A threat to normalcy
February 20th, 2008I was talking with a friend when this phrase came out, and I like it, I think it’s appropriate.
The people I relate to tend to be weird. The people I am related to tend to be weird. Probably the second statement creates the first, but the reality of it is that my friends are weird and in very different ways. When I look at the friends of mine who are considered by the society gauge of normalcy to be the "most normal", they are sometimes insulted by the claim and then they realize that I am one of their "more normal" friends and we all get a little freaked out.
But in the course of a conversation, it occurred to me that it’s not that my friends are weird or abnormal, but that many of them are a threat to what many perceive as normalcy. The women, for example, are not really stereotypical at all. Sure, we all have our one or two stereotypical things, but we have hobbies that are dominated by boys, we are strong-willed and independent, we don’t buy into the media-manipulated ideals of what women are supposed to be.
Men and women, we’re mostly outside of the mainstream. On the whole, my friends READ more than the average American, they tend to be cutting-edge about technologies, they tend to say what they think and not even realize that it’s an unpopular statement to make until much later.
We fill niche roles and tend to not affiliate. We are loyal to those we consider friends, but we don’t (generally) take shit from them because, really, what is a friend if they can’t tell you when you’re being a complete idiot? Rarely does anyone I consider a friend assume that their ideals (no matter how strong) are the only correct ones. I can’t think of a situation where a real friend of mine and I couldn’t continue our friendship because we didn’t see eye-to-eye on an issue. Most of my friends don’t have the same socio-political outlook as I have, but none of them belittle me (truly belittle, not counting teasing) for what *I* believe.
For all of this, my friends are "weird". (Okay, okay, for more than just what I wrote, but still…)
But when I look at my parents’ friends, all of whom are weird in their own ways, they embody a lot of those qualities, too. There’s no common thread among them on the surface, but underneath is this tolerance that is true tolerance and not just tolerance via liberal guilt. It’s almost a lack of judgment (although aren’t we all, as humans judgmental?), except that we DO judge those people, but we judge them for their actions and not their being, not what they show externally, not even what they believe, but the actions that we see from them.
These people tend to be hard to find, and when I do, I hold onto them tight. Once I love someone, I love them forever, even if we go our separate ways. But I never lose the things they give me, a new perspective, a different direction from which to come at a problem, a much-needed boost of ego or confidence, whatever it is.
Whatever it is, that common thread, that thing that makes us "weird", it is a threat to normalcy for many people. I think that, probably, the world would be a better place if we were judged on our actions instead of our exterior, if opinions were more commonly known to not be facts, if tolerance actually meant the word as defined instead of a lack of dissent. If this is the threat to normalcy, then I firmly believe that normal is overrated. I’m happy enough being weird.
Cheers to being weird! And dang girl you got me close to being all huggy and all the mushy stuff.
Big smiles from me.
Comment by Zanthera � February 20, 2008 @ 8:51 am
I am trying to decide if I’m a threat to normalcy.
I think I would like very much to be.
Comment by Miss Britt � February 20, 2008 @ 11:19 am
I think people, maybe not the world, but certainly people in general would be better off if they judged for themselves rather than accept the word of others.
I think a sense of self, an ability to act alone and think alone would make the world a better place. Because when you do those things, you usually are more likely to assume responsibility for yourself and your actions because you didn’t have anybody to be your yes-man. It’s all on you.
Too many people have a marked lack of awareness of self. Too many people depend on other people’s assessment of your ’self’ and lose sight of the blacker side of their character because people tell them they don’t have one.
And that’s where your real friends veer from normalcy. They are not so willing to allow you to act poorly without expressing themselves to you. They don’t have to pretend you’re just perfect the way you are because you don’t have to pretend you are perfect.
Does that make sense?
My closest friends couldn’t be more different from each other if I ordered them up that way. One of my friends is so different from me in word, thought and deed that many people have asked me outright how I can relate to her. I can’t answer that. I just do. We suit and really, in the end, why we suit some people and not others is truly a mystery.
Comment by Miss Ann Thrope � February 20, 2008 @ 14:03 pm
“I think a sense of self, an ability to act alone and think alone would make the world a better place. Because when you do those things, you usually are more likely to assume responsibility for yourself and your actions because you didn’t have anybody to be your yes-man. It’s all on you.”
And I’ve found that when you’re willing to assume responsibility for yourself and your actions, that people are more likely to act WITH you, or at least support you in your (right) actions. It’s on you and you take that responsibility, but at the same time, other people are more willing to take on some of that burden and/or credit. It’s not so much “following” someone else, as working along side them.
“They don’t have to pretend you’re just perfect the way you are because you don’t have to pretend you are perfect.”
It’s just an awareness that none of us ARE perfect, and a willingness to ask for help if it’s needed and to admit to a lack of knowledge or (in my case, anyway) a tendency toward idiocy from time to time.
But imperfections are inevitable. All we can do is to hope that we can find the people who pick up the positions where we maybe are lacking.
Comment by FyreGoddess � February 20, 2008 @ 14:19 pm