Cliché Bashing Time
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Or maybe we all (this writer included) need to lighten up a little and to blow off some steam pointing out someone else’s ridiculousness – which for me comes back to admit my own.
For example, I got an email from a government-backed financial institution (ATB) – chief economist Todd Hirsch writing, which started its offensiveness with this title: On the bright side, followed by the subtitle: At least mortgage rates are low. No doubt Todd’s lame attempt at funny …
Yes, that’s a bit funny – but coming from a bank economist at a time when unemployment is at lifetime highs, the economy is both paralyzed and devastated by COVID-19 and the 2nd blow to our hard-hit oil & gas sector, well … it struck me as stupid. And insensitive. Only funny at a different place in time with a different lens.
Looking on the bright side, a poke-in-the-eye statement, to everyone right now: and yes, we need some levity, but it smacks of the cliché about a banker being someone who offers you an umbrella when there is no cloud in sight. That bank economist, in my view, a bit twisted – which doesn’t mean all economists are, but I’ve met him, and the only way to excuse that remark is to recognize the source as the insensitive one – yet it’s an ATB publication. Well-meaning and cliché. Todd knows better. So does ATB.
Poor taste, and insensitive.
Clichés are stupid.
Reader feedback:
Today’s Musing reads a bit like an epitaph. What’s going on?, RH, Calgary, AB
Hi Mark. So much of what our senses tell us is edited and to a degree, censored, by our beliefs and desires. As difficult as it is, its important to shift the paradigm away from the glass half empty vision to something more objective. Not to be oblivious even though the trite would have us believe that ignorance is bliss and what you don’t know can’t hurt you. It can, it has, and will certainly continue to do so. The reality is that 95% of those matters we worry about are beyond the ability of all but a very few to control. Of the remainder, half of those concerns don’t matter, only leaving a short list we can and should do something about. As for the analogy of the glass and the volume of its contents, be they wine or whiskey, half is certainly enough. It’s when the bottle runs out that steps need to be taken, DM, Okotoks, AB
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