Topic: How "normal" do you think you are? (Read 26280 times)

fatty · « **on:** 02 Jul 2008, 21:58 »

Okay there are few factors that should be acknowledged before this poll takes place, because they're usually what comes to mind first when we talk about sanity.

- People may say you're "crazy" or "wacky" or "weird". Doesn't mean you necessarily think you're on the 'fringes' of society. Rather, those people are probably pretty boring.
- You might think that you're slightly unusual and unique because you have "alternative tastes". Reading webcomics, socialising with the internet, strange music tastes etc. This doesn't necessarily make you "abnormal".

The kinds of "norms" I'm suggesting are like:

- interpreting things differently to those around you
- having different priorities to other people your age/gender
- how 'well-adjusted' you are
- how you compare to your friends

--

I think I'm pretty sane in the sense that I'm focused and kind of know what I want. I have different priorities and ideas to those people around me and sometimes it's frustrating, but I have lots of different friends and never really feel isolated.

IronOxide · « **Reply #1 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 22:02 »

I like to think myself pretty well adjusted, but in many places, that is a deviation from the norm. I pretty much know what I want, I think I am fun to be around, and I can take care of myself. Growing up in suburban America, that is apparently strange.

KvP · « **Reply #2 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 22:35 »

Most people like to say "normal" is a bogus term, but I'm less normal than usual.

ViolentDove · « **Reply #3 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 22:39 »

I'm curious to know whether or not anyone would consider themselves normal.

est · « **Reply #4 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 22:39 »

Compared to the average person I meet in my day to day activities I am about as normal as Tahoma is to Comic Sans.

fatty · « **Reply #5 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 23:03 »

Adam raises a good point, is being well-adjusted the "norm"? Because frankly, it seems natural for a lot of people my age to be 'ill-adjusted' around work/uni/social life, school and study, family and responsibility and shit like that.

Papersatan · « **Reply #6 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 23:16 »

I don't believe in time. No, seriously. My feelings towards time are comparable to someone realizing they don't believe in the religion they were raised on. I always took it for granted because it is such a part of all of our lives, and then I realized one day that it is all made up, and I don't believe in it. As far as having different views than other people, being 'weird' or what ever, I've always thought I was on the normal side of things, just with pink hair. I'm passionate about the modernist ideas about language, but I'm a Lit major, that's still within the realm of normal. When I started to try to tell people about my thoughts on time though I realized that no one really shares my views.

BrittanyMarie · « **Reply #7 on:** 02 Jul 2008, 23:29 »

I don't think I'm on the fringes of society by any means, but I have had vastly different experiences than most of my peers. I won't go into specifics, but I have witnessed Stuff that really no one should have to see. Many other people have seen and had to go through much worse, but it's still something that I have had to deal with.

I think that maybe because of that experience, I do things and think things that are way out of the norm. Apparently everywhere else it's normal to rarely see your extended family, and you never look forward to it. Mine is apparently exceptionally close. I don't know if that has to do with the incident or if maybe it's a regional thing.

My thought processes confuse everyone else. I tend to think in a weird way, I guess? It's rarely anything actually insightful, but the rationale I use to solve a problem makes sense to me and ... pretty much only me.

I guess I do have some pretty radical views on certain things (I think I freak the crap out of my co-intern because I think death is a positive thing in the most general sense, more so because I'm the exact opposite of what you'd call "morbid") but I don't think that's really what you're going for with this question.

Though really, I am probably much more "normal" than I think I am; everyone is a little fucked up in their own way, and it's hard for me to compare myself and my peers who are also who I would classify as deviates from a whole heck of a lot of norms to what I would consider to be a "normal" person, because I tend to stick to certain places and people that are admittedly a little "out there". I don't have enough experience with "normal" people to know how I really compare to them; especially since I have this tendency to lump people together (ie: the "type" of person who buys clothes from, say, American Eagle or Aeropostale or something I guess. Those are the people I view as normals and I am admittedly kind of biased against them and don't hang out with them even though really I'm sure there are a bunch who aren't boring and don't suck)

ackblom12 · « **Reply #8 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 00:07 »

I recently paid someone to use a scalpel and split my tongue.

In all honestly, I'm probably in the "Fringe" category. I'm incredibly different from most of the family in practically every way possible and I Imagine I must have been a very confusing child for my parents to raise. On the other hand I think i came out pretty well adjusted, depending on your definition, if not very socially awkward.

Once again, on the other hand I find it totally impossible to understand why people find 99% of the things they find strange, to be strange. Like, once I am approached wtih something that I'm unsure if I'm comfortable with, I work through it in my mind and most of the time I come to a conclusion of why it is no stranger than much of anything else and am then baffled by how other people can not see why it is not really all that strange.

Perhaps I should come back to this when it's not 3am and expand on it with a little more brain power.

