Snow Turtle
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- May 28, 2007
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Warning: Huge generalisations taking place. Simplifying a complex matter.
Having just come back from some psychology/sociology lectures about development and identity. I've been trying to figure out the reason people self-identify themselves as deviant/normal/don't really care or think about it. So far speaking to most of my friends...
Ignoring the problem of having to define what is normal, in this case, we'll take it as what the observer thinks it is. The three categories above probably capture how most people feel about themselves in comparison to their peers with the sub-categories of "I want to be different/I want to be normal". There's going to be lots of different motivations and reasons for taking the various positions like rejection of a specific culture, desire for greatness or lots of other reasons, that I can't think of at the moment, but believe probably exist. Help me out here?
For a long time, I believed that most people strive to be unique, which is especially reflected in the culture with live in now "Be yourself/Do what you want". This is also supported by own perspective that deviant behaviour is slowly but more likely to be accepted today in the younger generation (That's so random! I'm so random!) or things like alternative sexualities being accepted. This is contrasted with the past, where there appears to be more strict controls of acting normal in order to be accepted by society.
It's only starting to dawn upon me, that there are people who are content with being normal and might even strive to be so. But I suppose I should have seen this ages ago, considering that we still get people saying "That's just weird". The most odd thing was hearing someone who considers themselves weird to call another person weird in a negative way.
Despite all of this, part of me thinks that people in general do want to be different and unique. That people aren't really wanting to be normal, rather they want to be accepted instead. That would mean that if differences become more accepted in the future, the idea of normal behaviour will become even weaker/broad to the extent that it'd become a useless term.
Having just come back from some psychology/sociology lectures about development and identity. I've been trying to figure out the reason people self-identify themselves as deviant/normal/don't really care or think about it. So far speaking to most of my friends...
Most of my friends: "I'm different"
One or two friends: "I'm normal"
One friend: "I don't strive to be normal or different"
Ignoring the problem of having to define what is normal, in this case, we'll take it as what the observer thinks it is. The three categories above probably capture how most people feel about themselves in comparison to their peers with the sub-categories of "I want to be different/I want to be normal". There's going to be lots of different motivations and reasons for taking the various positions like rejection of a specific culture, desire for greatness or lots of other reasons, that I can't think of at the moment, but believe probably exist. Help me out here?
For a long time, I believed that most people strive to be unique, which is especially reflected in the culture with live in now "Be yourself/Do what you want". This is also supported by own perspective that deviant behaviour is slowly but more likely to be accepted today in the younger generation (That's so random! I'm so random!) or things like alternative sexualities being accepted. This is contrasted with the past, where there appears to be more strict controls of acting normal in order to be accepted by society.
Moving back the main questions.
How many people actually want to be normal?
How many people actually want to be different?
How many people are indifferent?
What's the population ratio and the reasons for striving for these positions?
It's only starting to dawn upon me, that there are people who are content with being normal and might even strive to be so. But I suppose I should have seen this ages ago, considering that we still get people saying "That's just weird". The most odd thing was hearing someone who considers themselves weird to call another person weird in a negative way.
Despite all of this, part of me thinks that people in general do want to be different and unique. That people aren't really wanting to be normal, rather they want to be accepted instead. That would mean that if differences become more accepted in the future, the idea of normal behaviour will become even weaker/broad to the extent that it'd become a useless term.
Some other thoughts that come to mind when thinking about the issue. But overall really I'm discussing about perceiving yourself as different/normal, not about whether you really are different/normal.
- Those who strive to be different are really normal. Those who are actually different, often want to be normal. Damn it!
- If everyone is unique, technically nobody is really unique?