We all tend to be reassured when thought of as normal.
Should we be?
The “norm” is where mental health professionals intend us to be when we undertake to submit to therapy of any kind. If we are not happy, contented and free from neurosis then we are considered as not normal and treated so we can become normal once more with minimal delay. A happy, healthy, normal member of society is the desired label for finding comfort and peace of mind. If we are restless and threatened in this normal world, then there must be something wrong with us. Society’s normal behaviour is considered sane and behaving otherwise is less than sane and maybe even insane.
There are considered normal behaviours in every conceivable area of our lives put there by our ruling classes for profit and control and many other less than sane motives have been suggested. imprinted in our minds at every turn through the media and conditioning framework that works on us throughout our lives. Even upheld by others of our kind through the public opinion that is anything but public and also controlled by the aforementioned conditioning machinery that controls our minds and does our thinking for us. That ends when we finally wake up to the game being played with our minds behind our backs. The norms are a big part of how we are controlled and control each other. A very subtle but extremely effective control mechanism.
We believe, having been convinced that we live in a normal society and therefore a sane society. If we feel displaced, then we must not be sane and therefore we are crazy. Erich Fromm in his book Sane Society stated a very strong case for neurotic and sensitive types in our society being uncomfortable in a society that is anything but sane when looked at with an open mind. And that the types affected by life on this planet are exhibiting a much saner reaction to the reality of life on earth. A genuine use for the phrase “it’s not me it’s all the others”.
No sane person could be comfortable with what goes on within our societies on this planet. When we are feeling as if we are alone in feeling bad about life and that we must be crazy we would do well to consider my next points and then investigate more what might be occurring behind our backs by reading more widely. Make up your own mind.
Sane human beings have slaughtered 100,000,000 of our own species in the last century and I have seen that figure as much as doubled. Whatever the figure there is not a sane explanation for any of this let alone the lies that our governments are expecting us to believe. This slaughter continues somewhere in the world on a daily basis. Often by countries that purport to be good and often for owning arms that these countries themselves supplied to the “evil” ones. The problems are created by our governments and then the solution is also provided and they are always on the side of good and the others are evil. Bullshit! This slaughter is deliberately orchestrated by governments that are never honest about why it is happening. Something smells across our beautiful planet.
At least half of the world’s population is starving to death or living in poverty. The other half are greedy to the extreme and spend billions on our greedy needs and then billions more on curing the resulting damage that the greed has caused. We are virtually incapable of a loving relationship for life and it is always the fault of others. Our spiritual values contradict our practical everyday values perfectly we live the opposite life to the one we preach about. We worship false idols. Phones, food, television, computer games, the internet, cars and too many others to mention here. We think more of our stuff, our addictions, our attachments and our wanting more than we do of others and of Gaia (the earth as a living organism).
We live in fear of what others think, isolation, dogs, not being good enough and whatever else our oppressors can paint as worthy of fear in the media. We are held in fear at every turn. Every moment in the media I see it as an April fool’s joke that we all keep falling for endlessly. The news is an endless lying fairy tale designed to control our every thought and action. We naively think that we have a say in how we are governed through our vote. Do you really think that the people have any say in anything in this world that matters? It is all just to keep us distracted and away from asking any real questions or from spending our time better employed at improving ourselves. They want us to think we matter to them. We don’t.
We have multiple personas to fit every situation or we are thought of as weird and we think we are being true to ourselves. We are not even sure who we are.
We are influenced by an optimum mode of being as demonstrated by figures such as Christ, Buddha, Mohammed and more but we are more interested in our religion being literal and historical or being better than others than in any true message from the teachings. In reality, we live in the opposite world of having and this is considered normal. It makes me laugh to see religious shows by people that are living the opposite life and that they think they are resetting the balance. The contrast in society is stark and so obvious but there are none so blind that will not see. The extremes and narrow-minded values of both worlds (practical and religious) seem to be equally destructive. We seem incapable of accepting and balancing opposites. We go from one to the other or remain in one world! But never consider there may be a way to reconcile a middle way or even better to remain flexible and intuitively find the sweet spots for a good life – The Flexarian Attitude.
We may be some distance from much I have mentioned in the world but we are responsible for the change in our world. Change has to begin with each of us in our hearts and minds and it may entail going against the “norms”. In fact, it almost certainly will as many of our normal practices are killing this planet and harming others just like ourselves. And harming each and every one of us. It is a difficult situation and we will never get it right all of the time but we can get better. We just have to make lifestyle choices that will better suit our souls and Gaia. These can be small, to begin with, and expand as we expand. A good example creates a ripple effect that becomes our legacy well into the future. However long that future may be. We may even be able to change the norms over time to ones that better suit both human beings and the planet.
Do we really value being normal more than being authentic? This may be the first choice. Remembering that just because the majority behave in a certain way does not make it right, just comfortable conformism.
