I’ve been thinking about this sense of being different from the average person. As if there’s this majority of people who, broadly speaking, form a fairly homogenous group - people who fit together naturally and for whom society is basically designed. And then there’s this smaller group who just don’t quite fit in. It’s like there’s this game we’re all supposed to be playing together, but some of us either aren’t that into the game or want to play it differently.
It’s easy to slip into that “everyone else is an NPC” kind of thinking, but maybe it’s just the result of comparing our inner experience to our external observations of others. It’s tempting to assume that someone with a spouse, a corporate job, a mortgage, a station wagon, a dog, and two and half kids is just living out a script - doing what’s expected - rather than living intentionally. But who’s to say they’re not struggling with the same existential questions as I am?
I think about my parents - about as normal as people get - and I recently asked if they feel normal. They said yes. When I mentioned my lifelong sense of being an outsider, my mom told me that she and my sister had once talked about something I’d done, and my sister had commented, “He’s so weird.” Strangely, that was comforting to hear. It’s not that I see being different as a bad thing - it’s more about that unanswerable question of whether I truly am different, or if I’ve just always felt that way.
It’s hard because most of it is a spectrum. There is no quintessential “normal” person, since no two people are the same. Everyone has quirks that differentiate them from everyone else.
So any “normal” person might say they are “different”, because they can think of all kinds of things that don’t fit with what they imagine a “normal” person is. Or a “different” person might say they’re “normal”, they might have many traits that aren’t “normal”, but they also have lots in common with “normal” people that they focus on.
The problem is perception and definition. No one usually defines “normal” objectively nor in the same way. It’s all based on experiences, if you had lots of friction all your life you might feel “different”, if everything was smooth sailing you might feel “normal”.
What should be done but is hard or impossible for our brain is derive statistics for every single behavior/quirk and decide for each thing individually if it is a behavior that is shared by the “majority” (define exact percentage threshold for “normal”). Then aggregate all those together (how exactly?) to decide if “you’re normal”.
But who does that? What would be the benefit to do that with every single thing?
That’s why we have modern medicine though. Psychology basically does exactly this when determining if you have a mental illness. And it only makes sense to do this if it messes with your survival functioning, why would you fuss about differences from the norm if they’re not a problem?
What I’m essentially saying is, “normal” and “weird” need to be handled rationally instead of subjectively. Deal with specific differences from the norm if they cause a problem, otherwise ignore them/celebrate them. It is entirely unhelpful to categorize your entire being as “normal” or “different”, as none of us is entirely different or entirely normal. Always look at specific things, deal with them as they arise, and don’t let these small things extend as classification for your entire being.