Sometimes my thinking can be a little obsessive. I get an idea in my head and carry it around and chew on it like a dog with a bone. I recognize that this is somewhat abnormal. Ironically, my thinking lately has been focused on the idea of normal.
I started reading some literature from the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community. It seems that many people in that community want to be identified as normal. Why? As I look around, a lot of people seem to be motivated by this need to be normal (or at least be perceived to be normal). I see people going to jobs they hate to buy houses with manicured lawns and granite counter tops and send their kids to "good" schools so that they too will be normal. When I was a kid my mom wanted a house with wall to wall carpet. Wall to wall carpeting was normal.
Normal is an artificial construct that keeps us in line and makes us dance ever faster to keep up. I suppose on some level we are afraid of being pushed out of the tribe. In truth, few of us are normal. The bell shaped curve only has one true center. There are strange and wondrous beings beneath our normal facades. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had a song in the 60's that said: "I feel like letting my freak flag fly." Maybe it's time to get those freak flags down from the attic and unfurl them again.
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