Limbo! How low can you go? I hope anyone reading this is aware of Limbo, the contest to see who can go under the lowest bar without placing their hands on the ground behind them.
Earlier today, I saw the imagery used in a different – and most appropriate – context, one that I will no doubt use as part of my internal verbal tool kit henceforth. Someone lowered culinary standards so far in a concoction that another commented in criticism that they had set a bar too low to limbo under.
We all see it. Standards so low, considerations so inappropriate, crude or nasty that we are left astounded. Do we stoop to the level of the problem and fight it? Do we try to raise the consideration back to acceptable heights? Or do we simply observe, “That’s a bar too low to limbo under!”?
More and more, I am evolving to the latter.
The metaphor is very effective in motivation talks if the audience is aware of the limbo dance. Otherwise, one can use a graphic of two hands facing in opposite directions with a rubber band at stretch between the two. The upper can either be lowered to reduce creative tension or the lower can be taken up to achieve the same effect.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see that.
DeleteI suppose it depends upon context Fossil - certain things require comment/action and others simply observation. Appropriateness is in the eye of the beholder.
ReplyDeleteshackman, I am a big believer in context. I think you are exactly right.
DeleteI am speaking in general from the context of an aging man no longer very interested in petty squabbles. My energy is becoming reserved for meaning and necessity.
Having already aged and turned old I find I have zero energy to squander but few things are as much fun as a good debate. That always gets the blood going. Then there's that post debate single malt.....or a nice bourbon, rye or other adult beverage.
DeleteSingle malt is a bar I can just walk under without bending.
DeleteAhh ...
BTW, if the debate is fun, then engagement is ever so appropriate!