Submitted by Joshua Chan
“Normality is a spectrum”
Someone special once told me this.
I hope you, who reads this, commits to remembering these words as well.
That normality is not something binary, like math; that when we think and label ourselves as being weird and freaks, we are being totally irrational.
If we were social rejects in the absolute sense, as we so often think, we should be by definition behind bars. Crime is after all termed as acts that are deemed, in the eyes of society, to be injurious to the social fabric and lets face it, 99.9% of the time our actions are really not the case.
From a semantics standpoint, the idea of one being abnormal already loses significant weight.
I did not go out much when I was in school, did not talk to girls, did not play DOTA or FIFA, and did not play football. It wasn’t because I was socially inept, but just that I had little common interests with others. I pretty much wasn’t a ‘cool’ kid I guess. I was nerdy and had a geeky sense of humour.
It hit me like a freight train when I was 16, that emptiness and the depression. The insecure teenager I was, I made a causal link between the two. I was so obviously weird to the point that I had no significant experiences to speak of. The dizzying highs and crushing lows portrayed and extolled in the movies and in the media; I had none of that because I was weird as fuck.
And then Instagram came with its toxicity. Friends and people had these perfect lives; all the smiles and laughter in those photos. I certainly was not happy; it must be because I’m abnormal and incapable of enjoying simple activities. It really did peel away at my self-confidence.
If this resonates on any level with you, I promise you; you are not weird at all. No. You know what. Scratch that. You are weird. And I love you for that. You are unique. You do not need to be like others. I mean honestly, the world would be a pretty boring place to live in if everyone was by our own definitions, ‘normal’.
If you have gone through heartache and deep levels of soul searching as I have and still am, I hope this short read empowers you to carve out a path of your own. We are ultimately hard-wired to seek validation for our actions and behaviours, and if these don’t fall within social norms, it becomes pretty darn hard.
I write these to say, “Keep going“. And you can try reciprocating this too; tell others who might be in a similar position. Acknowledge their normality; their weirdness. Tell them to embrace it.
As I will learn to embrace mine.
We are all headed for great things. I promise.
