On Being Normal

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
~ Henry David Thoreau

"Normal" people scare me. Or people who want to be normal. The myth of normalcy. Another one of those sinister entities that governs individuals, nations, ages. Deviation, originality, qualities that surprise and provoke us into reflection; revision -- these things are forced into the margins, but they are never so rare as the myth would have us believe. We are all artists, leaders, philosophers, visionaries, right up until the moment we accept some servile, deflated, milquetoast notion of who we are or who we should be.

But what is the deeper motivation behind the myth?

Are we afraid of the unknown, the uncertain, and all things subtle, mysterious, or tricky? Is that why we as a society cling so tenaciously to concrete answers; absolutes; norms? Is that why we rely on "authority" and hasten to fill every empty space with a firm, well-fitted assumption, or else to deny the emptiness which penetrates and surrounds everything of which we are conscious?

Is it the need to belong? Do we stifle our most creative insights for fear that they will open us to attacks from those who oppose or misread us? Do we equally fear inclusion in groups which we have mocked and relegated to the margins? If we hold a certain idea, does that make us a certain type of person? Must we then identify with that type and adopt all the ideas which are held in common by them?

Ironically, it is more likely to be the larger group, the one to which they do not belong, which identifies and forces them into a subculture, and decides what ideas they supposedly hold in common. As we approach, and as we enter into these subcultures, we come to see how internally fragmented they are. We see how precarious, tentative, conditional, and barely convenient are all the designations, definitions, and memes intended to contain or connect them. Often, they are too preoccupied with their own internal differences to bother much with the outside world. Most Catholics want to reform Catholicism, and change the minds of other Catholics, far more than they want to convert non-Catholics to their cause, though this is considerably less apparent from outside the Church. Paradigms seem  clearly defined, set in stone, held together by the solidarity of unquestioning conformity. It is only their internal and epidermal organs which reveal the extent to which they are at odds with themselves and in sympathy with others.

And what man cannot see the evidence of this truth clearly enough in the case of his own strange condition? Who is not everywhere at odds with himself? And, if he is not, why is he not? It would appear that man's natural and healthiest state is to be continuously provoking and vigorously reconciling new and old conflicts within himself. Every motion in the direction of peace should bring him face to face with a greater and deeper conflict within. How can it be otherwise; when true peace is found only in God, and man is left forever wrestling, or negotiating ignoble compromises, with himself?

The conflict does not end before we give ourselves; mind, body, and soul.

We first develop a taste for self-denial, as though it were a taste for blood. And when we go to peace, we go to war. We go in the direction of our conflict, and we sit with it, and we allow it to insult and decapitate us. We do this. Or else, we are just as conflicted, and all the more unconscious, as we cling like spiders to tenuous, paradigmatic webs, without the grip or agility that spiders have.

Is it simply that man is afraid of himself and, ultimately, afraid of God?

Why else would we institute an economy which affords us every luxury but the one required to pursue a sincere relationship with our deepest selves, and with God, to whom we are united at the very deepest levels?* Why else would we encourage one another to mindless action, while discouraging the most profound efforts of reflection? Why would we exhaust ourselves inventing, mass-producing, distributing, and consuming increasingly abundant sources of vanity; novelty without beauty, simplicity, grace, nor function? Nearly every one of us is forced to "earn our living"** by contributing more mindless, superficial, frequently toxic or otherwise pernicious junk. The culture, wealth, and natural resources of entire countries are raped and exploited for the sake of this obsessive gluttony; this endless cycle of production, distraction, and waste. Scarcely a word is written or spoken, and hardly an action is undertaken, which does not serve some vain, unnecessary, unholy purpose. Our labors are tragic precisely because our recreations are so dull, or meaningless, or both. Need it also be said that they are costly? No doubt, we would value them more highly, and not rate them so costly, were they better capable of gratifying the appetites which govern us.

"In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you."
~ Leo Tolstoy

Is it still, in this age, a revolutionary idea, that we should endeavor to develop our sight, rather than to produce and procure endless objects agreeable to the eye -- the eye as it is, and not as it might be? Do we still imagine that it is the demand for objects difficult to procure, and not the indifference to objects close at hand, which must be met? That, rather than hastening off to manifest every fancy when it occurs, we ought to be dreaming more deliberate dreams? And, if we must work, that it should be in the service of the most glorious of all dreams? Something intensely sacred and uniquely capable of evoking the sense of sacredness within.

Or what are we here for? Is it simply to sweat like beasts of burden, to rack our brains for less than brilliant ends, to fuck and breed without reverence, to gorge ourselves on the richest or the daintiest foods (the ones best able to stifle our potential and choke our spirit), to drink and make merry at the expense of one another, to boast, to gossip, to spread the most common opinions and untruths which we have not honestly considered and arrived at through consideration? In short, to be normal?

Surely, we were made for something more.



*I am speaking of freedom,
or what we like to call "free time"
(though, in our time, nothing is more costly).

** A perfectly horrendous phrase, spiritually speaking.