Platitudes
Yes, this is another rambling. Must be a cultural thing, but many Indians (in particular your average Joe, or Ram) seem to think it is hip to use proverbs as lame excuses to justify just about anything. While most use proverbs as a pithy way of expressing morals, there are many who abuse them.
Proverbs are not meant to be quoted to others but to be followed. You can quote a proverb, only by setting an example yourself first.
Here are some of the ones I hear so often:
- You can’t straighten a dogs tail
Used as justification for any bad habits. It might be true that one cannot easily change certain habits, but most of these excuses refer to the remaining 99% that can be changed. I can dismiss the excuse in one shot: promise of a large reward (money, promotion, recognition) or punishment (like a demotion) will straighten out ones tail in no time. Even a simple change in environment makes a difference. For example, a person might find it easier to control certain bad habits at work than at home (like smoking and drinking) – probably because one is more self-conscious in a company, as a matter of professionalism (or else suffer the consequences). - Be a Roman in Rome.
Used as justification for conformity. People think stripping off their cultures is the best way to integrate into the mainstream. That eventually leaves a land deprived of any culture (which is what has happened in the USA, and hence their thirst for the cultural experience – even if it means travelling to remote parts of the world to find it or building theme parks to simulate it). One can keep one’s culture and still integrate (share, communicate, invite, etc.) into the mainstream. - Ignorance is bliss.
Used as justification for stupidity, in-action, or apathy. One of those sayings where one fool said it, and a thousand dingbats quotes it. Ignorance is not bliss. Detachment under full awareness/knowing is bliss. - Curiosity killed the cat.
Used as justification that asking too many questions or thinking too much into certain matters, is bad for you. Most of the conflicts in the world are due to ignorance. - Patience/Tolerance/Forgiveness is a virtue
That doesn’t mean you should tolerate something or someone especially at the expense of others . Give them a chance (3-4 strikes) to redeem themselves, and if they still repeat, then you just distance yourself (unless they approach you for advise, it’s not really your job to fix them either). - Accept everything as they are
This is a Buddhist quote, and is meant to be applied to himself. People are more quick to tell others this than to apply it to themselves first. This quote (like all others) also has the potential to be abused by taking it literally. It allows one to shun responsibility. Like one can repeatedly kick a dog, or throw trash on the road, or deprive a poor man of his land, or repeatedly abuse someone, or create a lot of noise, and just tell they should stop complaining and learn to “accept everything as they are” if they complain. - Not everyone can be like that
Though not a proverb, this is the most famous of all. Even at the simplest behest, like very basic civic or environmental sense or ethics, you’ll get the apathetic response “not everyone can be like that”. Conveniently forgetting Gandhi’s saying “be the change you want to see in the world”. - Nobody can be perfect1
People use this phrase as an excuse for doing half-baked work, while at the same time expecting things around them to work with perfection, and will complain when it doesn’t. Very few human beings can produce things with 99% perfection. That is why we have quality control (in fact several layers of quality control in things which need 99.99% perfection – such as air traffic control, a satellite launch, nuclear plant, etc). But the assumption for it to work is that each person is doing his job to at least a certain minimum level of quality (as opposed to half-baked). - Opposites attract
Another overused phrase. This law applies, when you are talking about polarities (whether it be electricity, magnetism, or gender). These are universal laws of nature. This does not apply to any other entity (may it be the human mind, ideas, societies, nations,…). Taking “opposites attract” literally has two logical fallacies: one is generalization beyond the original domain, second is anthropomorphizing physical principles. Opposites can attract if they are complementary forces, not opposing forces. - One should enjoy life / live a balanced life
Quoted by people who have a very shallow and self-centric perception of what enjoying life. One man’s enjoyment is another man’s poison. For instance, for a mathematician enjoyment would be mathematics, for scientist it would be his undying thirst to seek and discover, for an artist the passion to create or paint, for an engineer the passion to create things, for a monk to discover the answers to life’s mysterious questions, for musician to play music, for a dancer to dance. For some, enjoying life may mean reveling in everything that life has to offer (like rampant consumerism) without thinking about the consequences (like impact on environment).
1Note: The word perfection itself is a man-made construct very relativistic to human experience. In contrast, many of the great spiritual masters were known as the “Perfected Ones”, not because they reached a state of perfection by any material measure, but because they reached a state of being or awareness which goes beyond measures of human experience where life, death, joy, suffering, and perfection are meaningless. A state of contentedness where everything simply “is”. Where everything is just is according the natural laws of the universe – atoms, planets, people, cultures – all colliding, clashing, fusing, dying, manifesting, evolving, devolving, etc. There is nothing to change or to perfect. The witness, that which is witnessed, and the act of witnessing all become One, as in Pure Awareness.