What do you consider normal? When is something truly bizarre? And what does it mean to ‘normalize’ something?

I’m sure you remember being a kid and visiting someone else’s house, only to have your jaw drop in amazement. They’d be doing something that was, to them, an average everyday task, and you would look at them like they were from Mars.

I had a good friend in grade school who had seven brothers and sisters. At lunchtime, they would empty the entire package of Wonder Bread out on the counter and mass produce peanut butter sandwiches assembly-line style. I was shocked that anyone would think to take out more than two slices at a time.

“Normal” is really just what you are used to. Visit a different family, spend time in another country, or immerse yourself in a different culture, and all your preconceptions come crashing down. What’s routine in one household can be totally shocking in another.

It’s funny when a word changes its usage. For as long as I can remember, the word normal would be considered an adjective. But in recent years it’s taken on the role of a verb.

As society evolves, what’s known as the Overton Window shifts one way or the other. Growing up in America, it always seemed like there was a giant pendulum swinging to the left or the right. Stability and a happy medium remained elusive. At the far reaches of every swing folks would claim that their way was the only way and that their positions defined the status quo.

Like night following day, on would come the backlash. For every progressive development, a regressive reaction. Each retrograde policy met by popular pushback. And so it goes.

Lately we hear a lot about things being ‘normalized’. It’s often bandied about in terms of bad behavior getting a free pass. Things that were at one point socially unacceptable coming back in style. Or adopting a new technology before its ramifications are thoroughly thought out.

What got me thinking about how it’s most often used in terms of something getting worse. Enshittification indeed!

So I started a ponder how we might intentionally think about moving things in the other direction. How about normalizing positive change for a change?

The dance starts in your own body, your own house, your garden, your community, your culture at large. If you think about it, normalizing is the downstream effect of modeling. You, or some group of people, start modeling a behavior or belief system and the next thing you know it catches on.

So what’s your new normal? How about modeling kindness? Leaving your environment cleaner than you found it? Remembering to always hug your loved ones before they walk out the door? There are countless tiny habits and practices that we can put into action to make our world a better place.

To which I would add this. Ignore the backlash. It’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Much of the fear-mongering nonsense creating so much chaos in the world is just a reaction to the massive progress humanity has made so many levels.

We have made progress. We are making progress. And we will continue to make progress!

So keep on dancing, and keep up the good work!

Much love till next Monday!

Merci et à bientôt!

M+

ML #675

Mark Metz
Monday Love Movement Calendar