Another question from boredom. Do we need to be fussy over the definition of normal? Let's say that most people are similar in many ways and if you are like most, say 80%, then you are normal. This regards behavior and emotion that isn't considered really strange. Or perhaps you are normal most of the time, which is probably normal too. Something I read long ago which you might know, I paraphrase: 'I'm a unique (and/or special) person, just like everybody else.'
It's funny this question of normality. When I get to know people a little, i often find little odnesses that don't add up to abnormality or strangeness, but are more like quirks or small eccentricities.
We all tend to assume that we all do everyday things in a very similar way without any evidence that this is actually the case. It makes it quite funny when you come across these things, because there are a thousand and one ways to be a little bit weird.
Best to just go along with it I find.
This reader doesn't necessarily feel 'special' like he's got rare talent or destiny to fulfill...
But when he takes a look around he definitely feels 'different.' Left-over childhood Disney bologna, seems like. Probably due to run its course in the next couple of years.
J
No, I don't think I've ever felt normal. I suppose it comes from growing up gay, raised by a manic mother, as a linguistic minority in a francophone city, with very few friends, swinging from rebel child to top of the class, struggling with depression, being atheist in a Christian home, and any other number of things that probably contributed to ****ing me up.
I do a decent job of passing myself off as normal in public.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Eccentric perhaps.
It probably arises from having inherited a free-wheeling Irish imagination on my fathers side & Spanish gypsy bloodlines on my mother's.
Throw in a virtual lifetime of having worked all over God's earth & the influence that has had on me.
So perhaps no, I'm not normal in the English sense & have very little in common with your average jo back home.
Normal ? What is normal?
These days it seems to be sitting on the sofa drinking and smoking yourself to death while watching "The only way is Essex" and "Britains got Talent". Pausing, only briefly , to produce bizarre mini-me clone children, that get their first earring, asbo, spray tan or pair of high heels before they start school and have strange names like Chardonay and Milan.
If that is normal then no thanks, I am happy to be a weirdo, computer geeky, odd fish.
However that may be a little judgmental and smug, which probably means I might be kind of normal after all.
Normaility is over-rated...
Yep, I'm an oddball by anyone's definition. But then, I suspect that most people on here are the same. If normality is defined as the general measure of the population, then we here are all pretty distinct from that - for a start, we are (obviously) a lot more interested in and engaged with literature.
I also like classical music, reading and writing poetry, and analyse medieval Scandinavian literature for a living. I'm also the only person I know under the age of fifty who wears a cardigan.
Yep, not normal. And I'm pretty happy with that.
"I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche
Culture is imitation. To conform is the norm. Once a naked madman was heard to yell: “Normal does not mean compulsory! Normal does not mean compulsory!” -- Obviously the authorities marched him away and locked him up.
I'd venture to say that most people are normal with the exception of a few outliers like serial killers and the truely mentally insane. We all have our little quirks and habits but those only make things more interesting. What makes liking mustard on french fries less normal than ketchup or liking poetry less normal then mountain biking?
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda
The quest for individuality encourages one to portray oneself as quirky, weird and dangerous, but definately not normal.
Most of us are aberrations along an approximation, which makes slight eccentricities rather normal.
The really weird people are those with no humour and the standard, expected, unflinching, unbending stance that puts them spot on the normal line.
I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo.
Insanity is a minority of one.
Welcome to the asylum.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
Yes, I am merely the tree with the overbearing branches of an infinite amount of nuts...once I am stumped I will finally fit in.
I believe there is no such thing as normal, we are all individuals on this planet. However, those who believe there is a normal, be aware that normal to you, is how you were raised, and what your views, morals, and everyday actions are. There is no normal in society, just in you.
Surely there is normal in society, though. It's normal to wait for the red and cross at the green, to look in a store and pay and leave. There's also safety and law compelling this, sure. It's normal to mind your business among strangers and greet those you know. 'Normal' simply means what most people do.
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