Normal

Normal.

Normal is a setting on the dryer. A choice for shampoo and facewash. An arbitrary selection of attributes chosen for the same reason One Size Fits All.

Normal is a safety blanket, a cognitive safe-word used to reassure ourselves that there is nothing dangerous in our lives. We surround ourselves with normal every day choices and shun those that choose differently because abnormal is not safe.

Abnormal is the threat of a metastasized cancer. Abnormal is the mark of deficiency, of lack, of mental impoverishment. Abnormal is to Not Belong, to lag outside the boundaries of Normal.

From an early age, we are taught to score high on normalized tests. We watch televised dramas where the mere mention on the word “abnormal” brings even the most stoic and emotionless character to their knees with unchecked weeping.

“Be Normal At All Costs”, is the undercurrent we are exposed to.

But what if “Normal” is really detrimental?

What if in the pursuit to be “Normal”, we purge and discard the parts of ourselves that enable us to be “normal” in the first place? What happens to those that are okay being themselves except for the sin of not being as “normal” as society says they should be? By purging the outliers, communities are purging a part of themselves. What is left of the community appears homogenous at first, but the slightest deviation from what has been declared as “Normal” is scrutinized and shamed.

What is defines as “Normal” must now be reassessed. The boundaries change. The purging continues. Until all that is left of Normal is a setting on a dryer, a choice of shampoos, because no one can be considered “normal” anymore.

(This screed written for, and inspired by, Sunday Scribblings #301: “Normal”.)