The Trouble with Normal

What is Normal?

“The Trouble with Normal is it Always gets Worse.” (Bruce Cockburn lyrics)

First I must remember that normal is nothing more than merely a  story in my head. It is not real. It is another fiction that we choose to believe in or value or not. I can’t put it in my pocket and take it home or study it or eat it. It exists only in my head as a concept or a story or an illusion... a fiction.

The thing that we have to watch out for is how our own thinking constructs and reconstructs the story of normal in our heads. Part of this story often is “the grass is greener on the other side.” 

If only...

If only we could get back to normal.

I’m so tired of social distancing.

I don’t like self isolation.

Entertain me!

I’m lonely!

I’m bored!
If only...

These are all stories we tell ourselves. And none of them have any basis in reality. They are our own pet fictions, a micro-narrative that we have chosen to live by.

Here's a couple of conversations I had today as I was responding to the 100+ happy birthdays from around the world from the past couple of days and to our present global pandemic.

Happy birthday, Ron. I appreciate your social media conversations and thought-starters. Especially in this difficult time craving non-business-related engagement. I often find your advice and insights useful. How will you celebrate given the current restrictions? (Thanks Bruce)

My response: I've often said that sickness is the western man's meditation while sick in a hospital bed or at home. It stops us dead in our tracks so that we can think and observe and reflect and choose what life will be. How will I define my life going forward. I guess this pandemic isn't much different for me than being sick except I can feel good and take walks, as long as I follow the rules so I don’t get sick. I've come to really enjoy alone, agenda-free time. I haven't been bored or lonely for years, so why start now??? 

My birthday was great. My daughter Myka walked over and we had a long lunch together. My son Evan called from Japan where he is teaching English and we talked for an hour. My oldest son Joel also wished me a happy birthday from California. I live in a house with 5 housemates. 3 of them were home yesterday so we just hung out in the dining room, talking, joking, and having pizza, cup cakes, and ice cream. Being the introvert that I am, I was totally exhausted in a good way by the end of the day. And I sure did sleep good! Great question and encouraging words, Bruce.

In response to another happy birthday post that included a hope for things to get back to normal, this occurred to me. Not that I don't want this pandemic to pass mind you.

I figure normal is overrated anyway. My theory is that normal often breeds familiarity and that is tricky because familiarity can go two ways: being comfortable (a double edged sword) or taking things for granted. So I wonder if discomfort is really a better friend. I think the key is perception and intention; how we see and how we respond, which are the only two things we have any control over.

If we are not intentional and mindful then

Normal leads to familiarity.

Familiarity then leads to comfortableness, which leads to complacency and myopia.

Or Familiarity often leads to “taking people and things for granted” which carries with it that we forget the true value of a person or thing, that is, the loss appreciation.

For me, when things are normal or comfortable, I am often lulled into the belief that there is nothing that I need to learn here and now. Abnormalcy or discomfort tends to keep me just enough off balance that I stay alert, aware, knowing that there is a lesson to be learned here and now, in each place and in each moment.

Far too often, I find myself in an uncomfortable or difficult situation with the sense that I've been in a very similar situation before. So…

I'm learning to ask, what is it that I'm supposed to learn? Because I know that if I don't learn it this time around, it'll keep on coming around until I "get it" often proving how hard headed I am.

It's uncanny. I mean you think you've learned your lesson, you think you're doing things differently now but ..

Then you realize you only learned part of it, often because you didn't have the capacity or understanding to learn it all at once. 

Each experience expands us, 

opening our minds and hearts 

to take in more and more of life.

Each experience is meant to 

expand and deepen our understanding 

of self, others, and life.

Therefore we are 

exactly where we are meant to be, 

in time and space; 

right now, right here.

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love." (Thomas Merton 1915-1968)

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember  the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing:

the last of the human freedoms

—to choose one’s attitude 

in any given set of circumstances…”

(Victor Frankl, Auschwitz survivor)

“The lust for comfort 

murders the passion of the soul, 

and then walks grinning in the funeral.” 

(Kahlil Gibran)

“People wish to be settled.

Only as far as they are unsettled

is there any hope for them.”

(Emerson)

“We find comfort among those who agree with us… 

growth among those who don’t.” 

(Frank Clark)

It is very human to get so immersed in "normal" that we can't see it, sort of like a fish in the water. If we can't learn to step back and look at life from a fresh perspective (for example, see Through Alien Eyes), then sometimes we end up in a very non-normal situation. See this link for a touching story about a man that was forced into a different way of seeing and living life due to sickness.
Letting Go of Nonessentials

See also,

Comfort, Security, Certainty 
Grounded in Groundlessness.
We're Never Getting Back to Normal, America
Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting

The Trouble with Normal is it Always Gets Worse!

Lyrics

Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When the ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and the landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Bruce Cockburn

The Trouble With Normal lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Carlin America Inc