My Battle with Clichés
I find Cliché an interesting word, it has an exotic French sound both snazzy and cool giving allure and sophistication. However, its actual meaning relates to trite phrases lacking originality that have no allure or sophistication. It could be argued to be analogous to the hipster equivalent in writing — lacking any real substance and depth.
This however, seems too harsh; the humble cliché is so well known. Although unoriginal, it has that nostalgic quality, like the warm cosy feeling of a favourite old item — where one can go and get a sense of safety and solace. Lacking originality, it has an internal dissonance; it is an easy way of expression — both as phrases with well understood meanings, and as a lazy and unthoughtful way of expression.
It can be argued that both are symptomatic of lazy thinking; the benefits of a well-known phrase compensate for a lack of articulation and poor vocabulary. This also could be considered too punitive; communication is imparting a message — the meaning can be more important that its dressing. But, as the practice of management has shown repeatedly, it can simply be doublespeak and truly meaningless, either through idiocy, conceit, or strategic ambiguity, hiding a lack of understanding underneath cacophony of nonsensical cliched phrases. Although a crime against sense and reason it is unfortunately, not a crime against the law. Nonetheless, apart from strategic ambiguity, these examples embed a lack of original and quality thinking. Hence, this is the criticism made.
Is lazy thinking bad
From the personal development angle, does lazy thinking and/or being a bullshitter help you in your life? This I was forced to ask myself; a truly difficult personal question. Although there are moments where the ability to bullshit can be useful and not every task requires your best thinking, is there something about using it too much. Like fast food — a little is acceptable– as a diet deadly. It really is about the extremes — it can help to engage and build rapport with other cliched bullshit artists, but too much and the thinking quality becomes poor, and your reputation becomes one of a poor thinker and bullshitter. Hence, where to be on the continuum is a key question and act of judgement.
Contemplating on the above, the important message I feel is about thinking, and more precisely intention. The importance of intention is that it is goal-focussed. It requires thought and direction. Using clichés to engage or express a thought in ways that make it more engaging or understood helps to get the message across — hence the goal. If rapport and engagement are the goal this can help gain acceptance and build relationship. It involved thinking — although about the use of the cliché and not the phrasing itself.
However, for me the point of writing the point was to share something and hope it would be of value to someone. But to share something, you need to understand it. So, for me writing became the process to understand it — how can you express ideas clearly if you do not comprehend them yourself? This was an interesting personal insight that shaped my thinking — if I am unclear and lazy in my communication, if it comes from a lack of thought — do I know what I am talking about? This is again another difficult personal question and was the essence of my battle with clichés.
For clichés this becomes a question of whether they are being used because I am being lazy or are they relevant to the context. The answer was not a happy one. One where the cliché was used too much and critical thinking used too little. It is sitting there within my writing not contributing at all. It sits there expressing a concept poorly, hoping to convey some message that someone, somewhere may be able to decipher from the context. But on second reading, that someone is not me — it is just words on the page attempting to excuse a lack of thought. This was a frightening moment. It became clear that not only was the writing poor, the subject matter comprehension may be missing too.
Clichés entered my normal speech and writing — they crept in and were so unbelievably frequent. Without a concerted effort, I would have no awareness — previously on a second read no thought would be given to the cliché and its lack of contribution. Did the writing demonstrate any understanding? Well as the clichés accumulated it was probably best to review older writing to try and answer the question.
At the time, there may have been a reason or logic to some of the writing. But that time in no longer and certainly is not now. It was completely unclear — I have little understanding of my own work and what it intended to convey. If there was an argument, it seems to be lost and unable to escape off the page. How did I miss this? Well, I was not paying attention at the time of writing and probably was conceited in thinking that I understood things. Moreover, writing will improve with practice. Coherent arguments are harder to write than is often imagined — I am still struggling with this. So yes, lazy thinking is bad.
