Seilie is obviously good at Tetris.
What's surprising is that his skills are far superior to those of the first generation players who were fascinated by this game.
Level 29 has long been considered impossible.
Reaching a high score of 999,999 in one go has also been a long-held goal for early players.
This score was first achieved by Harry Hong 20 years after the game's release.
Meanwhile, Seilie reached the highest score in singles tournament matches a whopping twelve times in 2020.
Even in the same competition, there were forty other people who achieved the highest score.
Why do players continue to emerge who are far more skilled than before, even though the game is long past its prime?
--- From "Entering"

Imitation of masterpieces formed the backbone of Renaissance art education.
Da Vinci also insisted that one must study in the proper order.
“The order in which one learns to draw should begin with drawing from the drawings of the great masters, and after acquiring that skill, practice drawing objects excellently using reliefs under the critique of a teacher.” The very notion of spending a lot of time on imitation seems to contradict modern understandings of artistic training.
The perception is that artists should be the source of originality, and that repetitive training kills the creative spirit.
However, artists in an era where imitation training was widespread often produced surprisingly original works.

--- From Chapter 2, “Creativity Begins with Imitation”

Perhaps no molecule is more recognizable in the public imagination than the structure of DNA.
(…) X-ray crystallography takes a specific type of picture.
Rosalind Franklin was an expert in this field.
In particular, she was as gifted with theoretical insight to solve problems as she was with experimental skills.
(…) How did Franklin immediately recognize that Watson and Crick's first model of DNA was incorrect? And how did she immediately deduce the correct method for preparing the delicate fibers, despite having never handled the molecule before? Furthermore, how did Watson and Crick, who had only glimpsed Franklin's X-ray diffraction images, discern the overall shape of the molecule and eliminate sufficient possibilities to arrive at the answer they needed?
--- From Chapter 4, “Experience is sometimes the enemy of knowledge”

The improvisational nature of jazz should not be mistaken for a lack of discipline.
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis explains:
“Jazz is not something you play thinking, ‘Well, I feel like playing it like this.’
Jazz has a strong structural character that follows tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.” (…) For those who want to become jazz musicians, learning to improvise is a very serious challenge.
How can we avoid repetitive playing and develop the skill to perfectly execute complex chord changes and rhythms while maintaining flexibility?
--- From “Chapter 7: Change is Important After Repetition”

Edison is a typical prolific genius.
His inventions were as numerous as they were influential.
But Edison's case raises general questions about creative productivity.
Do creators who produce the best work produce more or less than their less accomplished peers? Let's compare Leonardo da Vinci and Pablo Picasso.
Da Vinci completed only about 20 works during his lifetime, and many of them were left unfinished.
On the other hand, Picasso completed over 13,000 paintings, and including prints, he left behind over 100,000 works in total.
--- From Chapter 8, “Quality Comes from Quantity”

Aerial dogfights had become an essential strategy for dominating the skies, and Britain was lagging far behind in this technology.
The biggest reason was poor training.
The training course conducted in peacetime emphasized the mechanical operation of aircraft, aircraft construction, and flight theory.
In contrast, the actual practical experience of flying an airplane was woefully lacking.
(…) Smith Barry’s innovation was a remarkable success.
Intensive training greatly increased the survival rate of pilots.
According to historian Robert Morley, before Smith-Barry's training reforms, the majority of crashes were fatal and almost always the result of serious pilot error.
However, subsequent accidents occurred almost exclusively during landing, and most were not serious enough to destroy the aircraft.
--- From Chapter 10, “Practice Must Be in Touch with Reality”

Although there were certainly risks involved, Tiger Woods didn't want to make half-hearted changes.
Rather than gradually correcting his swing, as coach Butch Harmon suggested, he wanted to completely change it all at once.
To Harmon's point that it would be difficult to continue playing while making changes, Woods replied, "It doesn't matter."
After 18 months of grueling practice and the inevitable poor performance due to an unfamiliar swing,
And the following year, he won a whopping eight competitions.
This was a feat that no one had achieved since 1974.

--- From Chapter 11, “The Road to Improvement Is Not a Straight Line”