What is "Normal?"

     I think I finally figured out what 'normal' truly means. In terms of psychology, normal is defined thus: approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment. The definition of the word: normal, doesn't seem like that big of a deal until you really look at it. How has the word been applied in your experiences? It seems to me that 'normal' is used in two situations. In the first situation, the term is used as a means of identifying something in the negative; such as in, "that is not normal." The second way the word is used seems to be a means of stripping it of its identity to make it generic, "Your average, normal Joe Schmoe."

     This has lead people to define themselves as abnormal. Abnormal doesn't just mean not normal- it has deeper, more negative undertones. When you apply abnormality to a person, it in no cases makes that person feel good. It may make you feel defiant, but not good. Defiance comes from refusing to be placed in a negative category but that can be from fear of it being true just as much as from surety that it is not true. I have done this myself, taken these negative terms and using them to identify myself, seeing it as a scar of honor. "The world may hurt me, but I stand tall."

     Normal is not generic, and it does not mean average, either. If 'normal' meant average, then the word we use for average would probably be normal. All normal means is balanced, which again is not average. Even though an average is usually found on a balance when taking numbers of a whole group in consideration. In that context, middle C is average, being the general center of the octaves on a piano keyboard. Yet middle C is not generic and without identity; it is middle C, which is a particular tone that vibrates at 432 herz. *or 440 if you choose.

     Since this is a universe of vibration, let's stick with middle C for a minute. We will note that middle C is always middle C. It does not matter which notes are to either side, or even if the piano has strings at the moment. Middle C is always the auditory tone that vibrates at 432 hz. If you play every key on the keyboard, there would be a resounding cacophony of noise. Within that noise, completely still itself, will be the tone: middle C. We can also see that even though the string is in motion, back and forth, it moves across a central point. This is that particular strings average, or normal state at rest. We can see that middle C's normal is not even a sound at all, for it's normal state is stillness. If the string is being normal, it is still being a string but it is not a vibrating string producing sound.

     Thus we have two aspects of the normal state of a string. At rest is one normal, and during motion a string passes the state of normal twice during each oscillation. So when the string makes noise, it is only normal briefly but it keeps that reference point. When a violent force causes that string to vibrate, it makes noise only for as long as it takes to disperse the energy and return to its normal state.

Now, we can clearly see that normal for middle C is not the same as normal for F#. We can also see it resembles the normal for high C but is still unique within itself. Normal for one key is not normal for all keys. In fact, normal for one key is unique to that one key alone, and no other normal can have its unique qualities.

     It's the same way with people. Normal for me is not normal for you. Unless you are in motion or action, your normal is the state you always return to and begin from. When you are in motion, normal is the point of reference that keeps you from skipping too far out of balance.

Now, just for fun, let's imagine that musical instruments are living, thinking, communicating people. This way we can imagine there might be a piano psychologist. The piano psychologist looks at the keys and says, you guys are all different. You are not normal. The human psychologist looks at the human race and says, "you are not normal."

What's the difference? The psychologist is adding up all of the keys together and then evaluating them individually. In logic this is called a fallacy, or a false premise. To be plain, it is bad science. To show you how bad this kind of science is, lets move from the piano to something a little bigger. Like the solar system.

     Astropsychologists looks at the solar system as a whole, then looks at the earth and says, "you are not normal. If you were normal you would contain a lot more hydrogen, less oxygen, less heat, no life, and no atmosphere."

     Psychology takes the entire human race, or a segment of a population and averages its observations to create an imaginary "average person." It then tells anyone that does not exactly match this fictional average person and considers them abnormal. (that word again!)

     Now, if piano-psychologist wishes to complete his high-minded and altruistic "normalizing" of the piano keyboard, he can only do it one way. He has to add all of the keys together, and divide them again to get an average wavelength in hertz; he then has to get inside the piano and re-tune each key to that note. Astropsychologists likewise has to create an amalgam of every body in the solar system and then divide them to create an average, generic celestial body. When the piano is re-tuned, what was once the middle C key now plays a tone that is not quite a note at all, it is not middle C anymore, nor is it F# or G or any other note, yet now- every single key plays that note that is not a note. They are all the same. The reworked solar system is a bunch of floating globs of rock and gas, with no life, and no distinction from one body to another.

     What do you think the human psychologists are doing by trying to make you "normal?" Let me stop here and clearly state that they have confused the term "average" with the term "normal." What they want is no aberrations, no difference, no distinction between one person and another. You can't be too happy, too angry, too spiritual, too materialistic, too ugly, too pretty, too fat, too short, too broke, too rich, too dumb, or too smart.

     But guess what? You can't play music on an average piano, and you can't find a habitable world in an average solar system, and you will never have a full, good life by striving to be normal.

     You can be a normal person. You can consider yourself normal without some kind of psychological misdirection forcing you to apply negative words to yourself. Let's recap normal; it is: 1. Balanced. Just like a piano or a guitar string, an outside force may set you spinning but it can not take your center away. Just like you or I can weather the changing times and remain ourselves. 2. Unique. Normal does NOT mean just like everyone else. A normal middle C is still not an F#, no matter how many papers piano-psychologist publishes in peer reviewed trade journals.

     You are normal, unless your trying to be average. I don't think you want to be average, and I hope I've freed you of a negative definition applied to yourself from an outside force. Take it from a guy who's spent all his life being called weird, strange, crazy, a trip, different, or abnormal. All those words come from people who don't want to play the note to which they are tuned.

     I guess some people just hate music, and some people just hate the idea of being normal. Probably because nobody can get money out of you if you don't actually have a problem. Never let some dipshit try to twist you into a toneless, formless template of what a human being would be like completely stripped of personality, emotion, intelligence, or any other trait.

That would be completely abnormal.