What madness is it that a psychiatrist can write that: "We psychiatrists measure an individual's behavior against his socially-determined role or roles (as we see them), and on this basis decide which behavior is incorrect or aberrant and if so how much." From the book Person to Person, Quote by Barry Stevens.
I get angry at our culture when the reigning authorities take our narrow-minded description of reality and carve up the rest of the human race with their self-righteous knife. We need to look with "beginners mind" and investigate what being a people-creature is all about.
I seriously question many of the short-sighted decisions that are being made around the world. Environmentally, politically, economically. The hoarding, the nationalistic insanity of killing our neighbors. Of keeping people at the starvation level so the hoards are controllable. Supporting any leader that calls himself a democratic capitalist and turning a blind eye to any atrocities they act out on people. There's insanity.
And why do we do all this? To control, so we don't have to deal with our own basic insecurity. If we don't as individuals and as societies look clearly at our fears, and how we can be driven by them, we're destined to continue our grandiose, blind, greedy trip to disaster.
There; phew, I got that off my chest. My rant is over....well mostly. Back to what is normal. I think we need to re-think what is normal from a bigger perspective. An example: from the eastern perspective, (Rule one) everything we cling to causes suffering when it disappears or changes. (Rule two), everything changes. So the root assumption here is detachment is the highest good. So living in a world where everyone is scurrying around to get more things to be attached to is "crazy." Or "ignorant," i.e. ignoring something as they might say.
A Shaman might look at how we "spend" our life force and see an unbalanced sick person. Confused because we're out of touch with our roots, Mother Earth. And so on. Margaret Meade once stated that 95% of what we believe is learned. So, whatever cultural reference point your view comes from is going to be the filter by which you judge "normal."
I remember as a child hearing that a neighbor had seen a therapist. Yup, something wrong with them. Probably "mentally ill" or "crazy." I remember looking at them with suspicion from the "moral high ground." From the reference point of my family culture, just needing help made them abnormal.
Judge not lest you be judged. I remember years later being in crisis, feeling so bad that I was sure that if I went to a therapist they would lock me up. There I was in the "moral low ground" saying, "What is wrong with me?" The value I had placed on seeking help was causing me just about as much pain as the reason I wanted to get help in the first place. And isn't that the way "getting help" is still viewed in some families, and some cultures as well? Something terrible? Something abnormal?
It seems most human beings can be so arrogant as to dismiss all the vast knowledge of the human race as a whole, and in good fundamentalist style say our world view is right, and all the rest is wrong. We need to see clearly, past our filters and find a new paradigm to work from.
Truth is everywhere. Every culture has good qualities and their shadows. All humans are normal in some ways and abnormal in others. I believe we all have little bits of everything we see in everyone. When we label this or that as bad, it is so easy to deny that in ourselves and see it outside of ourselves. It feels so much gentler to view everyone as a basically good being, trying to do their best, on a path of growth that is "normal" for them. When I see myself and you through those eyes, it is much easier to accept and love myself, and you, even with all our foibles.
And that is my bias.
Editor's Note: The above is a response to the question "Is Anyone Really Normal?", originally printed in the Feb/Mar/Apr. 1998 issue of "People House," published by the People House Spiritual Community in Denver, Colorado, and reprinted with permission. The Community is a non-profit, non-sectarian organization "dedicated to fostering awareness and a healthy way of life in individuals, families and groups through fellowship, education, facilitation, and leadership training."
Wayne Tittes is one of the four non-sectarian co-leaders and the Executive Director of People House.