As I mentioned in my last post, I have been endeavoring “to learn to accept humans as we are.” After a brush with Buddhism reassured me that I am not the first person to grapple with pain, I turned to psychology, which has been more specifically helpful.

To Err is Human

Since my last post, I have learned about a few other common psychological phenomena, such as: The human tendency to cling to illusions with strong emotional content even after they have been proved to be illusory. Then there’s the extreme inconsistency in human judgment (known as psychological “noise”), not only between one human and another, but by the same human at different times, depending on personal factors unrelated to the matter under consideration, factors such as the weather, and whether the judger’s team won or lost the big game last night.

And let us not neglect “naive realism,” the tendency to believe that one’s own perceptions are accurate, and people who disagree must be interpreting sensory data incorrectly. I often believe that, but in my case, I’m sure it’s actually true. Right? Because 10% of people are neither optimism-biased nor pessimism-biased. Why couldn’t one of them be me?

Normal Abnormalities

In an effort to put more useful things into my brain than the trolling of Facebook commentors who are probably not humans at all, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts recently. They have not only provided the enlightening psychological concepts mentioned above, but real life stories that illustrate how widely erroneous humans are in our perceptions and behaviors. I, for example, have clearly been assuming most humans are rational, in defiance of my entire life experience to the contrary. Maybe I am optimism-biased after all. Or some other kind of normally misconceptive. Cognitively dissonant? Confirmation biased? So many erroneous perspectives to choose from…

It is weirdly comforting to be reminded just how deeply flawed humans are, not only because it provides explanations for the behavior of others, but because it gives a context to my own. All through my years of untreated depression, I had a love/hate relationship with “normality.” This originated in a childhood where my reactions were discounted as “crazy” by family members whenever I expressed distress. Social stigma against the mentally disordered picked up where my family left off, so that I never knew how much to trust feedback about myself from others. Were they projecting, or gaslighting, or was there really something “wrong” with me? All three, as it turned out.

Abnormal Abnormalities?

Being an introvert with a small social circle further exacerbated my sense of ignorance about what “normal” might be, and whether I fit into it at all. Once I realized I was clinically depressed, I shifted from trying to appear “normal” by some external standard to finding my own “normal,” defined as me minus the depression.

For the past decade or so, my exploration of personality in general and mine in particular has provided new frameworks for “normal for me.” Introvert “normal” in particular has reframed a lot of behavior that was actually working just fine for me, but that some imaginary critical therapist in my head insisted was “unhealthy.” A brief sojourn in a gigantic HSP Facebook group last year gave me a sense of an HSP norm. But I still feel that I don’t really know what most peoples’ concept of “normal” is. My circle of friends is still small and I have my doubts about whether any of them represent American normalcy.

Maybe there is no such thing. Maybe everyone assumes their definition is the same as everyone else’s, without ever checking that out. It wouldn’t surprise me. Sometimes the most oppressive concepts are those with no fixed meaning. How can you fight that?

Nobody is Normal

During a previous crisis of disenchantment with my country and compatriots, I first came across the books of Studs Terkel. If you aren’t familiar with them, he conducted a series of in-depth interviews on a specific topic with people from many different walks of life, and assembled them into books. He is best known for his books on WWII, the Depression (historical period, not mental disorder), and working life.

Feeling like a political and social outsider at the time, I was struck by both the variety and depth of the perspectives he recorded. In what may have been my first major reframe, I began to see beyond political stereotypes to the individuals behind them. This had a big impact on my conception of what really forms – and changes – history (and also on what counts as “activism,” but that’s another post).

Considering the political turbulence I grew up with as a psychological outcome of our national history, not necessarily a reflection of humans in general, made me hopeful. Our unique geography makes it too easy for the U.S. to maintain a mostly self-referential concept of normalcy, which results in vast misconceptions about how we are perceived outside of our own little bubble. Maybe my struggle to identify “normal” is less personal than I think.

Finding Normality in a Set of One

So getting back to my imaginary critical therapist (for those of you familiar with Transactional Analysis, a thinly disguised Critical Parent), one of her most persistent admonitions is that I “isolate” too much. The recognition that I’m an introvert gave me some fertile fodder with which to fight back. But perhaps I haven’t been able to completely defeat her because there is a grain of truth – albeit a small one – in her chastisements.

Socializing singly, and often remotely (even before COVID) with a very small group of people gives me no sense of what normalcy is, and where I stand in relation to it. This is not so important for whether I “fit in” or not – I really don’t care much about that. But it’s very important in assessing the reactions and perceptions of others in our interactions.

Know What You Diverge From

Normalcy is a context. Understanding how that context applies to our selves (or doesn’t) is essential to effectively navigating within it.

Studs Terkel lived almost a century, but he is gone now. Which is a shame. I’d love to see his book on “Normal.”

Brain Feeds

Podcasts I have been listening to:

Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown – Bialik is best known as an actress (Amy on Big Bang Theory), but is also a real-life neuroscientist who identifies as an HSP. Her YouTube video/podcasts – in a long, hour-and-a-halfish format – are as educational as a mirror of how highly verbal and intellectually excitable HSPs appear to others as for her topics on the workings of our brains.

The Hidden Brain, Crazytown and 99% Invisible podcasts also feature stories on the weird working of the human mind. It turns out I’m not the only person curious about why people think what they think, and what (if anything) can persuade them to think otherwise. Surprise!