I don’t want to appear to think that all normal people are psychopathic either. There are many normal behaviours that are life-enhancing and certainly the opposite exists to all of the negative I have mentioned. I am just trying to make the point that the normal- not normal border is not at all clear cut and that there is much honour in breaking away from the norms if they are not serving us well without all the endless self – recrimination and self-doubt that being outside of the norm can produce. Feeling guilty for being different is just not an option. And in fact, I want to suggest that we should feel proud any time we take a stance away from the norms that enhances who we are as authentic and unique human beings. We should be so unique that it becomes very difficult to stick any labels on us or all labels fit but not very well. We have become beyond labelling and as such we are then labelled strange, weird, crazy or quirky and can never be pinned down. The problem is that the behaviours that are mainstream and publicised as if we are proud of them do not enhance humanity. Rarely is our day full of life-enhancing messages rather than messages encouraging greed, hostility and conflict. We are being taught to accept it all as normal. Brainwashed into becoming a part of something that we feel neither comfortable with nor part of. And taught to blame others that are in exactly the same situation as us for being lied to and convinced that they are on the side of God and right. Are we really that naïve after all of these years of being conned? It would seem that we are but there are signs of change and a growing number of people that know that by changing their lives and thoughts they can change the world. And that the world’s media is the first of their problems and it needs to be shut out in order to not be victim to the continuing onslaught of negative programming bombarding us by way of our “must-have” technology. The exact technology that has our rulers knowing everything about us and we actually pay them for the privilege of being spied on constantly. And we queue up for the next and latest version of their spy-tech. Proud to be seen with these devices in our grasp, we are assisting in our own slavery.
Okay! I think it is fair to say I have said enough about being normal for now. It is a state that we are conditioned to adopt. We are imprisoned by our norms. I will end this section with a short anecdote that depicts how this can work in the real world. It happened quite recently at my house. It may highlight the size of the task ahead by seeing that it is prevalent in society in the most intimate places in our lives. This particular incident stars my Mother and the delivery lady and concerns my life-space (home) which I never thought would produce such worrying comments. I discuss our life-spaces in depth in my books. I stood chatting to a lady that delivers parcels to my house occasionally. The chat landed on the topic of house plants and I put forward my thoughts on plants life which I have touched on in my other books. In summary – my thought is that our energy in our homes combined with our good intentions to the plants contributes to the plant’s health and that I use my plant’s health to gauge how inflow and at the moment we are at any given time. There is research by a gentleman called Backster backing this up and should be read as it is amazing. My experience has backed up this theory and I have plants that outgrow my living conditions regularly. If the plants in our house are struggling in the first place Julie (wife) and I look is to our peace of mind and general feelings of well-being and being present in the now moment. With this said, I invited the lady into my home to see the plants that were the cause of my last house move with their abundant growth.
As we toured my home the lady suddenly exclaimed “Oh! You are one of them, aren’t you?” I had no clue what she was talking about as people’s relationship with plants has long been a common theme in society. Prince Charles was commonly known to talk to his plants. However, something she had seen had caused her to instantly place me in one of the neat categories she had for storing information in her mind or more commonly to pigeonhole me. Noticing her obvious struggle to put into words what “one of them” actually was I tactfully shifted the chat and carried on regardless. I knew that if I probed for what she meant I would not be very polite and I had after all invited her into my home. I smiled to myself after she had left, shocked that a friendly and hospitable gesture could backfire so easily and not all others are as tactful as I am. My Mother beats this as she came to my home for a rare visit for the first time in ages she exclaimed before even making it to the toilet. “Adam! There is a lot of evil in here.” I do have some interesting ornaments which I chat about in my books but I hardly feel the Spanish inquisition reaction was appropriate. Superstitions can be remarkably ingrained in people and my Mother is such a person. I totally ignored her as anyone trying to be calmer knows our own nearest and dearest are our biggest challenge.
From this, we can see that the tendency to label is rife in society and others think it is all right to just open their mouths and let the words fall out. One of the biggest challenges in going against the norms is how to deal with these normal people that surround and judge you at every turn. I just shrug and if I do get the chance I deal with their point in my own time in my own way, that is often enough for them to understand that there are other ways life can be lived and their way is not the only and right way. I used to react with annoyance but I have learned that just plays into their hands and their judgement in their eyes has been accurate and they are of course right about everything because they can easily obtain reinforcement from other normal people. The rule here is to be calm and shrug lovingly. Letting it go as trivial everydayness and unimportant. An attitude that our society could well benefit from adopting. I guess my mother and my delivery friend consider their homes to be normal and mine to be abnormal or deviant. I have messages and teachings throughout my home for myself and for the world as I like to live in it.
Still on the subject of judging and labelling. I have endlessly witnessed people that consider themselves normal uttering the phrase “Live and let live! That is my motto” and with the next breath prove that is not their motto at all. The motto is considered normal but sadly it is also normal not to live up to one’s life mottos. It does not take a brain surgeon to witness that in our world there is very little “live and let live” going on.
HUMAN EXPERIENCE 
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