How to be Normal
By: Gioacchino Difazio
Tags: Normal, Personal Development, Life Lessons, Personal Story, Normality

How to be Normal

Considerations about the quest of a normal life

I once knew a woman whose highest aspiration was to be a normal person — At least, so she claimed.

Whenever someone uses the word “normal” in a conversation, I wonder what exactly they are trying to say. For a long time, I believed that others had a life manual that, for some reason, had not been delivered to me. One of the more substantial chapters of this manual should cover what is normal and what’s not.

— It means to be like everyone else. She said.

Here’s another generic concept: everyone else. It includes the Pope, the pusher in the neighborhood park, the victims of violence, the murderers, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kim Jong-un, Bill Gates, Gioacchino Difazio, the children forced to work, the stranger whose gaze we met in the subway, the beggar on the street corner, the astronaut in the space station, to list a few.

If being normal means having something in common with everyone else, it simply means belonging to the humankind.

The aspiring “normal person” I am talking about was a colleague of mine, until a few years ago. She did not make an in-depth analysis of her thinking on this theme. Her idea of normality consisted — as far as I knew — in being a passionate spectator of X-Factor, in buying clothing and accessories online with a reasonable frequency, in sharing the lunch break always with the same people, and in some trips to the toilets.

All in all, hers might seem a naive and harmless ambition…

Up close, nobody is normal

Franco Basaglia was a famous Italian psychiatrist who revolutionized the approach of psychiatric care.

One sentence sums up his thought: seen up close, nobody is normal.

No one can claim to have perfect mental health. Therefore, it made no sense to intern the mentally ill in asylums. Instead, it’s necessary to reintegrate them into society through a path that puts the person’s dignity first. Thanks to him, asylums in Italy were closed, and the mentally ill were no longer considered dangerous and irrecoverable beings to be imprisoned and punished.

Seen up close, nobody is normal. This was also true of my dear colleague, who, observed a little more closely, showed aspects that appeared not at all normal or innocuous.

She demonstrated an exceptional ability to gaslight people who had the misfortune of being between her and her goals. Is this normal behavior? Perhaps, for an a-hole.

Many people lost their jobs because of her.

Was she aware of it? Of course, she was, but that was normal for her. There was this work to be done, and she was the one who had to do it. So she was ordered. Otherwise, she would have been the one to lose her job.

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Normality can be dangerous

Attempting an accurate definition of normality would take me far beyond the scope of this article. By common sense, with a little help from statistics, we can consider a normal behavior one that is carried out by the majority of people in a society. This is also known as “conformism.”

Conformism is extremely helpful to certain categories of people:

Advertisers design their campaigns based on common beliefs and behaviors, thus being sure to hit the greatest possible number of people belonging to their target. Often advertisers contribute to broadening the concept of normality, to increase the chances of selling a product. Politicians (ok, some politicians) build their consensus on the concept of normality. Some politicians (the worst) point the finger at those they consider “different” to strengthen their voters' sense of belonging to a community. Dictators and tyrants: They decide what is normal and what is not. From Hitler down, unfortunately, there is no lack of examples. Big Pharma: some diseases are more “normal” than others. Knowing that a condition is widespread makes it very convenient to produce (and sell) a cure. Conversely, rare diseases are those that generally have fewer dedicated drugs. TV show producers need the largest possible audience to sell advertising, product placements, and sponsorships at a high price. Which audience is larger than the ocean of ordinary people? Employers: being normal is expensive. Normal people need a job to lead a normal life, paying a normal mortgage for a normal house, getting into debt for a normal car, and creating a normal future for their children. And in the meantime, maybe, help the employer get rid of unwanted (abnormal, for any reason) employees.

You can complete this list.

As you can see, there are many vultures up there in the sky circling the heads of the so-called normal people.

Without normal people, these creatures would die of starvation.

The point is: uncritically following what is considered normal put yourself in a weak position.

Wanting a normal life means accepting a definition of normality imposed from the outside. You don’t control it, you adhere. Everybody does it, so I do it too.

You delegate your thought to an abstract entity, which does not exist: everybody.

Unfortunately, in doing so, you give up a part of yourself. A significant part. Perhaps the most important. Perhaps so important that we could say: you give up on yourself.

Giving up on yourself, what happiness do you think you can aspire to? Perhaps the same kind of happiness that can be found in drugs or alcohol. But in this case, no one will try to save you, because you are sinking into normal happiness.

Perhaps it’s now clearer (even to myself) why I’m terrified by people who call themselves “normal.”

Being normal is dangerous.

Normality and awareness

Yet a part of me believes that there is nothing wrong with living according to beliefs and behaviors shared by others.

Being part of a group makes us feel at home and gives us the necessary serenity to progress in other fields, such as art or music, or raise a family.

There is nothing wrong. Provided, however, that the choice is made with awareness.

Here, this is the magic word: awareness.

One of the most precious gifts I have had from life was precisely this: the realization (at some point ) that most people who believe they are normal don’t really know what they are talking about.

And this is also true for my monstrously normal colleague. Whom I don't hate. Indeed I have to thank her: the clash with its normality allowed me to embark on a new path, much richer in humanity and gratifications.

I know I’m not saying anything new or particularly original. But I feel that if I hadn’t written these words, just today, I would have slipped into a dangerous apathy, which is the cradle of the worst normality.

I suspect I’m not the only one hoping to find a life-time user manual ready to use, but I thank the god of mail carriers for never having received it, as that forced me to write my own.

Write the manual

Every day I write a page of the user manual of my life. Sometimes I have to rewrite it the next day. Other times it works flawlessly for a long time.

I don’t know if it will be useful to anyone besides me. Maybe it could be an inspiration, as other people’s ideas are to me.

Discovering that the manual does not exist can be scary. This is why some take refuge in the hazy concept of normality that I have written about so far.

But if you start writing your manual with an act of true courage, I assure you that you will discover wonderful things about yourself and the world.

I hope you start this journey soon.