Normal. Also known as conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. Who makes these damn standards? Sure as hell wasn’t me. Who decided it was normal to wear big foam hands at sporting events? Who decided it was normal to make people wear shinny cloth around their necks in a strange knot before participating in boring business practices? Who decided that it would be a good idea for women to wear sunglasses that are big enough to be mistaken for small windshields? I have a secret to tell everyone and it might be rather earth shattering for some. Maybe you should sit down for this. … that chair? really? OK. Here’s the scoop buddy. Normal, as you know it, doesn’t exist. Sorry to break it to you all straight forward like that. Sometimes the truth hurts.

Normal only exists during a certain time and space. Once you move outside of that area or measurement it’s gone. Normal is fleeting like that. When I was in high school I felt like I was obsessed with normal. I was like a normalcy barometer. I think I feared being judged more than anything. My philosophy was that the more normal I was the less people would notice I was there. At the same time I was very creative and wanted desperately to be noticed. It was a paradox that would cause me endless amounts of suffering. I think it still does to a certain extent. There is still a part of me that says you’re going to get judged for this. What I can say is that I’m learning to become friends with it. When I hear the voice that says, “That’s not normal!” I tell it that it’s OK. Even when I thought I was normal, I really wasn’t. I was never normal. I will never be normal. You will never be normal. You can fool people into thinking that something is similar to something else but it will never be the same. We are all unique whether we like it or not.

It feels like so many people are just screaming inside their heads (at least I do at times) feeling like they have to package themselves inside an imaginary box that they’ll never fit into. When they get in this box they won’t be judged, they won’t feel pain, and they’ll never suffer again. I believe that there is a box like this except it’s not something that anyone is selling. There is no drug that’s going to help you do it. There is no fashion trend that can get you there. There is no one school of thought. It’s a journey that you take by yourself to find out what is normal for you. What is the thing that resonates with your frequency? What is the expression of you? Then go and do it. Never let it become a question that includes anyone else because once it does you are compromising the pureness of the expression.

I believe that we are not judged on a comparison basis in the afterlife. Was he or she as good as any profit or saint? I think that in the end, it’s about how well we learn to be ourselves. To do that we must break free of this desire to conform, not because we hate the man but because we love ourselves and realize that we can never truly connect as long as we’re trying to fit into the normalcy of culture, religion, community, social circle, family, or a relationship. To me, the only real normal thing is being yourself which today is ironically the most radical thing you can do. It’s about getting to understand the package that you’ve been wrapped in the whole time. Its waiting patiently for you to unwrap it. Go find the real normal!