Jimmy the Squid · « **Reply #9 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 00:55 »

"Normal" is a term that irks me a little as it almost seems to be an evaluative statement, with "normal" obviously being positive and "different", "abnormal" or "unusual" being negative. That said I am probably further from the "normal" end of the scale than most, at least superficially. I mean, politically I fall into the mid-left side of things, I don't necessarily have one of those "five year plans" but I do know where I would like to go with my life and I have a reasonable outline of how to do that which is maybe different to most other middle class white males in their early 20s? I don't know whether I perceive things differently but I mabe think about things and attack problems from different angles than other people I know do. For the most part I am a pretty responsible kind of guy but if I get left on my own for too long and I get bored then I start to act a little odd (eg: running around my flat pretending to be a dinosaur, snarling at household appliances etc...). On the whole I'm pretty normal, but I'm also interesting (I hope) so I'm happy with that.

Johnny C · « **Reply #10 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 01:19 »

I have a couple semantic issues with this poll.

Quote from: fatty on 02 Jul 2008, 21:58

- People may say you're "crazy" or "wacky" or "weird". Doesn't mean you necessarily think you're on the 'fringes' of society. Rather, those people are probably pretty boring.

This is fairly exclusionary language at the end, and seems to invalidate the opinions that most of the poll's respondents will be at least somewhat reliant on. After all, this is a poll which asks you to place yourself on a scale relative to other people, and you are severely handicapped in this regard by relying solely on your own definition of "normal" and how you fit or don't fit that definition. Which leads into my next point.

Quote from: fatty on 02 Jul 2008, 21:58

The kinds of "norms" I'm suggesting are like:

- interpreting things differently to those around you
- having different priorities to other people your age/gender
- how 'well-adjusted' you are
- how you compare to your friends

I feel these go hand-in-hand with what I just said.

Obviously it's possible to answer this without relying on that information but I'd wager that how others view you is as important to this if not more important than how you view yourself. Norms are external conditions that exist independently of your own behaviour and have as their judges your fellow human beings. I think it only makes sense to consider how others perceive you as well as how you perceive yourself if you are to gauge how "normal" your behaviour is.

waterloosunset · « **Reply #11 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 01:43 »

I am the norm, everyone else is different.

I don't know, I tend to wish for a bygone era more than my friends do. A bygone era as in about 100 years ago or so. I think I'd place myself in the fringe category.

fatty · « **Reply #12 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 02:42 »

Quote from: Johnny C on 03 Jul 2008, 01:19

I have a couple semantic issues with this poll.

Yes I get that. But a discussion about semantics when it comes to definition of "normal" is also worth having. The original poll question asks for a completely subjective and based on personal perception. Actually the whole post is biased, but I didn't try very hard to create an 'objective' and rationale poll.

My interest lies in what is percieved as "norm" just as much as where people believe they fall! Anyway, I'll write on this when I have more awakeness.

ruyi · « **Reply #13 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 03:32 »

I think it's normal to believe that you're abnormal.

Slick · « **Reply #14 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 05:18 »

Quote from: Papersatan on 02 Jul 2008, 23:16

I don't believe in time. No, seriously.

Pardon me, but what the hell do you mean? I just had a discussion with my housemate about 'what is time' and found it kind of irritating. I mean, do you disbelieve in the linear flow, the application of metrics, or the concept entirely? We impose our system on time and time would pass happily without our calendars, but calendars are still incredibly useful. Is your problem with the quantification of time?
Do you not believe in time at all? Like, completely not believing in time is, as far as I see it, like trying to disbelieve a spatial dimension. Like what is motion without time? I don't understand.

I am not trying to be a dick but I really want to know what would ever make you say those words.

Cartilage Head · « **Reply #15 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 05:26 »

I guess I am a little smarter than a lot of people my age.. I also don't do a lot of the things considered "fun" by a lot of folks at or around my age (drinking, drugs, lots o' sex).

Aztex · « **Reply #16 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 06:44 »

If normal is what the greatest percentage of the population does, then yeah I'm pretty abnormal

.

I'd say I like to do things differently most of the time, and it's pretty noticeable. It's fun though, and that's what counts rite?

jhocking · « **Reply #17 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 06:55 »

I have had discussions with friends/colleagues about how I'm a lot more normal than most artists, and wondered if that'll hamper my artistic growth. The point of sharing this little anecdote is to point out that while I'm slightly odd by the standards of the majority of people, I'm pretty vanilla by the standards of artists. Moreover, the ways in which I'm odd tend to skew toward excessively nerdy, rather than what most people think of as weird or crazy.

Giving some specific examples of what I mean, I don't dress odd or have strange hobbies or anything, but I definitely have different priorities in life than most people do.

