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Comment by d0gsg0w00f | Hacker News Reader

I define "normal" as things like wearing unremarkable clothing, eating at trendy restaurants, going sightseeing, saying grace at family dinners, keeping a decent job, bringing food to parties, keeping my lawn tidy, driving an unremarkable car, learning the art of small talk, etc.

People use these things to calibrate their interactions with a person they're meeting for the first time. Once people see you as "normal" they're more prone to listen when you start throwing out the weird ideas.

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I've come to believe that weird is normal. No one has their shit together 100%.

Your version of normal is "don't rock the boat" normal. Rocking the boat is painful emotionally so don't do it normal.

I've spent a lot of time in therapy trying to undo that version of normal and figure out who I really am. And you're probably perfectly fine in your version of normal. Which really illustrates that mental health is very personal and multidimensional. It doesn't mean I'm fucked up and you're not or visa versa. Gotta meet people where they're at.

That’s conflating what people present to the world with their mind. It’s a very shallow understanding of what’s going on.

Regularly BASE jumping is seriously dangerous to the point where almost nothing else people do that’s “living on the edge” really compares. Think active war zone levels of danger, but they don’t need to dress up in spikes to show off how edgy they are. It’s possible to come off as a calm high school librarian while still being an extreme adrenaline junkie.

Next time you walk past a middle aged banker type in a sports coat consider they could be a furry, you just don’t know. Assuming someone seeming normal is actually normal is being blind to the possibilities.

>> That’s conflating what people present to the world with their mind. It’s a very shallow understanding of what’s going on

I was trying to contrast the external and internal presentations of self, not conflate them. My point is that a "normal" external presentation doesn't make someone a "normal" person. Someone can act, consume, and behave certain ways that help them feel normal, but in the end it's a coping or survival mechanism of sorts. If I fit in with the "in" crowd it affords social and economic status. That's the version of "normal" my comment was responding to.

The only way to define normal is the external representation, you never see the internal one.

Therefore someone that seems normal to all appearances is normal. If in the privacy of their own mind they pray to the invisible fairy living in their left nostril, well how do you know that’s not what 90% of people do?

Trying to be normal is normal. Being normal may have never been normal, but trying to be was and is.

That's what were losing, people don't even try to be normal anymore, because having a mental illness has been normalised.

It's not the right side of history, it's not progressive, it's not inclusive. There will be a price to pay and we'll only find out how much it is once we get the bill.

That is trivially falsified, the prevalence of mental illness is not really related to the acceptance in society (outside of society declaring things to be a mental illness, e.g. homosexuality). For example in Germany the incidence of people missing work days for mental health reasons is higher in regions with less academic jobs (a milieu which tends to be more open to these topics) and in the formerly socialist parts (where there was a higher tabooization of mental health topics). Similar patterns exist for suicide.

I think I know what you get at, but it is important to differentiate between e.g. someone with social anxiety overcoming their anxiety to take part in society (the good way of "trying to be normal") and someone repressing what should actually be worked on (the bad way, hurting both the person, and, long term, society).

The important point with all things regarding the human mind (education, psychology etc.) is that one strictly can't infer what actually happens from outside observation alone. Let's say there exist two persons, A and B, and both play 6 hours of videogames a day. But person A is a perfectly healthy introvert, while with person B this actually is addictive behaviour concealing mental health problems the person hasn't found the strength to confront yet. It depends on how they feel while playing, and how they feel when not playing.

Related: a lot of intellectual people don’t have a tv, and like to make a statement of it.

I was like that for a while, but then as I got older I realised it was much smarter to buy a tv, put it in the living room, and never use it. Now people think I’m normal and I never get questioned about why I don’t have a tv, why I read so much, do I think I’m above popular culture etc.

Amusingly, I did once get busted when a friend wanted to use said TV and it turned out the card in the cable box had expired months before. Didn’t even know it had a card - the cable box came with my broadband/phone line package. Got rid of the box after that.

I guess the more modern equivalent would be to watch an episode or two of Netflix shows now and then.

I think the more normal thing to do would be not to buy a TV and just don't make a meal out of explaining why. 'I would never use it, ' is pretty sufficient

If you do that, people would think you very odd (at least before streaming dominated content). Which is my point.

I think you're living in a bubble in this regard. It seems odd to me to worry about this, and in fact odd that visitors would both notice the absence of a TV and comment on it.

Data point: We don't have a TV in my student house, and no one has commented on that, even though we have had on average maybe 5 visitors per week for over a year. Offhand I'd estimate that about 50 unique people have seen our living room. I'm in Sweden.

Speculation: The common factor is you. You influence your visitors with regards to what topics to talk about and how to treat these topics.

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