Making the change
Noticing made a huge change; like a new way of seeing. No trite quotes or homilies, it was a complete reworking of my thought process. Now, it was easy to criticise — why have I not noticed before? This from my experience is the rub — this insight draws a line between the old and the new; it is the break from who I was to who I am. I might have had an inkling previously, maybe that drove the intent to search or to ask questions. The answers led to new thoughts, and maybe trying something new. However, the pace at which the overuse of clichés and lack of thinking became apparent was frightening.
Having this change, well it is only the part of the story. Seeing things gives new perspectives, and like a book, these can be enlightening and awe inspiring. But like a book, it is ideas, it is a view. But a view is just an image, a passive way of perceiving — without action that insight cannot be turned to action. Worse still, seeing and not acting is even more damaging, failing in ignorance is at least trying but not yet seeing — in knowledge it is laziness, incompetence, and apathy. Hence, potentially leading to a downward spiral, more negative self-talk, and a lack of belief.
So, the act of seeing acts as a bridge a gateway to improvement which must be embraced. But how to embrace it. Well, thinking for starters. Slowing down the writing process. Reviewing and editing. Spending the time and labouring over the prose. Here the point was to at least ensure that the text was read and re-read and a view on lazy thinking be identified. Intentionally identifying the clichés and asking the questions:
- Why is this here?
- What does this add?
- Why am I using this?
- What could I write instead?
These helped identify cliché overuse; which in turn led to lazy metaphors. But lazy metaphors involve a level of thinking and creativity. They required some effort on my part; significantly more effort than a cliché. Thus, a small step improvement. Improvement is often small, hard, and awkward steps. Personal experience has led me to believe that the first steps are genuinely the hardest, but often the most fun. The start and a discipline to improve leads to more of these steps, in each step is another small improvement that compound over time. So, although lazy, these metaphors were the first step.
Writing has an array of devices, each deep and challenging, the quality of application dependant on the writer’s skill. Once learnt, the journey towards mastery is time-consuming and never ending. However, the point was to improve my comprehension and quality of the messages and not to become a “writer” per se. Because the focus is on the quality of both thinking and messaging, it raised a set of different, but also challenging questions:
- What message am I trying to communicate?
- Why am I trying to communicate it?
- Who am I trying to communicate it to?
Learnings from this exercise
These latter questions are more holistic; far more powerful and useful than those for a single phrase. They are the macro compared to micro of a cliché. All are useful, but without the common threads and the logic, reworking a cliché is just pedantry. This place, that of high-quality thinking with clear messaging is where I want to reach; it still is a painful and never-ending journey. A process where small steps lead to small improvements.
The steps currently appear to involve asking questions to frame the task at hand. So does structure, helping focus and frame the logic, so that the coherence and consistency make understanding the message much easier and the logic more easily scrutinised -especially by yourself. Without the destination and clarity of the path, the message gets lost because the writing meanders. Here the comprehension gets lost too; clarity can expose many major errors in thinking.
It is here that both structure and questions — like the previous help. Is this relevant? How does this information help the argument? Where does this fit into the structure? Does the structure convey the proper message? What questions does this writing pose? Are there glaring errors and omissions?
Here the cliché acts as an identifier of the lazy thinking. It is a signpost to poor thought, which is likely to be poor structure, and a poor message. In of itself, it is not the problem, but a symptom and self-inflicted cause. As it appears so do the other maladies and these compound to ruin your writing efforts.
In sum, my battle with clichés was less a battle against trite phraseology but a battle against a lack of thinking. It hid my writing maladies and comforted me in the fact that I thought I knew more than I did; my crime was of ignorance — the quality of my thinking was weak. It took time to identify the overuse, but the benefits I received had little to do with rewriting clichés. It had everything to do with the habits that I formed; the focus on the quality of thinking and the message; and the learning and improvement opportunity that it presented. Although it is never-ending journey, I feel that some progress, albeit small, was made. This improvement was taking more notice of my writing and working on improving it on a regular basis. A habit that anyone could do, and more importantly could start today.
I hope this has been some use to you and good luck on your writing journey. Please feel free to discuss your experiences and leave a comment below.
