A recent discussion with a friend got me thinking all philosophical like…

This friend was telling me how they occasionally felt paranoid, and possibly even shut out by those around them.  It’s something I deal with daily, but have learnt to accept.  I’m still a loner, still someone who likes to find my own path sometimes, but I do acknowledge that I suffer from occasional bursts of paranoia and sensitivity.  I have learnt to deal with it through being aware of a few key things, things which are philosophically based, and which help me to not only be more accepting and more tolerant, they have taught me to see the forest as well as the trees, they have taught me that my own opinion is just as valid as anyone elses.

So…  What is normal anyway?  The dictionary says:

nor·mal

However that doesn’t really define normal does it?  In fact it points to normal just being a statistically agreed upon average.  When we are talking about Normal as a state of being, then how can that have a statistical average?  What would have had to have taken place is that a group of people have categorised personalities, and placed them on a scale.  Is that normal?  Maybe someone will elaborate on this for us later, however I shall continue.  So we have all these categories, then how do we work out what’s normal and whats not?  Surely that just comes down to a popularity contest?

After all, isn’t democracy based on a popularity contest?  You vote for the party, the group that you feel is offering the best chance for things to work in your favour.  Maybe things don’t work out, and their are more people voting for someone else…  you discover you are in a minority…  Maybe your perspective changes, you feel that maybe you are wrong in your thoughts and you want to be where all the cool people are…  So next time around you vote to win, to be on the winning side.  Some people sacrifice their values to be what they believe is right, what they believe is right is not always controlled by them, but by those who control the information, those who make things popular.  But I digress…  Popularity influences Normalcy, Normalcy influences Popularity.

In my humble opinion Douglas Adams was closer to the answer to the ultimate question than we would be happy to admit.  Forty Two…  That IS the answer, but what is the question?  What IS Normal?  What is life?  Isn’t Normalcy really just a matter of perspective?  Our lives lead us to live by a set of morals, we develop our own code.  But isn’t that code just as unique as DNA?  35 Years I have lived…  and even if I had a cojoined twin brother born at the same time, joined at the hip who shared every experience I did, he would never share the same perspective of life, his would always be about 18 inches to the side.  Perspective moulds us into what we are.  Sure we can have similar experiences that effect us in very similar ways, but no matter what, we are all unique, our life experiences are unique our moral code is unique, our opinions.  No two people have the same perspective on life, the universe and everything.  So what does that mean?

That means that everything I have just writtten here is written from my heart, from my perspective, and it is part of my code.  It is my opinion.  Whether it is Right…  whether it is normal doesn’t actually matter.  For it is Normal to me, and whilst it might spark some judgement in yourself, it it cannot change the fact that that the time of writing it is what I call normal.  Now that said, other peoples opinions of normal might differ, and if they express them in an orderly and understandable way…  it might actually shift my understanding of normal.  If they express them as an opinion that is right, and the only opinion that matters, then I’m just likely to think they are are slightly deranged and have no sense of how the world about the really works.  But thats just me.

What’s your Normal? ;)