i'm bit of speed reader

you should post this in current events......

Did any REALLY read it?

why?

did you read our posts?

you should post this in current events......

ACT NORMAL!
Who is it that gets together in mobs and hunts down, tortures and kills people who are different from them?

Who is it that teaches modesty,courtesy, and generosity but lives in depravity, rudeness, and greed?

Who is it that can gather together the time, energy and money to murder millions and destroy cities, for the sake of a flag, deity or economic system? Not weirdos, not kooks or cranks or nuts.

It's the "Normal"people who do those things.
It's the "Normal" people who believe there's only one "real world"and it's the one THEY'RE living in.

It's the "Normal" people who kill each other over differences in that reality, and if someone can't trick themselves into ignoring the millions of inconsistencies or can't gloss over the gaping flaws in that reality-construct, or can't even pretend convincingly that they believe that flimsy and self-contradictory world is ALL TRUE, rather than have their own illusory stability undermined or accept that other ways of thinking and seeing might be valid, the "Normal"people imprison those "mentally ill," and experimentally destroy their personalities by use of drugs, electroconvulsion, and brain surgery.


I saw a letter to Ann Landers from a poor couple whose son took steroids and later began to think he was JFK. Unusually sensible doctors wouldn't agree with them that it was a Disease called Schizophrenia, and wouldn't keep the fellow locked up and drugged as his loving parents wanted. (They had looked up Schizophrenia in a book and thus knew all about it.)

Their son eventually killed himself, and the parents cautioned all young men against the use of steroids. I felt sorry. Not for the son, who is now free, but for the parents who drove him to final escape by the continuing refusal of the validity of his primary goal in life, "to go to Washington and help people with their problems." Rather than take the time to teach their son to use his strange gift, they succumbed to their fear of the unusual and destroyed the creature they helped create.


It's the "Normal" way of thinking to label things and file them away so they don't have to be thought about any more. If "idea x" is labeled as "stupid" it can be discarded. All subsequently encountered ideas bearing any resemblance to "idea x" can also be so classified and discarded, saving valuable time and energy for watching TV or thinking about movie stars.

If something new or different comes along, the"Normal" way is to classify it as quickly as possible according to the guidelines set down by reputable authorities so it may be conveniently and safely filed away. This might not be such a destructive system if it did not cripple or entirely halt the learning process, but once a "Normal"person learns to use this technique, consideration of new or unusual things or ideas is only necessary when the classification system itself fails or is too limited in scope to encompass the thing seen or thought.


It is the duty and function of "Normal" people to classify, label and file the whole of existence and experience. Sadly, a description of the nature of the object is frequently taken as a distillation of the essence of the object.

In the unwritten sequel to the classic poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant," we go a thousand years further on the linear timescale to a world in which vast temple complexes have been built by the followers of each of the seven theoreticians and holy war is waged against all who dispute the fact that an elephant is very like a tree, a wall, or a rope. Even worse, cults arise venerating fans and ropes AS ELEPHANTS,and devotees plant bombs in the automobiles of those who insist that a wall is just a wall,and not an elephant at all.


It's the "Normal" way of thinking to believe that we call a thing by a name and classify it as a certain kind of thing because that is what it IS. Regardless of well-known classical allusions to roses and other names, "Normal" thinking dictates that name defines nature, that a thing is what you say it is and you say it is what it is because that's WHAT IT IS.

"Normal" thinking disregards the fact that two different people can look at the same object in the same place at the same time, and reach two entirely different conclusions about the nature of that object: not because the object itself is variable or has two or more natures, but because each individual bases conclusions and deductions on the whole of experience and their likes and dislikes, or physical and emotional state at any given moment.

Thus, one person may glorify as a symbol of the highest ideals of humanity the image of a man being tortured to death and brand "obscene" the image of a child with no clothes on, and someone else might consider such thought idiotic. Some persons may maintain their right to hold their own opinion based on their own tastes and experiences,and others might interpret that as a blanket condemnation of all they are,and fear for their lives ever after.

I don't wish it to be thought that "Normal" thinking is essentially a bad thing. Very few people actually require an open mind or the ability to reason in the course of their everyday lives. A donut-shop cashier does not need to consider the ethics of selling blobs of greasy dough, and a philosophical and ethical outlook would be an outright detriment to a nuclear warhead assembly plant worker or oil-company lawyer.

It is vital for most people to continue to act "Normal." Without such behavior the wheels of commerce and progress would grind to a halt. The excesses which make life in this modern world so simple for those who are free from the confining systems of dissatisfaction and complaint woulds uddenly cease to be. Without the ridiculously expensive and painfully loud car stereos, the mindless repetition of pop-song lust mongery,elaborate hairdos, huge jewelry and ten-thousand-dollar wristwatches dangling before the sleepwalking hordes there would be no cheap crummy apartments, discarded art supplies, inexpensive healthfood, or good secondhand clothing.

For the most part, the existence of "Normal" behavior is a good thing for those who require nothing more. But for people who care about things or think about things, who examine their lives and their place in the world, acting "Normal" is insanity, a trap which leads to constant dissatisfaction and eventual destruction.

Acting "Normal" for such people is hating, complaining, finding fault, holding grudges, being afraid, and limiting themselves to the small world of everyday existence, the world even "Normal" people pay most of their money to escape from by buying distractions, or getting loaded and laid as much as they can before they die.

When it is possible to choose not to live in the small world of reaction to stimulus, to act by choice and to choose the good, to see beauty and find enjoyment anywhere, there is no need to escape, no place or person to escape from. When emotional and physical states are seen as temporary and subject to will and choice, when the past is seen only as a picture in the mind and the future as a dream not yet dreamed, to live and to enjoy living become, not "Normal" but NATURAL, essential, a part of each individual nature.


POSTSCRIPT: This essay was written years before the wide public participation in internet. If it were being rewritten now it would certainly include thoughts to the effect that it is "Normal" people who critique the grammar or typography of literature which contains ideas they don't understand.

It is "Normal" people who display the height of their intellectual and creative capacity by using the anonymity of a mailing address to take one-line wisecrack potshots at people who actually try to THINK about things and express those thoughts through imperfect physical interface. ...and so on, delineating some of the common ways that stupid intolerant people use to attempt to bring down to their own level anyone on the net who displays any earnestness or sincerity in the desire to make the world a better place for everyone.

did you read our posts?

wanted to get reaction of op from other thread but he vanished

Read the page starting post that basically listed all of "normal" behaviors as destructive to humanity. Most of which where then behavied about the posts length.

Perhaps and that is very true.. BUT we all stated it was too long and we weren't up to reading it...

I read it, and edited and reread the edited version.... it's quite interesting, and I do like the summations of each point.... but then, I'm not normal, what would I know???

can you post your edit

i only made it half way