Writer: Sara Mohamed
Normal (adj): somewhere between two extremes, that differs in position from one person to another
It has become a routine to our ears and the usual to our mouths to rate all everyday events and actions on the scale of normality, but what we are thereby forgetting is that there is no such thing as normal.
A few years ago, while we were discussing the controversial topic of disability and paralysis, all students agreed on the fact that it is not fair to treat them different from the normal, just because they grew up on a wheelchair. But what the teacher said then was a world-changing confusion to me: “All I hear is normal here, normal there, but who is normal anyway? What does it mean to be normal?”
It was right at that moment that I observed the contradiction of my reality, and that my whole life I had been thinking the wrong way, unconsciously defining a word that was meant to be wide-ranged and limitless, free of any sparks of judgment and denunciation.
Normality always had a definition that was a whole universe in length and a majestic galaxy in variety. Whatever might be abnormal to you could seem totally usual to others; whatever you wear on an everyday basis could seem totally out of this world to your surroundings.
It is completely wrong to think that being normal only includes something specific because there is no specificity to this usually misunderstood word. People suffering from mental illnesses or having financial issues are just as normal as you are because your thinking and opinions do not, l repeat do not, apply to all human beings; it is neither your, nor anyone else’s right, to define normality. It is, thus, a mystery to me how some individuals change themselves to be “normal” and to fit in. Don’t they look into their reflection and see how extraordinarily normal they actually are?
