What Is Normal Anymore?

I was labeled "een specialleke". A Special One. Not in the nicest sense of the word. Deal with it.

I have reached an age where I no longer understand what constitutes normal human behavior, and frankly I am not sure anybody else does either.

When I was young, (sorry, but yes, there, I said it), the categories seemed relatively straightforward. Men were men. Women were women. Everyone complained about the weather, politicians, and the price of butter. Then somewhere along the way society decided that simple categories were insufficient and replaced them with a system so complicated that it appears to have been designed by the people who write software licensing agreements.

Personally, I have never been fond of extremes. I am suspicious of women who appear to have emerged fully assembled from a lifestyle influencer factory, complete with matching handbag, matching shoes, matching dog, matching social media feed, and a vocabulary consisting primarily of the words “amazing,” “fabulous,” and “literally.” If you are literally having brunch, then congratulations, you are eating eggs. The rest of us are doing the same thing without issuing a press release.

At the same time, I find highly masculine men equally exhausting. These are men who regard every object in the universe as either a tool, a weapon, or a potential source of protein. They can somehow transform a conversation about gardening into a discussion about torque specifications. Ask them how their vacation was and they will answer, “The truck performed flawlessly.” Apparently the truck was the one on vacation.

Then there are the men who are so determined to display sensitivity that they begin to resemble an emotionally available scented candle. Every statement is accompanied by introspection. Every feeling requires processing. Every interaction becomes a therapeutic workshop. If someone asks whether they want coffee, they answer, “I appreciate the invitation to explore my caffeine boundaries.”

Women are not immune. There exists a category of woman who approaches every conversation as if she is preparing to invade a neighboring country. These are women who can make a Navy admiral feel underqualified. If they ask how your day is going, it is not a question. It is a performance review. The problem is that none of these people are actually the problem.

Which also makes me wonder whether this new definition of normal extends far beyond gender and personality and into the strange consumer circus we have all agreed to participate in. Are we now required to drive vehicles capable of crossing the Sahara Desert even though their most demanding assignment is navigating the parking lot at Costco? Must we own watches costing $250,000 that perform the exact same function as a $25 watch, except that the expensive one allows complete strangers to conclude that we have more money than judgment? Why are there shoes selling for $2,500 that are arguably less comfortable and less practical than my Crocs, which, while undeniably ugly, at least make no philosophical claims about my status in society? And what exactly is the purpose of a $750 button down shirt that wrinkles just as enthusiastically as my $50 shirt, especially when both will eventually be entrusted to a dry cleaner whose business model appears to be based on finding new and innovative ways to destroy collars?

The luxury market increasingly feels like a giant social experiment designed to determine how much money people will spend to impress other people who are themselves desperately spending money to impress somebody else. At some point the entire exercise begins to resemble a room full of peacocks admiring one another's feathers while quietly financing the national debt of a small European country. The truly revolutionary act today may not be buying the expensive thing. It may be looking at it, shrugging, and saying, "No thanks. My perfectly ordinary version seems to be working just fine."

And so I find myself asking, more frequently than is probably healthy: can't we just be normal anymore? Not normal in the sense of everyone dressing alike, thinking alike, or marching through life with identical opinions about politics, religion, pineapple on pizza, or whether a dog should be allowed on the furniture. That battle has already been lost, largely because the dog won. I mean normal in the sense of being comfortable enough with ourselves that we no longer feel compelled to turn our personalities into public relations campaigns. Can't a woman enjoy makeup without behaving like she is launching a luxury cosmetics empire? Can't a man own a pickup truck without developing a theological attachment to towing capacity? Can't people simply possess qualities that used to be called character instead of constructing identities that require mission statements, hashtags, and quarterly performance reviews? It seems that every trait now arrives at maximum volume, as if humanity collectively decided that subtlety was an outdated technology.

Somewhere between the lumberjack influencers, the wellness gurus, the alpha males, the boss babes, the emotional support philosophers, and the professional victims, there must still exist millions of ordinary people quietly living ordinary lives, raising children, walking dogs, paying bills, helping neighbors, and forgetting passwords. These people rarely trend on social media because they are busy doing something deeply unfashionable: functioning. Perhaps that is what normal has become. Not a specific way of being male or female, masculine or feminine, strong or gentle. Just being comfortable enough in your own skin that you no longer feel the need to convince the rest of us that you are.

The real problem is that most of us spend an astonishing amount of energy pretending to be whatever we think we are supposed to be. The macho guy worries people will think he is weak. The ultra feminine woman worries people will think she is plain. The sensitive man worries people will think he is insensitive. The hard charging woman worries people will think she is soft. Everyone is terrified of failing an exam nobody remembers signing up for.

Meanwhile, the genuinely interesting people are quietly getting on with life. They are not performing masculinity or femininity. They are not building a brand. They are not curating an identity. They are simply being themselves, which turns out to be a surprisingly radical act in the modern world.

The philosophical problem, of course, is that nobody can agree on what "normal" actually means. For most of human history, normal simply meant whatever most people around you happened to be doing. If everyone in your village wore wooden shoes, milked cows, and considered bathing a seasonal activity, that was normal. Today we are exposed to billions of people, lifestyles, opinions, identities, and purchasing decisions every day, which means normal has become statistically impossible to define. The philosopher might argue that normal is merely a social average. The psychologist might say it is whatever allows a person to function successfully in society. The marketing department insists normal is whatever requires the immediate purchase of a premium subscription.

My own suspicion is that normal has very little to do with conformity and a great deal to do with proportion. A normal person is not someone who fits perfectly into a category. A normal person is someone whose beliefs, possessions, ambitions, fears, and habits remain roughly proportional to reality. They do not make politics their entire personality. They do not make fitness their religion. They do not make victimhood their profession. They do not require a luxury vehicle to validate their existence. They are simply people trying to get through life with a reasonable amount of dignity, humor, competence, and kindness. Which sounds remarkably achievable until you spend five minutes on social media.

I suspect this is why Sharon generally likes people more than I do. She meets a manly man and sees a person. She meets a girly girl and sees a person. She meets a manly woman or a feminine man and sees a person. I meet them and immediately begin taking notes for an essay. Perhaps that is the real distinction. Some people see humanity. Writers see material.

Which may explain why writers are often sitting alone at a table while everybody else is having a perfectly normal time.

If I May… The absurdity of modern life is that many of us spend enormous amounts of money trying to appear exceptional. We buy oversized vehicles, luxury watches, designer clothes, and status symbols that promise to elevate us above the crowd, only to discover that everyone else is buying exactly the same things for exactly the same reason. Meanwhile, in the NICU, there is no competition to be exceptional. A premature baby weighing barely more than a bag of sugar is not concerned with brands, status, trends, or appearances. Their goal is wonderfully simple: breathe, grow, heal, and eventually go home. The bassinets we are raising funds for are not luxury items. They are practical tools that help nurses and physicians provide the safest possible care to infants whose first challenge in life arrived far too early. If this appeal speaks to you, please consider making a donation. In a world increasingly obsessed with what people have, this is a chance to help those who simply need a fair start. Every contribution helps create a little more normal for a family whose world has suddenly become anything but.

The essays will remain free. The bassinets, unfortunately, are not.

https://gofund.me/a0fc0777e