Week 108: The things we forgot along the way
On my way to the ICT in Chicago last weekend, I found myself repeatedly working through my mental checklists, concerned that I had forgotten something. I found myself doublechecking my pocket for a pencil, and then for cash for the CTA card, and then for which stop was the easiest to transfer between the Midway line and the one to O'Hare. Three years of missing the trip led me not to trust my instincts and double check every action. That’s kind of how it felt all weekend, like there was something just out of sight that was very important, and we were forgetting what it was.
When I went on the trip, I was worried about we had forgotten what it was like to be with people who disagreed with us, and how to be civil to them. While it was there, angry shouting in the airport, chaotic cutoffs in line for breakfast, the moment when you realize you can have eye contact with another human being, it was only momentary memory lapses. The things that we had in muscle memory and background processing and things that we didn't even know we forgot; they were just a little off this weekend. It wasn't that I was sick or getting older, it was just these tools haven't been used in three years, and they felt foreign as they finally got picked up again.
I had forgotten my map of the building. My mental model of all the rooms and all the things in the hotel were off. I forgot where my Saturday room was, and wandered down the wrong hallway of the International Level looking for Gatwick, completely walking past it twice. I had a room on the 11th floor, and three times running, I went to the wrong corner tower before realizing my mistake. That's bad for me, if you're someone that people count on to guide them and give them directions during a tournament; if you don't remember it properly, or start to mix it up, you need to learn it all again, and fast.
We have forgotten that people have patterns as they write, and those patterns don't go away. During the IPNCT and ICT, I saw questions go dead on Nobel Literature laureates. Now I have always seen that as something to note, something that will always come up, and thus always valuable to at least peruse the most recent, and the last 50 years at least. I've never seen an absence of the questions, so I always assume people have noticed the value in studying them, and do the same. Even if their Nobel is not mentioned, they're worth knowing about, so when two went dead in each tournament, I found it surprising. They’re not going away. They may not mention the Nobel, but they will still be answers.
We have forgotten how to play out the string. I have to draft specific language for this for the book, but unless this is your last tournament ever (and since I read DII, it wasn't for most of them) when you're not winning, at least you can be learning. I saw lots of bad tuneouts once teams were drawing dead in their matches. Even if it's the last game of the year, you have another year, and there's something that could come up again in a later match.
We have forgotten that pictures matter. The idea of everpresent cameras during matches the past two years have kind of left people with the assumption that they're being photographed all during the game. But as we go back to in-person, pictures still matter, and someone still has to take them. We botched the picture-taking at the ICT. When we needed pictures for press releases of the teams, we didn't have them, and we had to try to get them from the teams. This made my job clear for the IPNCT finals. I ended up doing the photography of the finals all through the High School Division finals.
We had forgotten how much it means to be part of the audience, witnessing what this game means to the people that play it. While you can see the scene online, the camera shuts off too quickly. You miss how this game is for some the mental discipline that orders their lives and allows them to accumulate the knowledge they value, for some honorable combat, for some affirmation of self, and for some the secret community that gets them. It really sneaks out after the camera goes away, but you got to see that this weekend. Hopefully we'll see it again at other championships.
Finally, I had forgotten that flying back late Sunday night is fraught. As I typed away at press releases Sunday night in the airport food court, I watched my flight slide back to the back of the night's schedule, until the 10:30 flight to Pittsburgh became a 12:30 flight. While I accomplished a lot more with articles to newspapers, it didn't make up for the short sleep of crashing into my bed at 3:30am, just to make the next morning's 8:30 meeting. As I write this out Wednesday night, I'm still yawning, like I've been all week. Unsurprisingly, I’m out of practice at this whole championships thing.