Yesterday was a fairly normal day for me. It involved a lot of paperwork, a few meetings, some more paperwork, going to the gym, cleaning up around the house and thinking. I think a lot. For the record, I would also probably think a lot if I had a girlfriend, just perhaps about different things. The conundrum of the day was about what is normal.
According to the news, I am weird. Now, the news hasn't said that about me directly per se, but they did say it about Mitt Romney, which is probably a PC way to say Romney is Mormon. Thank you, Captain Obvious. We know that. What they really want to say is that Mormons are weird. When people say that I am not like them, I thank them; I tell them I would not want to be. I seek to be like Christ.
Of course, like most derrogatory remarks, the people who say this do not make any allowance for their own idiosyncrosies. They say we should look at things from both sides but they look at it from their own personal bias. They would do well to remember that in a multidimensional world every story has at least two sides. It's not weird at all that Barack Obama chose to attend Jeremiah Wright's congregation of his own free will and choice for 20 years, baptized his daughters there, and never heard any of the hate speech fomented by Wright. That's not weird at all.
I have never really been what most people call normal. On the rare occassion that I fit fashion it's because the trends have swung to be what I already wear. It actually kind of amuses me that most of the people I know, despite the fact that they claim they are different from most other people, are exactly like most other people I know. "I'm different", "I would never treat you like that", or "You can count on me" are all things I have heard before. Those people are now abject strangers and they have earned the right to be treated that way.
Frequently, we talk about normal without ever bothering to ask, "compared to what?" I have learned that 98.6F is not always the normal body temperature although it's close to normal for most people. Some things are very normal for me but very abnormal for you. Some of my favorite activities would be more normal if people were not ashamed to admit it. Rather than tell people what we actually think or prefer, we sometimes try to appease what we think they would like to hear. So many of our politically correct phraseology comes from a desire to avoid offense against people who seem to worry very little if what they think or say or do comes across as offensive to us. I don't do PC. I'm a Mac. I was a Mac before it was cool.
Long before I was born, it was once cool to live as I do. My paternal grandmother had hung in her home a cross stitch that read, "Use it up; wear it out; make it do, or do without." I travel with my now 10 year old iBOOK. It originally cost me $1500 in graduate school, and since it still works, does everything on a trip that I need it to do, and isn't likely to be stolen, I keep it. It's the same with my clothes, my car, my dishes, and some of my furniture. It is still serviceable and meets my needs. So, I continue to use it. When I showed up at my cousin's house last weekend (she is a successful medical doctor) driving a rented Mustang, she asked me why I still drive the stupid Saturn. It is cheap to operate, meets my needs, and allows me to use my money elsewhere. She acquiesced. I continue to use things that meet my needs that don't meet the needs of others. That way, I'm abnormal enough that hopefully people will leave my stuff alone and leave me to do my own thing.
What I really want at the end of the day is to live, be free, and pursue my happiness without interference from other people. I happen to think that's pretty normal.
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