Life in Our Times: "Normal" Seems to be Becoming Smaller and Smaller

We had friends visiting from out-of-state, yesterday.

Among the many interesting discussions we had throughout the evening, one of the most poignant concerned the whole notion of what constitutes "normal," anymore.

Somehow, it grew out of the greater question "How, if at all, do you think Covid affected the spirit of society?"

These are friends with whom we don't spend much time talking about things like football scores and the weather!

But what about this "normal" thing?

I find myself returning to something I read recently, in which a political commentator was reflecting on the "climate" in the USA, and she pointed out that it almost feels like an act of bravery to moderate or middle of the road, in this day and age.

You have to be extremist, or you will not be heard, and people won't have any interest in you.

Somehow, that seems to stand in stark opposition to the idea that "normalcy" is becomming this narrower and narrower concept, with more and more falling outside the norm.

Or does it?

It feels like a multi-faceted concept, to me.

The "medical marketers" definitely do want normal to be smaller and smaller, because they more people fall outside the normal range, the more people can be "medicalized," and consequently sold the "cure" for their lack of normalcy.

But who actually wants to be normal, if what it takes to "become anything" requires the extreme?

Seems a bit paradoxical... society wants you to be both normal and not-normal, at the same time. Small wonder people are so messed up!

Maybe the extremism walks hand in hand with Covid to the degree that more and more people were forced to be at home and communicate online, and people are notoriously outspoken when they're behind a keyboard and screen as opposed to face to face with people. Then, when the restrictions somewhat ended, they brought that outspoken tendency forth into the real world.

Whether it actually had anything to do with the spirit of society, I do know that one outcome of so many people being forced to be at home resulted in a great number having to be "alone with their thoughts" for potentially the first time in their life.

That is not an easy thing to face, if you're someone who uses external diversions extensively to cover over the fact that you have uncomfortable wounds and feelings inside; trauma that you have avoided dealing with.

I have heard it said that anger is just something you cover over a deeper sense of grief with. People don't want to feel and express their grief, and bottling it up makes them angry and so the grief expresses as rage.

But I am probably viewing the situation through my own lens of perception. I look at the world and have been doing so since I was a kid, and one of the fundamental questions I have always asked myself (and people around me) is "why is everybody so angry?"

But anger aside, and spiritual changes aside, I think one of the things that covid did to society was more and more people learned how to cook! After all, you couldn't go out to eat anymore, and what else was there to do but to learn to cook?

And that is probably a good thing!

Meanwhile, I have little doubt that "normal" is becoming a smaller and smaller target. Whether that's a good or a bad thing I don't know. I think normal should just be abolished as a concept altogether!

Well, I'd better get this posted. We have another set of guests coming for dinner tomorrow (Saturday) and we still have miles and miles to go to clean the house and get ready. As we like to say around here: "it's a good thing we have guests come from time to time because otherwise the house would never get cleaned!"

Thanks for stopping by, and have a fantastic weekend!

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Created at 2024-02-24 00:55 PST
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