don's report archive
Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)
Monday March 26, 2001
Normalcy is overrated. To be normal in America is to be overweight, unfit, stressed, overfed and undernourished. Being normal involves looking for others to blame for your troubles, having a propensity to seek excuses and flee from accountability, and basically avoiding responsibility whenever possible. The normal American does not like his/her job or profession. The normal person is superstitious, insecure, and follows a 12-step program. Mr., Ms. and Mrs. Normal usually lack positive passions, but identify to excess with spectator sports, political sex scandals, and the cult of celebrity worship. In addition, by the time the normal person reaches 40 years of age, she/he is either divorced or stuck in or recovering from an unhappy relationship.
These are among the reasons I have to conclude that normalcy is seriously overrated. Another term for normalcy is mediocrity. I think you can do better than to settle for a lifestyle based upon the mediocrity of moderation, another term for normalcy. (For a related but different essay, see “Eschew Extreme Moderation” which appeared the day before yesterday, March 24.)
I was highly amused by a recent poll announced on the show TV NATION (8/4/95). The pollsters for the show found that 28 percent of respondents who said they were “normal” Americans agreed that they would like to be King of England, but not if it meant they had to marry the Queen.
What is the alternative to being normal? If normalcy is as uninviting as I contend, with what kind of lifestyles would I have you replace it?
I favor the idea of exceptional lifestyles, the pursuit of selective elements of excellence based upon self-management. There is nothing normal about lifestyle artistry. If it were normal, then we would have a very different kind of society. How different? I don’t think we’d recognize it!
We certainly would not spend more than a trillion dollars each year on medical expenditures.
As Dave Barry might say about normalcy: This is a classic example of what grammarians call a pluperfect connubial imprecation which, in layperson's terms, means that it violates state and federal health-warning laws.
Be well. All the best. Don’t be normal, please.
(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)
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