An addendum to my lower entry.
I was pondering why exactly “normal” is considered the opposite of unique. From my words yesterday, it’s obvious that I don’t think normalcy at all a negative thing. Yet if you know me, you know I take pride in being unique.
I decided that people confuse normalcy with being average. It’s not a completely incorrect assumption; in many regards, what is average is what is normal, it’s what can and should be expected. A test score, income, life expectancy. In some ways, we’re forced into being average (which is when people are most prone to fight for identity). I’m a white middle-class male. Yet we wouldn’t say that’s normal, that’s just common. If we apply the same logic to other aspects of life, it becomes easy to see that correlation is not causation – being average doesn’t make you normal, they just happen to correlate with some matters.
My point is that it’s this distinction that allows one to be normal and yet outside the average, uncommon. Or, to modify the words of Mark Twain, “Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us would be average.” It’s a harsh reality that foolishness is the average for humanity, and I think we’d be hard pressed to find evidence otherwise.
That’s how I came to believe that the extraordinary are truly just normal.
I have high expectations for humanity, I guess.