or better yet to bring someone into the process itself, but telling them about a piece currently in progress. I’m sure I've become more interesting not only to others, but more importantly to myself. This writing practice has given me more joy than I ever thought possible.

And because of that, practice is not a right, it's a privilege. It's not something given, I have to earn that joy through a process of progress. Yes, you could say that it's work. But it's work that simultaneously brings happiness. It's not one before the other, but happening at the same time. It's the journey and the destination being experienced at the same time. That’s the real singularity.

But like work, when I'm interrupted in the process of writing at night usually by my one of my daughters, I can react poorly just like I do when I'm working during the day. Yes, it's my flow getting dammed, my train of thought derailed, my next thought's departure delayed at the gate due to bad weather or a worldwide Microsoft bug. I go from being present in and with my mind to being present in and with my environment. The split-second change is jarring. Like when I turn my head too quickly, experience vertigo and have to turn my head slowly in its opposite position to stop the spinning, I need to consciously bring my attention back to the daughter asking me to join her for dinner.

It's this ability to concentrate as I write, to recollect the past and to let thoughts become words to the point where they're given meaning through a seemingly illogical logic, whose basis is rooted in an increased ability to observe the world around me. I notice more. I find inspiration in the mundane, like a car emissions test, and give it meaning through memory and corollaries and metaphors and hidden conceits that cause me to laugh but likely go over many readers’ heads. I connect one idea with another, allowing me to see how the world observed moves from distinct objects on a plane to collages across space. I notice more how other writers - yes, it still feels odd to say consider myself an other in that context - are able to do similar things in ways that feel far more natural but no less illogical until you reach the end of the passage realizing the clues and connections were there all along.

Through my writing practice, I've created my own Generative AI that allows me to recall in the moment the experiences of my past, with the observations of my present, to provide a future of creativity that I never thought possible. Talent can only take you so far. Through practice, we hone our skills, while homing in on who we really are. Practice puts you in the position to be able to perform no matter what the task at hand is.

Basketball likely came easy to A.I. As a Georgetown Hoya point guard owning the Big East, he was a league above. He was a pure talent. But he never won a championship. Because he was too busy talking about talking about practice when he should have been practicing.

Which is what I've been doing for these past 2,600 odd words.

But it's not always that straightforward. Later in the same press conference, Iverson talked about how the death of his best friend, Rashaan Langeford, who was shot seven months prior, weighed on him throughout the season. His murder trial started three days prior to the “practice” press conference. Iverson shared:

I'm upset for one reason: 'Cause I'm in here. I lost. I lost my best friend. I lost him, and I lost this year. Everything is just going downhill for me, as far as just that. You know, as far as my life. And then I'm dealing with this….My best friend is dead. Dead. And we lost. And this is what I have to go through for the rest of the summer until the season is all over again.

So maybe it's not always about practice. Maybe it's about life.

Which is what I've been talking about for these last 2,800 or so words.

1. Which means there are more essays in the hopper to finish up and edit before arriving in your inboxes.

2. Most of which Dawid (not a typo) has caught, informed me and which I’d later edit in post-production.

3

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. Start by getting something - anything - down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft - you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft - you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or draped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.

4. As an affiliate of Bookshop.org (read: they are not Amazon), project kathekon will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. You’ll also help a local independent bookstore in your community.

5. References and puns absolutely intended.