Anguishes of Individuality

“Normal doesn’t exist.”

I glanced at my girlfriend, who was staring defiantly at me, as if aware that she had just shattered my fondest illusion. 

We were sitting in plastic chairs at a utilitarian table in a Barnes & Nobles bookshop cafe in our local community shopping center with a grand view of the mall parking lot — all pretty normal. On my annual trip home to visit my ancient father, I take the opportunity to sweep all my acquaintances into my seven-day social calendar: Suzan. Besides relatives, she was the only acquaintance I had left in my hometown. At my call, she suggested we meet over coffee at Barnes & Nobles, and here we were. 

“There is no such thing as normal,” she hammered away with her wisdom, for my own good, of course. “No one’s normal.”

I pondered her statement, disturbed that she seemed to think she had just told me something neither I nor the wider world knew, something kept under wraps all this time to encumber, fool, manipulate us. Even more curious, it had apparently been news to her or she wouldn’t be taking the trouble to shock me awake — however unpleasant it might be — to the truth now. She was well into her sixties, as was I, and a professional. I assumed she would have learned about “normal” earlier in life.

To reject the concept of “normal” is normal.

As tactfully as I could, I explained that, of course, none of us was “normal.” That, however, did not mean “normal” was not a real thing. It was an abstract concept, I ventured foolishly, that could be very useful for statistics, urban planning, demographic analysis. None of those concepts was a real thing to her, either, apparently. My words didn’t register. She wandered off to memories of girlhood visits to her grandparents in upstate New York, and I contentedly drifted along with her, all thoughts of the actuality of “normal” abandoned. I was left to wonder, though, where she had heard such revolutionary news about “normal,” and why she had embraced it as such.

To reject the concept of “normal” is normal. Few of us can abide the thought of being unexceptional, which we equate with the notion. It strips us of personality, and that threatens our self-esteem. But there is no need for despair if we harken to my wise friend’s comforting news: none of us can possibly be normal. To verify, ask those who desperately try to blend into the background noise in a surveillance state. 

So what’s the problem with being normal anyway? I will tell you. It’s that we are all nearly normal. Few of us would stand out in a crowd. Most of us cannot scale octaves or Half Dome, prove theorems or even understand them. To my mind, however, therein lies our source of comfort.

Being nearly normal makes us suitable companions for our fellow travelers as we tread our brief paths through this civilization together. Our happiest encounters are those we can walk away from knowing we did nothing wrong, that our behavior — while enriching to ourselves — was unobjectionable to our interlocutors, our remarks pertinent, our responses cogent, our gestures acceptable. That is satisfying. 

We are as nearly normal outside the mold as we are in it.

Problems arise because, while nearly normal, we are also inescapably individual. That’s the source of the anguish. It’s when individuality suppurates, when we make detours that go way off the charts, that embarrassments occur, which can smart for some time afterwards. But rather than be reasonable, we strive to be exceptional. We want to make that grand entrance, do things “my way,” cliff-hang to get that memorable selfie, and it better be good because it may be our last. 

Unfortunately, we are as nearly normal outside the mold as we are in it. Our gestures of creativity are rich in irony because of the heavy stamp of conformity they bear. Our attempts to burst that mold are very normal indeed: breaking rules, underperforming norms, defying commonsense. The variety in our actions is determined by the convention itself: which one we are flouting. Our mark of individuality hews precisely to what society has forbidden us to do: breach fences, wear paths through fenced-off gardens, perch empty liquor bottles on windowsills, carve initials into trees, scrawl graffiti on freshly painted walls. The aftereffects of these rogue sprints are meant to tell the world that our adamant nonconformists are dedicated to blazing their own path wherever it may lead. They will cut right through sheltered park areas if their unerring visions tells them to — no detours for them! If their unfettered spirit inspires them to leave their empty pizza box pitched on top of a mailbox, that’s what they will do. Freedom, creativity, self-determination, however, are nowhere in sight. It’s a rebellion every two-year-old goes through. There’s nothing to bemoan or do about it, though. It’s normal, or nearly normal. 

Still, I wonder why my friend imparted to me the truth about the nonexistence of “normal” that morning as if worth its weight in gold. I suspect someone keen on getting her to accept something ridiculous she “normally” would have rejected because it was, in fact, idiotic had chided her for clinging to the milk-toast haven of “normal” and she let herself be coaxed away. Who could that influencer have been? How did they get to her? Because they certainly had. I wonder, too, if she adopts as wholeheartedly all ideas on offer as she did the nonexistence of normal. And I wonder, too, if all that is simply nearly normal.