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Goodbye, Bill Walton

2024-05-28

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Bill Walton is my favorite athlete I never saw play. He passed away yesterday.

In the summer of 2007, I read David Halberstam's classic book, Breaks of the Game, which is about the Portland Trailblazers of the Late 1970s who briefly shot to the top of the NBA world before falling back down to mediocrity.

Breaks of the Game is as close to a perfect book as I've ever read. The focus for the story is Bill Walton's foot, which breaks in the 1977-78 playoffs with his Portland Trailblazers set to win a second straight NBA title. This bad break cuts short a championship run, a budding dynasty, and according to Halberstam, the perfect basketball team with Walton the perfect basketball star.

With this as his lens, Halberstam tells the story of how basketball and American culture are changing, becoming more financially driven, and in the process something is being lost. If you have even a passing interest in basketball, you should read it.

I met Bill Walton through this book, but I fell in love with him when he came on to the Bill Simmons podcast. [1]

Simmons wanted to have a fairly conventional conversation about the 2007 NBA season. [0] But Walton wanted to use basketball as a metaphor for life, specifically how to create a meaningful life, especially for young people, through preparation, judgement, and irrepressible joy. He had a sense of the interplay between individual talent and team chemistry that I love most about the basketball and articulated in a way no one else can.

Over the years, I've probably re-listened to that conversation 15 times to try and capture a little bit of his approach to life. [2]

As I've gotten older, the list of athletes I want to meet has dwindled. I still appreciate the skill, but cringe at the awkwardness of approaching another grown man... to talk about what exactly? I'd rather leave them to practice their craft and enjoy their time with their families.

Bill Walton remained the exception. When I moved to San Diego in 2021, I would go on runs past his house in hopes that he might be out checking the mail and I might get a chance to thank him. For what exactly? Having a great basketball career? A wonderful approach to life? I'm not exactly sure, but I know he mattered to me. Of course, I flattered myself that he'd recognize in me a kindred spirit and a friendship would be born. It wasn't to be. With his passing, it never will be.

It's an odd thing to care this much about someone who you never saw play. If anything, it's a reminder that how we live matters and can echo out into the world to the people around us, even people who've never met us and never saw us do the thing that we were best at.

Thank you, Bill Walton, for sharing your gifts with me.

[0]: Such a great time to be an NBA fan.

[1]: At the end of the podcast, Simmons brings up Breaks of the Game and it's so painful for Walton that he has to end the show.

[2]: I also printed out a copy of John Wooden's Pyramid of Success and bought a handful of old Sports Illustrated with Walton on the cover.

ChatGPT Mac App

2024-05-24

I'm one of the early users here, but this app is severely underbaked, even for a beta rollout.

Forget about advanced features — I'm having issues with basic scrolling. It's also slow. The speed of response time that's so exciting on the web isn't there for some reason.

I also miss the ability to cmd + f for pieces of text within a chat. For some reason, on the app this does a search across my chats but not within the chat I'm focused on. Not helpful!

I don't want to draw too many conclusions from a bad week for OpenAI, but it definitely seems like they've lost focus on what matters.

What makes a political office non-partisan?

2024-05-13

The state of Georgia has certain offices that are designated as non-partisan. How does this get decided? Where is the line drawn and why? Are there any restrictions placed on the candidates when running for a non partisan office, or does it just mean that the party isn’t listed on the ballot?

If you feel like you understand how this works, let me know: jdilla.xyz @ gmail dot com.

Things I wish I knew

2024-04-26

For a couple of years now, I’ve been posting things I learned as a way of cultivating curiosity.[0]

But this year I’ve stumbled upon a different sort of thing I want to train myself to notice: things I wish I knew.

I find myself somewhat embarrassed to post these. But why? Probably because I feel like if I were truly motivated, I would be able to figure them out.

I think this is the wrong instinct. Someone out there almost definitely knows the answer to them and there’s a chance they just swing along and tell me. In that case, I’m better off. And some of the most impactful projects I’ve seen first hand have begun with someone wondering, “why is this the way that it is?”

Since sifting my thoughts for these, I’ve found them to be way harder to capture. I’ve had 2-3 hit me and then disappear, only for me to be unable to locate them again. This almost never happens to me with “things I learned.” I wonder why that is?

Now, for my first one:

I wish I understood how individual trust is converted into group/institutional trust and how group/institutional trust converts into societal trust. I feel like I have a good idea on how an individual creates or destroys trust, but don’t think I understand how it converts for a team the size of a small company (say ~25-40 people), let alone a large company (thousands of people) or a society. Say you’re the mayor of a small city and you think a high trust society is important. Is it possible to do anything to foster this? How does it work?

My hypothesis: I assume it’s some combination of credibility, reliability, and lack of self interest. So when people see society work (e.g., civic institutions function well, utilizing judgment, being able to be counted on) and that individuals aren’t profiting at the expense of the group, civic trust goes up. But… I could be wrong. If you feel like you definitively understand this, reach out: jdilla.xyz at gmail dot com.

[0]: I’ll probably keep doing that, because why not? It’s super fun.