Cliché is cliché

Every get sick and tired of beating around the bush known as the cliché?  Doing an about face at the mere thought of calling on the cliché in our everyday conversation much less writing has in itself become cliché.  It’s like we’re all so desperate to coin the hottest phrase, that in complete abolition of the cliché we find ourselves guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Our need for something out of the ordinary – just to state the obviously ordinary, not only seems to have saturated the process of communication, but also challenges our ability to send messages to each other in a fashion as clear as mud. You’ve seen those people who live and breathe their bucket of academia into casual chat.  Now, don’t get me wrong…I too enjoy regular doses of eloquent verbiage (that is, just before it turns into sour verbage).  As we say, there’s a time and place for everything.  Some people make matters worse when they try to avoid taking the easy way out…aka using cliché.

So why do we avoid the cliché? Perhaps because what makes a cliché a real cliché is that we generally understand “…it has been overused to the point that its sole function is to mark its user as a lazy thinker.”  This is the stigma that comes along with running a mouthful of clichés, but I’d like to suggest the phrase “that’s so cliché” is in itself an annoying cliché.   

Perhaps, the cliché user is wise in choosing her words.  It’s efficient communication – there’s no need to even finish the phrase, as the receiver can fill in the blanks and the chance of misunderstanding is well, next to nothing.  That’s where the relationship breakdown always has its roots – miscommunication, misunderstanding, etc.  And when did we decide everyday conversation was to be rocket science?

I propose down to earth cliché as the new official language of our lives, perhaps then we’d see eye to eye as opposed to fist to eye.  Why can’t we just all get along w/ Mr. Cliché? Maybe then my law school books would shrink from a size 5 inches to size 2 inches. And they all said…you can say that again.

BFF v. BFN

Reaching into a hole where the cloth had torn my red Jansport backpack, I found what they had been looking for.  Airport security cameras had detected a sharp metal object in my bag. My sister and dad had gone on ahead, as my mom and I dumped everything, from books to my retainer, out of the bag. Once the unidentified object came into view, we all sighed in relief and annoyance. It was half of a friendship key chain – the sharp metal object was nothing more than the Yang of what formed a Yin-Yang when the two key chains were placed together.  I handed the weapon over without hesitation…the friendship had faded long before anyhow, when “best friends forever” was cut short.

Moving from New York to Texas even for a 5th grader, I was able to quickly grasp the cultural climate shift in regards to friendship and hospitality.  The warm and sunny days of Texas reflected the welcoming nature of its natives.  As I grew older my faith in that warmness faded just as a piping hot summer day in Houston can change to a severe flash flood in two seconds. Just the other day, frustrated over the course miscommunication often plays in relationships I realized the value of the southern hospitality. 

I’ve always favored the northeastern mentality. People seem to be so tense, so unsociable, so direct, so blunt, so not-interested-in-you that it’s easy to experience culture shock after the 3-4 hour plane ride from deep in the heart to the city that never sleeps. The temperature seems to drop to an icy cold.  Thinking I’d prefer genuine friendship over sappy surface level friendship, I’ve often tried to persuade my Texan friends to simply be direct and authentic. I’m not going to get mad if you tell me you hate my taste. We can still be friends, and I’ll respect you for that.

But open confrontation is laden with Texas dust in order to protect the stronghold of flat land relationships. You can roam all around and see for miles, but never dig beneath. Perhaps that’s why we don’t have basements either. Seriously, this keeps things simple, and you can still manage to maintain a certain level of friendship without having to work that hard. There are those drawbacks, like never knowing what your friends really think of you until your lease is up…but for the most part southern hospitality laced with “make you feel good” friendship has its place.

The BFF (best friends forever) marked on my binders in middle school stood for what described the friendship we often consider a scarcity. However, I’d like to suggest that BFN (best friends for now) not only is more likely, but perhaps just as efficient and necessary. You don’t need the BFF just to hang out on Saturday night, use your BFNs. It’s often easier to relate to the BFN as you find them typically at work, school, church or places you regularly visit.  These institutions are temporary dwelling places, and when you are uprooted from one end of the globe and land on the other…BFNs are sprouting all over the place. When you do find your one or two BFFs, the tenancy at will life estate explains all the work, time, and effort it takes to establish the BFF relationship – you have the course of lifetime to work at it. You don’t have to have everything in common, but something draws you both to commit and that becomes the cherished commonality. The frustration that comes along with authenticity hurts for the moment, but that’s when your BFNs are helpful. When your ego subsides you come to realize the northeastern coldness can be refreshingly tasteful when the warm fuzziness dissipates. Why do you think everyone in Texas loves a Sonic slushy? BFF’s continuity builds trust and security; you can depend on it even though you might not always like it. Even when you’re bad…you’re good.

Though it may not be approachable when found on the surface of its cement sidewalks and fast paced subways, approach with caution, mind the gap, and you’ll be glad to see what you’ve found.  When traveling the coastal border country, do the same…approach with caution, you never know when the wind will carry the dusty abundance in another direction, and you’ll be glad you didn’t settle too hard.

Oh, btw…the BFN disguised as a BFF in my backpack that day is what you have to watch out for – when unidentified they can be dangerous weapons. As for the chain, it wasn’t worth it.

Start here…?

I don’t know how this crazy idea to start a blog landed in my head. Just a day ago if you’d asked me what a widget was I’d have pulled up dictionary.com and looked at you funny.  The idea sounds great at first, you know writing about nothing and then having people take you seriously enough to read and hopefully comment on what you have to say.

 

It all went down in my living room late one night. No, it didn’t take a drink to persuade me. My friend actually snatched a laptop out of my hands and posted what I had written practically unedited online. And so here we are, here I am.  Between then and now, it wasn’t that easy.  It’s like you want to blog, but then you have to get past the decisions on a theme, color, font, & who will even host your blog. 

 

You feel you have so much to say, but then 24 hours later when you still can’t settle on a name, you find yourself doubting what vocab you can do with alphabet soup, much less in a game of Scrabble.

Green, no grey…this widget, and that widget….and how do I fill that white space on the ‘About me’ page, when that’s the last thing I want this blog to be about? Too much information, too little information… So beginning a blog may at initiation be generically exciting, but the selections we opt for do in a way identify owner of the keys beneath those blogging fingers. It’s important.

 

I had the aid and support of one who has gone before me, and my biggest critics…aka my family to assist me, and thank God they did, if not we wouldn’t finally have begun this journey and I’d be watching the clock tick past hour 8,765.81277 a year later with nothing to show for it but white space.  What the heck! If 71 million have gone before me, it’s about time I get started…