On Normalcy and Virtue of Opting-Out (and Studio Ghibli)
Normal is a non-existent reference point, so what then?
If you have enough time alone in your own head, you end up interpreting everything in a way that is meaningful to you. Your experiences and understanding are impacted by what you need at that moment and vice versa.
As a foreigner in a country whose language I barely understand and do not speak, I tend to have a lot of time inside my own head. At one of those moments, I was thinking about being the odd one out, because frankly, I am. By virtue of not being able to communicate with peoples of my residential country, if nothing else.
Being ‘odd’ as well as any other adjective, is relative. An object being ‘heavy’ or not, depends on the physical strength of person measuring the heaviness. It is not really about the mass of the object, it is about the person’s ability to lift it. We call something ‘heavy’ because we experience it as being hard to lift. ‘Heavy’ doesn’t exist outside of our experience.
‘Odd’ and by extension ‘normal’ are similar. They are more abstract, and harder to define than ‘heavy’. But recently I have been visualising normality as a circle (any other enclosed shape would do). A circle, is a collection of points that are oriented towards an origin location. This origin location is the reference point for all the points on the circle. I find this to be an eerily accurate representation of our definition of ‘normal’.
Normal is a reference point for all the other points on the edge to position themselves.
In other words, it really doesn’t exists outside of our references. This may seem like a gross over-simplification, but somehow I don’t think it is far from reality. We are all oriented towards this idea of ‘normal’, we don’t seem to realise everyone else is equally far from it.
We define ‘odd’ as points that are further from our point on the circle based on some arbitrary threshold. Except, that distance is not only based on the separation between two points, it involves the reference point in each comparison. In math terms, a cosine distance.
When you realise that the centre point, which you are using to calculate your angular separation from another point is imaginary, suddenly everything becomes locally-normal. Then you no-longer have an attachment to a hook or an anchor that swings your opinion or perception about other points along its axis. The other points just are and so are you. I find this liberating.
Our relative position to this anchor comes with its own expectations and definitions. We are defined by our position in the circle that we are part of. But actually, the moment you realise you are anchoring yourself to an imaginary reference point, all of a sudden all those definitions become obsolete.
A lot of the people I know are concerned by what they are ‘supposed’ to do. There are conventions and guidelines that you are supposed to follow because that is just how things are. And frankly, that is not a bad thing. Societies have structure, conventions and guidelines based on centuries of fuck-ups. It is old wisdom. And yet, it is okay if they don’t work for you.
You can opt-out.
Most of us don’t want to. Because it feels like failure, and like you no longer have a place because you cannot position yourself anymore. Well, that was bullshit in the first place anyway.
There is a certain peace in saying ‘I am out.’. Letting go, opting out and moving on are some of the hardest things to do because it means you stop doing something. Inertia hits you like a truck. Obviously physically, but mentally too. We go through convenient and familiar motions of roles defined for us, so when we want to stop, we meet immediate resistance. Once you pass through that though, all that remains is who you are. Not what you have been made into.
This piece is riddled with Studio Ghibli GIFs. There is a particular reason for that. For years upon years, Studio Ghibli has celebrated being whoever or whatever you truly are, however odd it may be. No traditional reference points, no assumptions, just taking all the monsters and spirits as they are. So maybe it is time we took a page out of their sketch-book and maybe, just maybe, considered opting out of whatever role that doesn’t seem to fit us.
