Madwoman Musings

Proverbial Expression

Proverbial Expression

I love clichés. A distillation of eternal truth -- so true no one wants to hear it -- so true it becomes cliché.

If cliché is true, then what of stereotype -- a truth, a tiny truth, couched in the reality of random originality.

The exception is the stereotype borne of fear -- but wait, when we were in caves fear was our friend; it kept us safe and out of the bear's maw.

We told our children fairy tales to scare them from walking in the woods and making friends with hungry wolves. The stereotypes of the wolf at the door, the metaphor of the wolf in sheep’s clothing are lessons to live by… to protect us.

 Nevertheless, where do we stop believing the stereotype and think for ourselves? Now, out of the caves and in the jungle we face every day what in the past was to be feared -- the unknown-- the stranger. We know now the enemy from the other tribe is only us looking back through the mirror and we can divest ourselves of that stereotype.

 

A stitch in time is still true, so is a bird in the hand albeit a bit safe. To find the truth of cliché we need the truth of the metaphor it belongs to and the deeper meaning to the human existence it hints at. A bird in the hand attests to our need and desires out of control our greed and compulsive acquiring of material possessions. To settle with what we have, for the grass is always greener isn't it. That's our rose-colored glasses fogging our vision and allowing the blind to lead.

 

A cliché makes a great song title, or a string of clichés an entire song -- and why? Clichés resonate in ways that are subconscious and unconscious, and make a new song seem like a familiar friend somehow. My, we're in love with comfort -- home is where the heart is.

 

The most untrue cliché, “dead men tell no tales,” knew nothing of artists and writers and forensic science -- it is the least metaphorical and most literal. So the literal cliché speaks to the truth of it. The more literal the more false and misinformed. Black as the ace of spades tries to have meaning but only succeeds to be mean. Here is the realm of the racial stereotype, also born of fear of the strange tribal neighbor we need not know to know but there it ends. Judgment without meaning or purpose -- simply bred of fear.