How do you embrace normal?

I don’t know, since there is no definition to that word. But, there are certain social institutions associated with normality that I think do have potentials for making people happy. I am into having children, being in school, volunteering, building communities. I just think some other people are doing these things differently and I wouldn’t pick their way.

I’m comfortable using it in the sense of “unsurprising” or “to be expected”. It becomes problematic when used in the sense of “the right way to be”.

“Normal” is a word that is used to bring people down for being different. Which is why I try not to use it.

Normally, I would agree with @Mr_Paradox.

I think the definition of normal is pretty tenuous. Everyone has their own definition of normal and I would hazard a guess that no two are exactly the same. But, that is unsurprising and. to be expected

Normal is another overused word that is rendered irrelevant by being purely subjective.

I embrace Norml.

Since when does “normal” not have a definition? It’s “conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.”

What’s usual, typical, or expected depends on where you are. In America, a teen girl joining the cheerleading squad, getting good grades, and dating a football player is normal, but so is the girl that hates sports, earns a C average, and couldn’t care less about dating. The guy with dark eyeliner and black nail polish walking around the school halls barking at people – probably not normal.

There’s nothing wrong with being normal, and there’s nothing wrong with not being normal.

Society relies on norms in order to enforce behavior that keeps society from falling apart. Deviation from a few norms, as long as they aren’t directly destructive are tolerated. But at some nebulous threshold of norm violation, a person will cross from normal to Gary Busey, and then that person is shunned to various degrees to keep society cohesive.
This means normal is something of a moving target that we all know when we see it but can’t quite describe.

@livelaughlove21 the dark eyeliner guy may not have been normal when I was in school but is much more common now. How many guys have to do this in order for it to be considered normal. 7 per school? 12 schools out of 15? Times change, expectations change, norms change.

@rojo I graduated high school in 2008 and it wasn’t normal then. I’m in college now and it still isn’t normal. That is, it’s not usual or typical. Barking at people will probably never be normal.

I agree that what is “usual, typical, or expected” changes, but the definition remains the same. And it’s not hard to figure out what most consider normal.

To have a personal definition of “normal” you have to care first.

@livelaughlove is right. The world is getting more accepting in general as well. Abnormal is cool often.

Well, “Woof! Woof, Grrrrr” to the both of you.

Now, if you will excuse me I have to go fix my makeup.

@Hypocrisy_Central I normally avoid the word, because while I agree with the normal complaint that normal lacks precise meaning, I know damn well that I am not normal.

I second @thorninmud‘s answer.

Thank goodness unnormal people like Einstein, Rembrandt, Elvis, Sinatra, Churchill, and Sarah Palin walk among us “normals,” whatever the hell that is.

Normal? Bah. I say let your freak flag fly!

@Katniss ‘Xactly!!! Normal is overrated!

@KNOWITALL Right????? Who wants to be normal?

It’s now normal to not be normal.

Whatever. I’m normal. or not :P

It seems to me, people will embrace abnormal it is considered unique, but avoid normal like the Black Death if it means less than normal in a less than flattering sense. But somethings have a unchangeable normal.

Thorninmud and Mr. Paradox pretty much took my answer. I’ll add my own opinion here too: Is it always wise or moral to be ‘normal’? If I’d lived in an aristocracy where it was popular to bash gays, minorities and the weak would I want to fit in? We should be very thankful that not everybody thinks or acts the same.

@Hypocrisy_Central Like what? The “flatness” of the Earth. The “fact” the Earth is the center of the solar system? The biblical rules for slaves and for raping women? How to treat your wife when she is on her period? The “fact” that quantum entanglement absurdly violates the “rules: for non-locality? The physics of black holes. Sorry to break this to you, but your Normal is a rapidly shrinking world. Better get used to the unique, because that’s what’s actually out there.

@ETpro (ignoring the ubiquitous references to Old Testament) There are normal things that just is, be it by intelligent design, or evolution, nature, or whatever if you chose to believe. The normal rays that penetrate the atmosphere aside from sunrise and sunset is blue. It is the hue you see unadulterated no matter what nation you are in. If I were in China and the sky was the color purple, and orange in Africa and that was not do to pollution, volcanic action etc, then the blue color of sky in the US or Canada would not be normal for the Earth, just North America.

