Widening of perspective beyond just mine as an adult brought with it an understanding that ideas of normal and norms are entirely individualistic. They are affected by our families, culture and society but what is normal in almost everything to each of us is unique. A fascinating idea that has captivated me in recent days.
As children we tend to believe that the way our surroundings run is the normal functioning of the whole world. Some people never unlearn this but I do believe we all get ample evidence around to disprove that as we grow. I am here not talking of the crucial bigger socio economic political aspects of life. That being said, as a friend points out, Everything is political. Whatever I see as not so just highlights my privilege in so much that the political nature of that issue is not oppressive to or against me. It is undeniable that the reason I have only recently come to grasp the idea is because of my current space of privilege.
The more mundane and smaller aspects this idea of the normal is based in, the more nefarious it is. Food, language, dressing being the more obvious examples of this. We don’t even bat an eyelid before labelling our choices and conditioning as normal. “Normal kapde hi pehno there is no event aaj (Dress normally there is no event today)”, “They don’t seem to like to eat normal meals but want different items”, “This isn’t how normal people react”. Is the word starting to grate on your nerves too yet? There is no aspect of our lives where this doesn’t crop up, i.e: how we define success, romance, comfort, relief et al. For something that is actually so deeply individualistic in its kinks and nooks we seem to have generalised it so strongly in our minds.
So why has my (not so) idle mind decided to ramble on norms and normal today? I recently came to a few conclusions and would like to share them here. These are in no way ideas that formed in watershed moments but rather ideas that have built and taken root over months.
Biological (Parents, siblings, relatives) or normatively created (spouse, in laws etc) family is the only thing standing between us and being alone is a normal idea many of us learn to believe growing up. Experience teaches most of us sooner or later that this may not be true or at least is only the partial truth
It took me finding the right people as friends in my adulthood to understand this. Recently, the concept has finally settled that family apart, l am not alone. That unless something drastically goes wrong, two or three of these people may just stick around. It is a heartwarming feeling to have!
The other idea I’m mentioning today needed me to unlearn many more layers than the first one. I spent a long time believing that all mentally healthy persons were similar in some core ways. Mental health was earmarked, in my understanding, by an obvious absense of some of the visible and maybe invisible signs of not being mentally healthy. Those who come from a healed space or from a place of lack of trauma are not all people who fit into analogous moulds of who they are. In retrospect I see how that could never be the case.
We are all distinct amalgamations of experiences, good and bad, and none of our healthy selves will look even similar to one another. There is no normal to be reached here or aimed for.
Going forward I am going to try and be conscious and conscientious of tagging and labelling anything as normal compared to anything else, would you like to do the same?
Ramblings of an idle mind 