"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
In the early 1980s, my advertising client convinced me that when a restaurant adds a menu item, they should subtract one at the same time. Their irrefutable logic was that a new product has a better chance to be a winner if you drop one that’s selling poorly. Everyone’s resources are limited, they said, so focus is essential.
Editor’s Notes: I’ve signed up for www.gatesnotes.com which is Bill Gates reading blog. After reading a couple books recommended I’m reminded how much smarter he and Melinda must be than I am. Some are very tough reads, such as “Better Angels” which attempts a comprehensive history of violence in society. I’m grinding through it though because it answers a long time question I’ve had: Is our perception that violence is increasing a truth or a growth in our awareness and sensitivity to violence. Pinker argues rather forcefully that it is the latter. In fact, he presents facts that indicate that violence has decreased pretty consistently since our ancestors crawled out of the ocean. More importantly, after sharing his research, he share his study of the reasons why we are continually less violent, including organized states and justice systems, commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism and the escalator of reason. After history lessons and the broad reasons why, he then dives into psychological factors (positive and negative) and influences and psychology. (Damn thing is over 1,000 pages.) But it was well worth forcing myself through it because while one act of violence is too many, it is good to know we are in a virtuous cycle.
The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.
How’s that for a bold headline? I’m a searcher so I accept that my definition may change again but here we go.
