It Is What It Is… Really?

Originally published here on February 27, 2008.

You hear the expression from time to time: It is what it is.

Sounds kind of objectivist, doesn't it? Like, there's this thing out there and it's obvious what it is - even though we're probably having trouble talking about it, which is why the expression gets used. Since it's so obvious what this thing is, why discuss it any further...?

The expression got a lot of attention recently when Congress itself decided to try and figure out what it meant. They were trying to decide what to think of secretly taped conversations involving baseball pitcher Roger Clemens; the expression is used on the tape. For their purposes, the Congressional committee involved seems to have decided that the phrase means something like "I don't want to talk about it anymore" - though no new laws about speech or idioms came out of the hearings.

I have an alternative to "It is what it is" that I like much better. My alternative is "It is what you make it." After all, if it always really was want it is, why would anyone write poetry about it.

As I type this, it's snowing outside. Snow is what it is, right? I think Robert Frost would disagree. If he agreed, there wouldn't have been much point in writing Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening . Like most poems, this one helps you think of something differently - or at least see it better.

Poetry helps you construct new meanings for yourself around things that you encounter. You can shrug off the poem and say, "I don't think I'll build that meaning for myself." Or you can embrace the poem and say, "Maybe snow is more beautiful than I realized..."

Even if you reject the poem's ideas about snow and woods, reading the poem almost forces you to further define what those things mean to you. It's an illustration of Constructivism that's hard to deny.