“Normal”: what does that actually mean, and who gets to determine what is, or what isn’t, “normal”?
I’ve been thinking about this and I’m not too sure how to actually define, “normal”. I looked up the definition and it reads, “conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.” Simply reading that definition causes me to ask, according to whom? The masses? Ok, the masses of what? The planet? The planet's population, historically speaking?
Do you get, what I’m trying to get at? “Normal” isn’t all that normal. It’s a word used to determine acceptable behaviors and that is simply not an accurate use of the word. What is normal to me, may be completely foreign and abnormal to someone else; however, that doesn’t make my choice of normality any less valid. I’ll go ahead and mention a very important footnote, when I use the word “normal” I am not talking about absolute truths. Yes, I believe there are things that are black and white, right and wrong… normalizing wrong, is NOT what I’m talking about. My use of the word “normal” is more so applied to things like: habits, conversational style, relational styles, physical appearance, sense of humor, taste in general, social protocols… etc. I genuinely don’t agree with using the word “normal” when it comes to this stuff. Because my normal, again, isn’t necessarily someone else’s normal… and that’s OK.
My sister always says that the people that are “normal”, are the people we don’t know well enough. Point being, that we’re all quirky. We have little things and nuances that are particular to us, as individuals. We like what we like, and taste is indisputable. So why is it that some of us feel so very abnormal at times? What lie is being shoved down our throat to convince us that our normal… isn’t? Is it, television shows, movies, music, books? Or, is it our perception? Where we grew up, our heritage, our culture, our societal status, our demographic, our academic prowess or lack thereof? These all influence what we deem as “normal”. For instance, I was born and raised in a big city; therefore, I find it completely normal to lock my doors, turn the alarm on, never leave my purse in the car. If you were raised in a small town you may think that the methodical locking of everything is more paranoia than normal and I may think that your abandon of preventive habits is more naiivete than normal.
My point is, we are all normal and we are all not. This should not be what unifies or divides us. Yet, we allow our perception of normality to determine (sadly) our relational interactions with others. Depending on our personal opinions, we determine if people are either too normal, or too abnormal, or not normal enough; and it’s ridiculous. Our perception of normality is so skewed and so intrinsically based on our personal journeys, that it would be idiotic to apply the definition of “conforming to a standard” to all the people that come in and out of our lives and even less so to ourselves. None of us conform to a standard, because none of us have the same definition of what that “standard” is. We are all shaped by our perspective: What we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced, what we’ve been exposed to, what we’ve come to have faith in. These unique, deep rooted, genuine experiences that cannot be duplicated (regardless of what we’d like to believe) shape our personal perception of a “standard”; therefore, “normal” is only normal to us.
I’m a believer. I believe in Jesus (from the Bible) and that He is exactly who the Bible claims He is. Because of that belief, I genuinely at my core believe that we are all called to be so much more than just “normal”. I don’t want to live by the standard you set for me, or by the standard that the majority of the US population sets for me, and I definitely don’t want to live by the standard that Netflix sets for me. Therefore, the choice I’ve made is, that I don’t want to be normal. I don’t want to live by a standard that I may categorically be opposed to or never been exposed to. I’m called to live like a freak… and I’ll take it! I’m called to love the unlovable, forgive, live honorably, be peculiar. YES! I’ll fail at times, but my goodness, I’d still rather fail at being peculiar than thrive at being normal. And “normal” can go fly a kite.