Written on January 7, 2024

What does it mean to be normal? And is it a good thing to be normal?

When something is normal, something is merely done a lot. Either by yourself or by a lot of people. When you drink coffee every morning, then that is normal for you. When you stop drinking coffee for a single day, then that is abnormal.

Things get more complicated when you look at what a society as a whole deems as normal or abnormal. For example, if you never drink coffee while the rest of society does, then that makes you abnormal compared to that society. But is this bad? Is it bad to be abnormal when the thing that is supposed to be normal is bad for you?

The world looked very different even 100 years ago, let alone 500 years ago. Things that are now normal, or normalized, were abnormal or even completely inconceivable back then. Is it normal to sit still in a chair in an office for most of your day, most of your week?

Right now it is, but back then it wasn't. Is it normal to almost never walk on grass or dirt, but only on the paving stones and asphalt between your home and your workplace? Should it be normal?

Just because a society functions like this and normalized it, doesn't mean that it is a good thing, or even should be normal.

There are countless examples of things that have become normalized today, but one should ask whether the fact that it has been normalized is in itself a good thing. And if it isn't, then you need to think about why nothing is being done about it. It's almost always someone making a profit or gaining more power thanks to your bad habits. You're being used.

We collectively decide what is normal and if we decide to change the normal into the abnormal and the abnormal into the normal, then that is within our power. And even if this isn't possible, being abnormal in a society that normalizes bad things is a good thing.

Normality is not set in stone, it's a fluctuating thing. Some of what was normal 100 years ago, we now see as abnormal. And we can also replace the current normal with what we would like to see as normal and, if successful, will see as normal in the future.