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保罗·格雷厄姆：好的写作·第3则
保罗·格雷厄姆《《好的写作》》· Good Writing · 领导 · 认知 · 成长 · 行动
But I found, to my surprise, that it never did. I always ended up with something I liked better. I don't think this was because my writing was especially careless. I think if you pointed to a random paragraph in anything written by anyone and told them to make it slightly shorter (or longer), they'd probably be able to come up with something better. The best analogy for this phenomenon is when you shake a bin full of different objects. The shakes are arbitrary motions. Or more precisely, they're not calculated to make any two specific objects fit more closely together. And yet repeated shaking inevitably makes the objects discover brilliantly clever ways of packing themselves. Gravity won't let them become less tightly packed, so any change has to be a change for the better.
出处：
https://paulgraham.com/goodwriting.html
定位：Essay, additional excerpt 3 · 核对日期：2026-10-19 · 核验：短摘录
白话
作者原以为，把文章改短或改长会破坏质量，但每次修改后都发现结果更好。他推测，任何人随便挑一段文字，要求改短或改长，都能改得更好。这就像摇晃装满不同物体的箱子：摇晃是随机的，并不针对某两个物体，但反复摇晃后，物体总会找到更巧妙的排列方式。因为重力不允许它们变得更松散，所以任何变化都只能是优化。写作也一样，每次修改都是一次“摇晃”，只要你不允许文章变差，反复调整就会让表达更紧凑、更合理。所以，别怕改，改就是进步。
上下文
格雷厄姆在《好写作》中分享修改文章的经验，用摇晃箱子的比喻说明随机修改为何能带来优化。
今日一问
你下次修改文章时，能否随机挑一段，试着改短或改长，看看会不会更好？
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