Why Aren’t I Normal?
Jack Rinella
August 25, 2008
Like most of us, I spent years asking myself the question that is the title of this week’s column. A recent slave-applicant asked it of me as well. It is a perennial and often disturbing question.
Now there are many possible “answers” to our question, but let’s start with a definition of the word “Normal” -- “A form or state regarded as the norm,” which is then defined as “An authoritative standard; a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior; average, as a set standard of development or achievement usually derived from the average or median achievement of a large group; a pattern or trait taken to be typical in the behavior of a social group.”
The easy answers aren’t really answers. First, one could argue that no person is normal, that the question is one of semantics, or that to seek an answer is simply to divert oneself into a useless and unsatisfactory quest with no possible resolution. After all, which of us is average? Is being normal really such a good idea? It is based on median achievement. Why aren’t we aiming for something higher?
Note, too, that normal is used to control and regulate “acceptable behavior.” Acceptable to the average? Come on, give me a break. We can do better than that. I’d also note that in this case it is too often the average-producing majority that is imposing its notion of “acceptable behavior” on the minority, whose behavior, though deviating from the norm, may quite well be ethical and moral.
If you want to cut to the quick, I’ll admit that there is no reason to ask the question in the first place. If indeed one could arrive at an answer, it would probably be both meaningless and useless. Rather than question “Why?” it is highly desirable to ask oneself “What’s next?” since I think how we live is more important than why.
I write that as a Philosophy major who concluded after four years of college classes that how I live was more important than an explanation as to why I lived in that way. Being a “good” man was vastly more beneficial than wondering why I was (or wanted to be) a good man.
That answer is rooted in my belief that choice matters. Even if I arrive at the elusive why, I can choose, albeit perhaps with difficulty, to live contrary to whatever forces are part and parcel of that why. If, on the other hand, you are like me and want to understand the reason for living a good life, then why remains a question to be asked, with the caveat that we lack omniscience and therefore, except for faith-based answers, will not soon have a definitive resolution to our quest.
Why, then, can have lots answers, including God’s will, predestination, random chance, sinister manipulation, alien intervention and luck of the draw. A more plausible answer is nature and nurture.
Again, let’s define my terms. Nature is “the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing; essence.” Nurture is “training, upbringing; the sum of the influences modifying the expression of the genetic potentialities of an organism.”
The important word in the phrase “nature and nurture” is “and.” I don’t think that the whole of a life is bound by either nature or nurture exclusively. These two forces work together in a complementary partnership: Nature, for its part, comes to us in our DNA and nurture works with our in-born aptitudes and “born with” situation to bring our potential into reality or not.
Ah, there’s the rub -- or not -- as not all nurturing complements our nature. Of course some of that nurturing contrary to our nature can be constructive. For instance if one is naturally prone to anger, learning to control one’s ire is probably a good idea.
One might think it best to simply follow one’s nature but nurture, when indeed it is complementary to nature rather than in opposition to it, remains necessary. I think it’s natural for us to speak. Our physical body is certainly adept at making noises. Still we must learn to use that ability by acquiring a knowledge of language. A person may naturally be a caring person, ideally suited, as an example, to be a nurse. Still no amount of natural caring can be useful to a nurse without proper training in that field.
The challenge is for us to know what lifestyle, what set of actions, springs from our essence and what arises from “a set standard of development or achievement usually derived from the average or median achievement of a large group.” I find, for instance, that cock-sucking comes rather naturally to me, though the nurturing I experienced in my earlier years tolerated no deviation from the heterosexual norm. Hence nurturing brought about significant conflict and confusion when I realized that deviation from this norm was an essential part of who I am.
How different my life might have been if my parents had sat me down sometime during my early adolescence and explained to me the fact that normalcy is only a standard based on the mean and that no one had the characteristics of an “average” person, that deviation from the norm was indeed most usual as each and every one of us is unique, deviating in no small way from what is average. But no, there was no explanation of the bell curve when it came to who I was. Deviation, rather than being explained as universal, was named “immoral.”
As with all of us, then, I came upon the realization that I just hadn’t been raised with the nurturing that I needed to be my natural, authentic self. In fact I had been raised to live a life contrary to my essential being, a life that would lead to confusion, duplicity, and depression. So it is no surprise today, though it surely was one then, that I began to question who I was and what were the essential characteristics that defined the authentic me.
That, I believe, is the challenge we all face. To know oneself and to have the courage, against nurture, to live according to our nature. Still I have return to the fact that setting nature against nurture isn’t the best way to proceed. Instead we need to discover our nature and seek the nurturing that will lead us to live authentically, yet within the necessary and productive bounds of society. Doing so is a life-long process and one that reaps the enormous benefits of satisfaction, fulfillment, contentment and joy.
This week’s podcast is an interview with Sheldon, an experienced leather tailor. You can hear it at LeatherViews.libsyn.com.
And speaking about podcasts, I am looking for Chicago-based volunteer to take on the role of recording engineer. Interested? Send me an email.
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