Could normalcy just be a “feeling?”

What exactly is, normal?

adjective

1. 1.conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

Once upon a time, it was normal to think you can sale of the edge of the Earth. Infanticide was normal in the Sparta, because if an infants couldn’t survive in the wilderness they were “defective.” It was normal for females to begin birthing children at the start of menstruation. Slavery was normal. I am sure you too could come up with numerous things that were once, “normal.”

The deviation of anything that is common place could throw an individual completely off and make them feel out of whack. Normal is an illusion. It is subjective.

Who decides what is normal?

In this post modern world, normalcy is a rapid cycling fad and a parody of itself at best. We are living longer, having babies later while maintaining a six foot personal space perimeter in public and demanding to see people’s medical history before interacting with them. We are bombarded with of images by the millions, assaulting our senses on a daily basis, and the conditioned response to “want to be the things you see” has transcended from commercial advertisements to social media platforms with no reprieve. If it isn’t a billboard, it’s a jingle between music streams. If it isn’t a commercial on regular television it’s two 15 second car insurance commercials before viewing your how-to video. If it isn’t a pop up ad in the right column while reading your email, it’s a pop up ad in your social media feed. It’s everywhere praying on that need to feel “normal” – what ever that may be at any given time of the day.

Who is considered, normal?

I guess it depends on where you are and who you ask, right? Normal is an elusive theoretical personification of the zeitgeist of any given society. It can be aligned with morality or abstracted and convoluted. It is a gang mentality of sorts that is fueled by a feeling – an emotion… a yearning to “confirm” to feel safe and in sync. How can one truly ever sync in a rapid cycling fad? Once you get the hang of it, you find yourself back at square one. Normalcy is a dangling carrot before our eyes. Normalcy is a hamster wheel to “keep up with the Joneses or the Kardashians (if you will).”