Retirement has been a really interesting time for me. Throughout my schooling, my mind was absorbed with academics, learning how to be a human being/quasi-adult, trying to figure myself out, and trying to fit in. For about the next 35 years (I count grad school more as “work” than “school”), my mind was absorbed with producing and advancing. It was a soul-crushing mixture of “now-now-now” competing with “next-next-next”. There were lots of interesting subjects that would flit across my brain, but I really had limited time to think Deep Thoughts. I rarely allowed myself the luxury of that time, plus if I DID have time to think slowly and deeply about something other than a work challenge, I was usually too tired to put much into it. I promised myself that when I retired, I would use at least a part of that time to allow myself to ponder random things. This blog is partly a result of that. In between reading too many e-newsletters, getting my Daily Challenges on too many games on my iPad, and the occasional Facebook doom scroll session, I noodle on things. Today, you are going to be subjected to one of those things: my increasing agitation with the word Normal.
The word “normal” can have different meanings. One is mathematical. A mathematical normal is a line intersecting another line at a 90-degree angle. I don’t have an issue with that. (“Yay!” says Trish. “Something she doesn’t have an issue with!”) Where I get all twisted in knots is when “normal” is used as “conforming to a standard”. And this is where the rabbit hole of my noodling comes into play.
Most of my life I have never, in many ways, felt “normal”—as in “conforming to a standard”. I am left-handed in a right-handed world. I am Jewish in a predominantly Christian country. I am a woman who worked in a male-dominated field (especially during the early years of my career). I am a chemist who worked for an engineering firm. I am gay in a straight world. I am a Southerner living in the Northeast (although that one really isn’t valid anymore!). While we all SAY that there is nothing wrong with being different, there is clearly a judgment that comes with the word “normal”. Unstated is that not conforming to the standard is a bad thing. And many of us non-conformists take that a step further, deciding that we, ourselves, are bad. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of discussion around what is “normal” and what is not “normal” in our world today. It’s used in politics; it’s used in discussing so many of the “culture war” issues; it’s used to judge almost every aspect of people around us. It’s not healthy.
My thesis today is that the word “normal” should not be used as “conforming to a standard” because who gets to decide what the standard is? Plus, one standard cannot apply across a diverse population in most cases. What most of us really mean when we say “normal”, however, is “typical.” And this is where the Theory of Relativity comes in. (I promised you rabbit holes!)
I am a big fan of Relativity. Special Theory, General Theory, I don’t care. Bring it on! While I cannot even begin to understand the math, I really like the basic tenet that everything we observe is dependent upon the observer. A good example is the Doppler effect. We all know what that is, even if we don’t know what it’s called. If you are standing near train tracks and a train is approaching blowing its whistle (probably to tell you to get further away from the tracks), you will first hear the whistle at a higher pitch. As the train approaches, the pitch gets a bit lower and as the train passes you and rides off into the distance, the pitch gets lower and lower as it fades away. However, if you happen to be riding on the train itself and hear the whistle blow, the pitch stays the same. The whistle is the same for both observers. The difference is the position of the observer. (It has to do with compression of sound waves, but that’s not important here.) What is “normal” or “typical”, then, really depends on the individual and their perspective. There is no absolute “normal”.
Besides being a science geek with clearly way too much time on my hands, I have learned to become comfortable with what is normal or typical for me. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things I’m trying to improve upon (*cough* control issues *cough*). It just means that I no longer feel the need to conform to a majority (or apparent majority) to which media and society encourage me to aspire. That has been amazingly freeing! Many times, particularly early in our relationship, Trish would look at me sideways and say, “You’re just not normal.” I would get this in response to things like rearranging the dishwasher after she loaded it or singing along to TV commercials, or when she’d read one of these essays. Now she pretty much keeps that comment to herself because 1) she has gotten used to my idiosyncrasies and sees these behaviors as “normal” and 2) she put a ring on it so she has no basis upon which to complain.
What has been more difficult (see: essay on Judgment) has been allowing other people to be their own typical selves. As long as someone isn’t hurting themselves or others, they shouldn’t have to think or act like me, no matter how much I like how I think and act. Just because it’s normal for me doesn’t mean it’s normal for someone else. And I can have a REALLY hard time with that!
So, yes, my agitation with the word “normal” is directed outward towards our increasingly uncivil society, but it starts with being directed inward toward myself. Dang it! That always happens! I always end up just looking in the mirror and needing to start there! Darn these essays. Feel free to do the same. Try to redefine “normal” away from “conforming to a standard” and toward “typical”. You do you. I’ll do me. And if we’re really lucky, we’ll all learn something from each other.