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This brings to mind an old saying: You can't polish a turd The underlying assumption to the post is that somewhere deep within the turd being polished there
by paulhart 18y ago
This brings to mind an old saying:
You can't polish a turd
The underlying assumption to the post is that somewhere deep within the turd being polished there is a nugget of gold.
Not every turd is hiding a nugget of gold. And not every polisher of turds has the capacity or understanding to find the nugget.
The other saying that comes to mind is:
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the
ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.
- unalone 18y agoThe underlying assumption to the post is that somewhere deep within the turd being polished there is a nugget of gold. It's not that so much as that in the process of polishing the turd, it's possible for you to realize you're working on a turd and start over again. That's part of the revision process. One case that stands out to me was that in the writing of my novel, I had a 70-page part that I thought was great and slaved away on, then realized in one blinding moment that it was awful. I threw it away, rewrote the entire section over a day, and now it's the best part of the book. (I'll say in advance that the book wasn't exactly a nugget of gold, but at least I was aware of that when I published it. If I'd spent more time in it it could have become much better.)
- dsil 18y agoActually, you can polish a turd: http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-polishing-a-turd.html http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-polishing-a-turd... Just saying.