So you think you’re normal

If I am to hold with one definition by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, then normal means ‘occurring naturally.’

Well that’s Toyota Corollas out. You just don’t come across them growing new in the fields. And cream buns definitely don’t grow on trees. Nothing ‘normal’ about Charles Gounoud’s Ave Maria either, I reckon. Shame. I like cream buns and Toyotas and I sure do like a little bit of that Gounoud spread on some of that Bach toast.

If that means I have to give up normality I think I’ll take a chance.

Jokes aside for a minute. If, say, between seven and ten percent of people are afflicted by a ‘difference’, so that people will ridicule them, treat them with prejudice and socially stigmatise them, are the normal people right? Is the minority wrong for being different (through no fault of their own by the way, just a quirk of genetics)? Is it not enough that this minority already has to deal with enough practical difficulty every single day? That the things others take for granted, like driving a car or handling most sharp implements, are already more difficult for them? Do they have to be historically judged as deviant too? Just too far off the beaten path to be wholesome. (Sinister, in fact, was the Latin word that applied to these people for centuries.) Add to that the statistical nugget that these poor sods are going to live, on average, NINE YEARS LESS than us lucky normal ones, and you’ve got a simmering, righteous stew of not fair.

Want to know the real surprise? This group of poor, abnormal freaks is right under your noses and you don’t even notice them. They don’t stand out like, say, people with Down syndrome do. Nope. They just happen to be ‘unlucky’ enough to use their left hands in preference to their right. Lefties.

CRUCIFY THEM!!!

Ok. I hold my (right) hand up. I led you down the path maybe, but I’ve told you no lies. I just used poor, misunderstood lefties to highlight a very important fact. I could’ve used any number of groups with statistical oddities. Check these out. Completely random.

• Between 40 -45 million people worldwide are blind
  
• 1% of the UK’s population suffers from chronic coeliac disease
  
• Countless millions are prisoners to panic attacks
  
• Some people cannot walk on pavement cracks
• Some people have a morbid fear of air travel
  
• Four out of every 100 people have red hair
• It’s estimated that up to 60% of people cannot swim
  
• You will be, or have been at some time, only two steps removed from a suicide victim
  
• Millions pay money yearly to sit exposed in cancer-causing radiation from our sun

Here’s the truth, peeps. The world is populated by abnormality. It’s full of the freaks. Watch out, they’re everywhere! And the bad news is, by the time you’ve assigned everyone to their category there ARE no normal ones left. And if there are, how abnormal must they feel? Christ in Heaven, some people buy Celine Dion albums!! We’re all weird, except for me and you, of course. And I am very unsure about me.

Incidentally, it’s important to remember two things about statistics. One is that 87% of them are made up. And, as a lamp post to a roaring drunk, they’re usually more useful for propping up an argument than they are for shining any useful illumination.

Catch you later, weirdos.

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