Announcer: So you go into a hardware store to buy a drill bit. You don't want "a drill bit", you want HOLES.
I have no idea what they were selling, but that simple principle has always stuck with me.
Seeing beyond sales talk is one thing. It's pretty easy for moderately plugged-in people with developed frontal lobes to recognize a built-in bias. Seeing through window dressing is a bit harder. I've already discussed the laughably flawed comic that is hailed as a great one by people who can't see past its impressive artwork. (And I am always amazed when otherwise savvy viewers see a big musical with a lot of giant moving setpieces and flashy eye-candy effects, and don't recognize that the score is insipid and story underneath is quite stupid.)
But "drill bits"? That's another animal altogether. It's not window dressing and it's not sales talk. It's a necessary means to an end, and if you care about what you're doing, you tend to care how you do it. You learn your craft and strive to improve once you have got the basics, you put thought into your tools and methods, you obsess about your process. In short, you sweat the details. Doing that while staying mindful of the holes that are the underlying goal, that's one hell of a balancing act.
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