“I hate normal people!” Really? But… Wha… ok. That was my expression when I saw those words printed on some strange girl’s pants that I met a few weeks ago. It was so boldly and colourfully printed, obviously intentional, that I couldn’t help noticing. But how is this even…normal? I wondered before I realised that I was acting like the same person she hated. Trying to keep myself out of her ‘hate list’—not that it would mater if she hated me honestly, yet my conscience bothered me—I decided to ignore it altogether and mind my own business.
However, with my introspective personality, the phrase kept reverting: I hate normal people. What did she mean exactly? I asked myself. She was holding a poster with words I can’t remember well, but about taking action against climate change before it’s too late. Most likely she was from the climate change strike that was going on the same day. Well, so maybe by ‘normal people’ she meant people who know about climate change but are not doing anything about it or pretend not to know. Or maybe people who just don’t care to know about it at all. Ahh, could she have just meant people who do ‘normal’ things, whatever that means?
I have no idea what she meant. But something else happened. After a quick analysis of human behaviour, through self-reflection mostly, I found myself asking a different question in the end: is there even a normal person in the first place? Is there, really? What do we even mean by normal? Is it conforming to some community or cultural standards? But wait, who decides those standards? Okay, let’s not go to philosophy or we risk being nihilistic (not now at least). But even if we all made our own rules and followed our norms, would we honestly be more normal? Would we live by our standards? I don’t know, I doubt though.
Edinburgh street art performance. Image by CosmoTelling
Look around you, at the people you know or meet. How many things do you find weird or annoying about them sometimes? I mean, not to judge, but let’s be a little honesty with ourselves. How many things do we find irritating and fail to understand how someone could even think about them? Things that others say, what they eat and drink, how they think, their beliefs, not to mention things you don’t get a chance to see them do (in secret). Even just the way some people open their mouth or laugh, or chew annoys others. We wonder what goes on for them to act in that way. We almost call them ‘abnormal’ if not for politeness and avoiding getting punched in the nose. I honestly find it interesting and scary how most of these are different from my own. We rarely pay attention to our own weirdness and imperfections. We are often too scared to really examine our thoughts and behaviour lest we realise (really) how terrible we are ourselves. So, we project our insecurities, fears, ugliness, weirdness, and all the ‘undesirable’ traits on others.
Can you think about some of the most ‘abnormal’ things you’ve done? Things you’ve thought about or said and later wondered what’s wrong with you to even tolerate such thoughts. Or do we ever think about how certain things we think we know or believe in so dearly could be terribly wrong? I mean, it’s understandable if we can’t think of any or if even just the thought of this task perturbs us. It’s not an easy task. It’s one that takes courage and requires substantial amount of vulnerability. We love to win, we love to be ‘normal’, we love to belong, and we love to be right. But deep down we are people who spend our lives trying to know ourselves, an endless journey it seems. And we know it, hard as it is to admit. So how could we claim normality with all this?
I am not normal for many things, so are you. We are often judgemental and spend little time questioning our own thoughts and actions. We are full of biases, and very few—admirable—people can admit it. We hold our ideas as supreme. What an absurd! Our thoughts and emotions about many things are always changing. Life seems chaotic and we are often forced to adapt to things we don’t like. Anyways, what we want is scary even to ourselves sometimes. Consider your emotions for example (hunger, thirst, anger, jealousy, impatience, longing to belong, emptiness, sexual desires, even laziness). Doing what we want would sometimes mean punching the nose of whoever gets on your nerves. Are we normal? Forget about the medical definition of normal, that’s not my concern here (although that too should be doubted).
Left: Beautiful things don’t always need to be clear. Right: People have their own things they struggle with, be patient with them. Images by CosmoTelling
In other words, I hate normal people too! We all do, or at least I think we should. Normal people want to show us their strength in our weak times. Normal people have little or no consideration for their prejudice. Normal people usually assume what they can’t understand is simply not true. Normal people want to talk about good things about themselves and withhold their shortcomings. And normal people are us all! What? So, I hate us?
My point is that we are people, and people are different, with different experiences. We are all looking for something, often the same thing ultimately. But our journeys are different. And we need to be aware of that because that’s what makes us all unique. This is not to say one should be too receptive to everything or everyone—that is naivety and underestimation of the human capability for evil; and vultures feed on naïve minds. Firstly, we need to be aware of our shortcomings then we will learn to appreciate other people’s strengths. Above all we ought to be cautious of our own prejudice, especially as we get more educated and tend to lose common sense.
Normal people are us all.
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