This is the third chapter of No Word from “Coach”. In case you have not read it, I recommend you starting at the beginning of story:
17.35: The “coaches” crowd around me, expectant, waiting for me to clarify the pronouncement about the 10,000 hours/repetitions. It seems I have hit something personal, as if I had disrespected something they cherish, something that’s part of them. According to the research conducted in Area 61 on the planet Optimiam, the statement I have just made is clear evidence of progress: it reflects the discovery that to master any skill it is indeed crucial to play, put in the hours, devote oneself fully, and repeat many actions… qualitatively, not quantitatively —as previously thought. We had indications, however, that other planets had reached similar conclusions. Here on planet Earth, though, these conclusions were —and seem to still be— corrupted by social values: those who pee standing up and start flushing before they have even finished still think they can shorten the path to expertise by minimizing the time between repetitions, eliminating all variability, everything that is not “productive”. Then, they end up getting exactly what keeps them from their greedy wishes: doing countless repetitions that are useless because they are done like cows grazing —soullessly. So, that’s it: I assumed that what we —Citcat of Snorom and Duarf of the Euqinhcet, and the rest of planet Optimiam— knew would also be shared by those beings from other galaxies who never stop going on about something they call “intelligent life”.
17.36: They ask me what I believe in if not in the 10,000 hours/repetitions. I answer by asking them whether the best way to learn a game might be by playing it, and if they will allow me to show them with an example.