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Nobody realizes that some people expend a tremendous amount of energy merely to be normal. – Albert Camus

This month I’m working with a team in St. Louis, helping them design several presentations.

Today, one of my work compatriots wore the shirt you see in the photo above. If you can’t see the photo, it says, “Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting.”

It’s true. I believe a majority of people in the world choose to masquerade themselves as “normal” most days, myself included (I’m not judging it as wrong, it’s merely an observation).

The big question in playing the masquerade game is, how do you decide what’s normal?

Before you can put on a Normal costume, you have to decide what’s abnormal so you can play the game. Most of us do that not by using our own internal gauge of normal, instead we tap into a shared societal measuring system. It’s easier.

We didn’t always do that.

Shortly after we’re born, we begin creating our own definition of what’s normal by comparing how we feel from one second to another. We develop a sense for what’s normal by gauging what changes and what stays constant. Right out of the womb, there’s so much that’s abnormal. There’s intense light, louder sounds than the dull murmurs we’re used to, and there’s that whole breathing air issue, which is stranger than anything ever.

This is fantastic for two reasons:

1. We’re using our own internal gauge to decide what’s normal and abnormal.

2. We don’t care what other people think is normal.

Here’s where I get all Peter Pan on you. When we grow up, we lose that innocence. We slowly change how we decide what’s normal by listening to and observing other people, instead of using our own internal gauge. We become indoctrinated into the same version of normal adopted by those we interact with every day. Much of it is based on fear of belonging (yes, we all experience that). Even many of those who purposefully try to appear as abnormal as possible to one part of society still end up falling into the trap of belonging, appearing “normal” to a different part.

Think about that. For every abnormal person you encounter, there’s a group somewhere they fit into and appear normal. To that group, you appear abnormal.

This is not the same value as you and I merely identifying differences between each other. Of course we are all different. Hopefully we are all different. The diversity and individuality among us is the whole damn point. We should be able to see each other and identify our differences without making judgments about them.

The excellent and inspiring news is that we can get that innocence back. It may be easy for you to reboot your internal gauge, or it may take some work. If you try, I promise you’ll at least have a more interesting life.

“Can’t we like each other for being ourselves in all of our diversity?” – Kristin Beck

Who was the first person to walk? That had to be weird, right? Think about it. Everyone is born laying down. And when we’re born, we don’t even know what those things growing out of our hips are for. They sort of move around, sometimes even on purpose. Every now and then strange liquids, gases and solid things squirt out from between them.

So in the early days, before anyone was around to tell the freshly born that those things are for standing and moving around on, what was that like?

“Guys! Check this out! I’m so tall, I’m standing on my squirt-betweens!”

“Oh my God. It’s Carl again.”

“What’s he doing?”

“I have no idea. He’s like, tall. Sort of. And moving.”

“Moving? You mean he’s crawling, right?”

“No, he’s… sort of… I… just don’t know. Oh, jeez. You gotta come see this.”

So Carl was weird. Now we know that he was on to something, but to Early Man he was certifiably insane.

Squashing our innate and individual weirdness is like denying that our legs are for walking. Somebody has to be first at everything.

Maybe it’s time to try out your squirt-betweens.

The laundry room caught on fire (again) today. The smoke billowed up through the building and into our apartment, so I’m out on the balcony listening to the construction and the jackhammers. They’ve told us not to leave, but the firemen left, so I’m thinking of leaving as well. The last time this happened was October 1, 2008. I blogged about it then and that post could have been written today:

Post from October 1, 2008 on the old sruble blog

How’s life at the Inferno Apartment Complex on Incendiary Lane? Glad you asked. Earlier today, I smelled smoke. I tried to find the cause of said smoke, but couldn’t. A few minutes later, a thick heavy smoke smell filled the room (and I couldn’t breathe, which was very disconcerting). It also seemed a little hazy. I did the smoke check again and discovered that there was smoke wafting in from the hallway (I did NOT open the door, as I am not addle-brained).

While throwing on jeans (no need to go outside in my Halloween themed PJ pants I wear sometimes while being creative), I made a mental list of things I needed to do if there was a fire: encourage LeFurrball to get into his carrier without too much of a fight (ha ha), put on shoes, grab the Remus kitty, car keys, laptop, ID, money … FLEE! (Note: If there were flames or more smoke, I would have grabbed the cat and bolted.)

Before enacting my fire-fleeing list, I called down to the concierges to see if they could elaborate on the disaster that was surely happening, or not. He said that someone’s clothes caught on fire in the dryer!

Our apartment is nowhere near the first floor, where the laundry room is; the smoke came up through the elevator shafts and the vents in our apartment. Our apartment is not smoky anymore because the windows are open and the vents and bottom of the door are blocked off, but the hallways, elevators, lobby, and laundry room are evil smelling. I feel bad for the people with burned clothes.

The fact that someone’s clothing started a fire in the dryer didn’t surprise me. A few months ago, I noticed that clothing coming out of the dryer was so hot, that you would get burned if you touched it (fabric, not just metal zippers). We’ve been drying our clothes on medium or low since then. Dryer fires are scary and charred clothing is not fashionable.

I hope this isn’t a pattern, but just in case, remind me to look out for laundry fires again in 2012. I really wish I would have done laundry yesterday! Argh!

p.s. Unfortunately, I can’t find the pictures from last time. I haven’t been downstairs yet, but I’m guessing it looks similar. Imagine an industrial sized dryer with burn marks that looks a bit like a melted marshmallow, if you only held the marshmallow up to the campfire on one side.

Ok, so now it's Post Something Every Day and all I got is this lady...



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