4 minute read
Normal: The Cage We Don’t See
“NORMAL”. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?
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The Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as ‘ordinary, usual; the same as would be as expected’. Google explains it is ‘conforming to a standard’. Dictionary.com describes it as the ‘natural’. However, to what extent can something truly be ‘natural’ if we have to conform to a standard, challenging the very idea of being born ‘normal’. The ‘Beauty Demand’ immediately highlights that normal is a ‘value judgement, not a descriptive term’, by professors Widdows and McHale and Drs. McCallum and Latham, and yet a US study carried about by Dr. Somolak in 2011 showed that 40-60% of elementary school girls (aged 6-12) were concerned about their weight or becoming too fat, emphasising the impact the term ‘normal’ has on society. Furthermore, out of 2,400 hospitalised patients for an eating disorder, 94% as a result had mood-disorders, most commonly depression because they felt that they weren’t ‘normal’. This is what the concept of ‘normal’ does to us. It shapes us into people that we don’t necessarily want to be, and it blinds us to the outside because it can’t be natural. Plan International Canada exhibits this ignorance through their campaign #DefyNormal, that ‘normal is turning a blind eye’. Nearly every two seconds a girl under the age of 18 is married. 263 million children and youth across the world are currently out of school. 15,000 children under the age of five die from preventable causes each day. 1.4 billion globally are still living in extreme poverty. To some, these statistics are horrifying, yet the fact that society often turns a blind eye to these issues cements their place as the unfortunate normality that millions of children face worldwide. I am not blaming these thoughts, I am not blaming those who feel like this because they have to deal with their own expectations - I am blaming ‘normal’. Who decided what my natural was? Who has the right to make me conform to their standard, to society’s
standard? And yet we still do, we still feel this unbelievably crushing pressure to fit in.
But the question is, how can we rebel against what we’re programmed to become?
Perhaps we should turn to Involution, rather than Revolution. Mateo Sol, the creator of the idea of Involution, suggests that the rebel isn’t the person who simply reacts but rather ‘understands the whole game of extremes and simply chooses to slip out of it’ – whereas revolution requires a crowd, rebellion only requires an individual, creating an empowering sense of self. To some extent, one could argue we are already rebelling against what is considered ‘normal’; role models such as Selena Gomez and Billie Elish epitomising self-acceptance, or rather rejection of the traditional projected expectation of female celebrities. However, this is where matters become complicated. Fans identify with Billie Eilish and Selena
Gomez because they appear normal, human, like our natural selves on a Friday evening, craving a cheeseburger (or two). And yet we still find it hard to accept that the models we see in magazines aren’t always that size, that there is no ‘normal’ weight or look, that there is no ‘normal’ ideal - because there is. Even in 2019, mental breakdowns are still viewed as a taboo topic, particularly when regarding men; according to the Mental Health Foundation, women were more likely to receive treatment for mental health issues, 15% compared to 9% in men, despite 75% of all suicides in the UK in 2015 being committed by men. While not obvious, it does force one to question whether this is due to the idea that it is not ‘normal’ for men to have breakdowns, or to discuss their feelings. Furthermore, there is this increasing pressure to be happy, that the standard is to be happy; arguably, this gives us too much control by implying we can regulate and direct our feelings more so than we can. Aristotle notes that, ‘People can have all the external goods and be utterly miserable when they have the wrong sort of character’, which emphasises this idea that pursuing this artificial goal of normal, ‘happiness’ is in fact detrimental to our sense of self.
YET WHAT IS THE ANSWER?
I don’t know. And perhaps that isn’t even really an answer but it is the truth and I believe to some extent that will lead to the solution. We need to acknowledge the truth even if we don’t believe it straight away. It is easy to tell someone to disregard what others think of you, to damn the term ‘normal’, but in practice it is so much harder to let go of something you subconsciously worship: How can you let go of something you forget you hold on to?