If I seen a redwood tree in Japan it would more than likely, not be distinguishable from a redwood in New Zealand. Redwoods have a normal color, height, growth pattern etc; same with Great Whites, tigers, etc.

Humans normally are born without a cleft pallet. To say those who are born with a cleft pallet is how they were suppose to be born because it was normal for them, why would anyone try to correct it with cosmetic surgery? If you are correcting something it has to be because it was not correct to start. Even if said cleft pallet prevented them from eating as the rest of us without one, it would be their normal so they and us would just have to get use to it; if there is no normal.

@Hypocrisy_Central The radiation spectrum that the human eye can see, from the deepest red to violet is just a tiny fraction of the of the total electromagnetic spectrum. The full spectrum penetrates the atmosphere. That goes from AM radio waves up through the most energetic gamma rays. It also goes for the visible light from the sun, which looks white because, as a prism shows, it’s made up of all the colors of the rainbow. It just so happens that when the blue light from the sun hits an air molecule, it gets scattered in every direction, while all the other wavelengths continue on undisturbed. And so the sky looks blue.

There are bell curves, or standard distributions. But look at a bell curve and calculate the volume of what’s exactly at the 50th percentile versus the volume in the curve that’s somewhere else. Normally, almost nothing is normal.

The brain is a very lazy piece of meat. It doesn’t want to have to think unless it absolutely has to. So after a quick assessment of new surroundings, it will determine what in the area can be safely interacted with or ignored. The brain calls this “normal”.
Things that are not understood, or have the possibility of being dangerous are labeled “not normal”.
If I walk into a bad neighborhood, I may become nervous because I am worried everything around me may be dangerous. I would label things as not normal. But someone who lived in that neighborhood would label most things normal, while having a finer resolution for the trouble spots (not normal) and avoid them.
Normal is a construction of our brain to easily bin things that we don’t really have to think about.

@ETpro It just so happens that when the blue light from the sun hits an air molecule, it gets scattered in every direction, while all the other wavelengths continue on undisturbed.
For the Earth that is normal. No matter where I go on this planet, a clear atmosphere unadulterated by pollutants, man-made or through nature, such a sand storms, volcanic action, etc, the sky will appear blue because those rays will not be affected. I have not seen evidence that suggest this condition has changed in centuries. I am so confident that the sky will appear blue in the middle of the day with unpolluted clear skies I would bet my donuts to anyone’s dollars they won’t fly from China to France and find the sky has changed from blue to orange, red, or green on its own without something contaminating the atmosphere. In this way your science proves there are normal occurrences.

It’s hopeless. Go back to your magic 8-Ball.

meow~

It’s hopeless. Go back to your Ouija Board or your petri dish…..

It’s hopeless, I’m going to my fridge.

“Normal”, those who you think are “Normal” fit the definition of “Abnormal” behind closed doors, nobody can really define “Normal” anymore, ask your political parties, ask your teachers, scientists, social activists anyone for that matter and I can guarantee you will get different responses, why because “normal” like @Blondesjon mentioned is subjective and is one-sided, it’s all interpretation.

@zander101 nobody can really define “Normal” anymore,
Does normal not exist simply because people can not explain it, cannot agree on what it is or where to find it, etc? Like gravity, ESP, telekinesis, etc, if it exist but no one exactly knows how, or even disagree on how it exist does it mean it doesn’t exist?

@zander101 & @Hypocrisy_Central Normal is well defined in the dictionary and had a meaning fully supported by statistics.

@ETpro Normal is well defined in the dictionary and had a meaning fully supported by statistics.
Please explain in laymen’s terms so all can follow why there is a normal that can be defined. I find many people try to avoid normal or water it down for fear it will point to someone or something as being less than something else, I.E if 97.9% of all children in school is the height that biologist say humans should be for that age, the child with dwarfism would be said to be normal as well and not abnormal because he is normal within his family in which dwarfism runs; therefore, he is not abnormal because that is the way he is suppose to be based off his family.