Practice :: 084
Ohheyhihello!
Chuck Close working on the portrait "Keith" (1970) in his New York studio by Wayne Hollingworth
Our Lives are Just Practice
In the first week of March 2020, Lauren and I booked a trip to Cuba. As both a lifelist location and a first international trip for Golda, it was supposed to be a checking some big boxes. But we cancelled it the next day. One of my learnings from 2020 and The Pandemic was that big plans are often at the mercy of factors outside my control.
So I shifted my focus away from goals and towards habits. I read blogs from authors like Austin Kleon who suggested that writing a page a day doesn't seem like much but at the end of the year, it's a book. Or Jerry Seinfeld's mythical calendar, where every day he wrote jokes he X'd the calendar and the goal is to not break the chain of Xs. I've been prioritizing daily, weekly, and monthly actions that compound. The point is not to get to the end, it's to see what happens along the way. And enjoy the ride.
I'm proud to say that this month, I reached 700 consecutive days of meditation and counting. This email refrigerator marks 7 years of consistent monthly output. I've kept a daily journal for 17 1/2 years. I've been practicing piano for 35.
I'm committing to activities where I have to show up and improve my skills and maintain domain expertise. I'm building practices for my life where I want to observe, learn, and improve. Not to achieve any specific goal.
This month? We talking about practice. Getting better. Following the rules. Building a skill. Compounding effort.
Enjoy the ride...
Practice Makes Imperfect
I've noticed this thing when I learn new songs. I sit down at the piano and look up chords or spread out the sheet music.
In the first pass, I'm just reading. I scan the notes and play through just to make sure it sounds good. If I stop here I'll likely forget it. There's nothing learned. I read but don't process.
Continue practicing and I'm working on memorizing. Get it in my fingers and muscles and into my ears. A few hours and can reliably do it without looking at the music.
Practice makes perfect....or so they say. If I keep going, I'm aiming for that note-for-note perfection. The jump from memorizing to perfection is hours and hours of work. I purposefully work on the hard parts and the sections that trip me up.
And this is where we're taught to aim. Get ready for the recital. The performance. The test.
But there's one more step beyond perfection. Because, if you ask me, perfection is a little bit boring. "Perfection is not very communicative" says cellist Yoyo Ma. "If you are only worried about not making a mistake, then you will communicate nothing."
Because beyond perfection is fluidity. When I've internalized the song so deeply that I'm not just playing it, I'm able to play with it– I forget about making mistakes and instead, improvise– I make it my own.
It's like magic. Literally. I don't want a magician to just do the trick as it's written in the magic book (that's a thing right, a magic book?). I want the conversational flair and the casualness that makes me think that even she is surprised by the magic.
We can practice until it's perfect. Or we can practice until it's magic. Piano and cards, sure. But anything. Everything we do can be magic.
Cecil Taylor in rehearsal at the Whitney Museum, November 2015
What is ChatGPTeaching Us?
ChatGPT makes a decent personal assistant. "Research places to stay and things to do for a couples weekend upstate." "Make me a grocery list for 5 kid-friendly vegetarian dinners and snacks for the week." "Check my calendar and suggest 2 free Saturdays to host our friends."
For a lot of people, it's become a deeply rooted habit. Something I don't know? Ask ChatGPT. A hard task that will take some time? ChatGPT. Do my job? Or GPT it?
It's more than a habit, it's almost a ritual. When we get an assignment and just jump into GPT, we gain the speed and efficiency of a complex learning system that can do the work for us. But the more it does the work for us, the more we don't know how to to do the work.
My friend Exa Kutler coined it as AI-trophy. We're weakening those mental muscles. Which is fine if they're tasks that need to get done and allow us to do the things we want to do, get paid to do, or want to learn and improve.
But if we're outsourcing things we enjoy, things we get paid for, or things we want to learn to do better, we're better off doing them ourselves. Slower and less efficient. But stronger...
One of the muscles I feel weakening in myself is critical thinking. ChatGPT gives me an answer, a list, an idea and I turn around and use it. But it's a muscle I want to strengthen. To read an article and say "I didn't agree with that" or get a list of suggestions and think "y'know what's missing..."
It's counter-intuitive. Like: I have the answers to the test, why would I want to study? But I'm not looking to just do a good job. I'm not looking for speed. I'm looking to build a muscle I feel weakening in myself. And I'm looking to get better.
…what do you think?
The Practice versus The Game
There's no competition for the best Yogi. No final four in being the best doctor or lawyer. And there's no meditation championship.
But in arenas where there is a determination for the best, there is practice. Musicians sit for hours warming up, doing scales, training muscles and memory. Athletes focus on form, strength, and strategy to be the best.
Practice is a space where failure expected because we try new things. Practice is where we push ourselves to see what's possible. Practice is time to mess with speed– to go slow to get it right, or to see how fast is even possible. Practice makes us confident to perform at our peak.
We show up ready because we've shown up to practice. We've rehearsed, trained, and planned for this moment. At the starting line, behind the curtain, and the moment before the whistle... practice is simultaneously compounded and forgotten.
I have no complaints about Yoga. I enjoy meditation. But as an achiever, I also need The Game. The Gig. The Show. The Race. Because that's where we see for ourselves if how good we think we are, is as good as we actually are.
On your marks...
Thankful
Every month I spend hours and hours on this. And every month it arrives in your inbox. I'm thankful for you and our monthly practice of sharing this time together. Always curious to hear your reflections and reactions.
Happy thanksgiving.
Refridgeyalater,
Jake
Hey it's me again. Like every month.
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A few topics I cut from this month: Deliberate practice, 10,000 hours needing to be spread over a decade, Quarter life crisis, Best practices
The Email Refrigerator is a monthly delivery of essays, poetry, imagery, and thoughts, written and curated by Jake Kahana. Why a refrigerator? Well, it's where we look for snacks, a little freshness, and where we hang the latest, greatest work. And besides, "newsletter" sounds like spam.