Lol I love the poll options. Yeah it's an interesting concept, ascribing goodness to frequency. Although in some cases it doesn't even have to do with frequency, but more so personal experience. I guess the word is used when a person is trying to validate that something is good, and do so by saying it happens frequently. Very odd.
I like it on this site, as it can bring a lot of comfort to people with feeling less alone, myself included. But has more to do with that, than anything. It's not really a rigorous definition, but is a good thing that can make people feel closer.
The downside of course is people who feel 'not normal' but that's what this site is for!
It would be cool to live in a world where people could feel that their qualities were things they could feel secure in regardless of if they saw other's sharing them or not, but wouldn't be surprised if its a cultural universal that people feel comfort in knowing others are like them.
However I am sure materialism plays a role, I am not that familiar with gnosticism, but am curious if in more spiritual communities that place less value on the material world than the spiritual, people more readily feel connection amidst superficial differences. And in tern aren't made to feel more lonely by their 'abnormalities'. Or perhaps the connections searched for are different?
It is an odd word. If I were a computer I would see, 'frequency of occurrences' and then of course would have wildly different results when controlling for time periods (varying both in their length and start date) as well as location. For example, everything anyone has ever conceived of is extremely abnormal, as the observable universe is an infinitesimally small fraction of what exists. But then we need to ask, "normal where?" and "normal when?".
And then I would also see day to day life, a thing like slavery or hunger, are things many people would say are not normal because they are not confronted with it in their day to day life, even though they are highly pervasive.
The word is also frequently used in a medical context, where it has a different meaning. There are medical abnormalities that are far more common than a non-medical "normal" instance such as left-handedness. And the word is used to denote whether further testing or treatment is necessary.
So yeah, I like that it can give people comfort, I wish more words did that. And wish people could experience the same level of comfort even when they are "not normal"
Is it normal not to believe in "normal"?
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Lol I love the poll options. Yeah it's an interesting concept, ascribing goodness to frequency. Although in some cases it doesn't even have to do with frequency, but more so personal experience. I guess the word is used when a person is trying to validate that something is good, and do so by saying it happens frequently. Very odd.
I like it on this site, as it can bring a lot of comfort to people with feeling less alone, myself included. But has more to do with that, than anything. It's not really a rigorous definition, but is a good thing that can make people feel closer.
The downside of course is people who feel 'not normal' but that's what this site is for!
It would be cool to live in a world where people could feel that their qualities were things they could feel secure in regardless of if they saw other's sharing them or not, but wouldn't be surprised if its a cultural universal that people feel comfort in knowing others are like them.
However I am sure materialism plays a role, I am not that familiar with gnosticism, but am curious if in more spiritual communities that place less value on the material world than the spiritual, people more readily feel connection amidst superficial differences. And in tern aren't made to feel more lonely by their 'abnormalities'. Or perhaps the connections searched for are different?
It is an odd word. If I were a computer I would see, 'frequency of occurrences' and then of course would have wildly different results when controlling for time periods (varying both in their length and start date) as well as location. For example, everything anyone has ever conceived of is extremely abnormal, as the observable universe is an infinitesimally small fraction of what exists. But then we need to ask, "normal where?" and "normal when?".
And then I would also see day to day life, a thing like slavery or hunger, are things many people would say are not normal because they are not confronted with it in their day to day life, even though they are highly pervasive.
The word is also frequently used in a medical context, where it has a different meaning. There are medical abnormalities that are far more common than a non-medical "normal" instance such as left-handedness. And the word is used to denote whether further testing or treatment is necessary.
So yeah, I like that it can give people comfort, I wish more words did that. And wish people could experience the same level of comfort even when they are "not normal"