Liz · « **Reply #18 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 06:58 »

I'm honestly pretty goddamn normal. I might be a little eccentric at times but I function properly and I've never had mental problems of any sort.

0bsessions · « **Reply #19 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 07:08 »

Quote from: Slick on 03 Jul 2008, 05:18

Pardon me, but what the hell do you mean? I just had a discussion with my housemate about 'what is time' and found it kind of irritating. I mean, do you disbelieve in the linear flow, the application of metrics, or the concept entirely? We impose our system on time and time would pass happily without our calendars, but calendars are still incredibly useful. Is your problem with the quantification of time?
Do you not believe in time at all? Like, completely not believing in time is, as far as I see it, like trying to disbelieve a spatial dimension. Like what is motion without time? I don't understand.

I am not trying to be a dick but I really want to know what would ever make you say those words.

I actually had the same argument with someone about five years ago. She was a friend of a friend and I am pretty sure she was off her fucking nut. She refused to admit that time existed in any linear manner. In my summation, it's all just bullshit pseudo-science from wannabe intellectuals who want to look special and out-there, so they subscribe to some bullshit notion that doesn't make shit worth of sense.

The argument actually cost me a date like a year later, too. Turned out the nutbag was friends with a girl I went on a single date with who, upon hearing from her friend that I was a close minded prick, avoided me for a while.

Lines · « **Reply #20 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 07:17 »

I get told a lot that I am weird or things I do/don't enjoy doing are not "normal". Then again, I have absolutely no desire to be "normal" because I find normal exceedingly boring. I like quirks. Also, I don't really get the whole idea about wanting to be different. I think the "wanting to be like everyone else" thing confuses me more than why people don't like weirdness.

But overall, I consider myself sane and sometimes I feel I'm more sane than other people. I still picked fringe, though, because what I find to be weird are what most people seem to do/believe/say.

mooface · « **Reply #21 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 07:55 »

i put that i'm "on the fringe" but i'm not sure if i'm actually that weird. i mean, i am pretty different from most people i know and it can be pretty frustrating at times. a few things that jump to my mind are:

- i would rather go on a picnic than go drinking.
- most of the girls i know are really, really fucking stupid with guys. i could never imagine making the mistakes that they make.
- i think people place too much emphasis on whether they are "straight" or "gay"
- i have internet friends

although these things make me really different from the people around me i don't know if they qualify me as "abnormal". for one thing, i am sure there are plenty of people who think like me, or who are similar to me, but i just don't know them. and for another thing, i think that everyone has weird quirks about them that makes them different to everyone else - it's just that these quirks differ from person to person.

for example, although i am probably by far the weirdest of my roommates (i look weirder and i am the nerdiest one) i am definitely the sanest. i am odd in the sense that i have an almost non-existent social life when i'm in italy because i hate just about everything my that peers enjoy, but i overall am a happy person - i accept what my circumstances are and i work around them. my roommates appear to be much more normal and well-adjusted than i am - they go clubbing and would never dye their hair purple. but one has weird hygiene issues and has regular mental breakdowns, another can't handle any aspect of her life - whether it's school, work or friendships - because she has no concept of consequences, and the third roommate is a bit delusional in general, and manages to make every wrong decision possible when it concerns romantic relationships - almost as if she is willfully trying to work against reason and rational thinking. i would much rather have my eccentricities than theirs!

Dimmukane · « **Reply #22 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 08:13 »

If by norm you mean typical college male in Maryland, then I'm somewhat off-base. Around here the norm is that of a typical fraternity brother, minus the obnoxiousness. Get drunk on the weekends, hopefully hook up with an equally drunk college female, go to most of your classes. Probably a communications major. Enjoys any movies involving the Frat Pack, Family Guy, Simpsons, bad sitcoms. Doesn't read much, listens to Jack Johnson and Muse, and Lil' Wayne. Hopes to have an office job someday, get married and have a kid or two, probably wants to stay in Maryland.

I don't like drinking much. While I'm interested in girls, I've never made it a priority to hook up with any. Mostly this is due to any of them who show interest being crazy, but also my tendency to think things through too far ahead. I tend to not like most of the movies everyone else in my area does (I was actually quite upset that I got outvoted to watch Wanted instead of Wall-E). Same goes for television. I typically watch four kinds of things: mindless stuff (Cops, America's Funniest Videos), History/Discovery channel programs, The Daily Show, and Adult Swim cartoons/Simpsons. I don't make a point of watching every episode, either.

I am majoring in a degree that boils down to video game design (the actual title is longer). I want to someday work for a well-respected developer, move to Canada, go to conventions all over the world. Getting married, at least right now, doesn't have to be part of the equation. I also have ambitions of being a screenwriter/director/actor/musician, but haven't had any real schooling in these areas. I plan on at least trying to write a movie, co-direct, and act in it; and maybe release an album or something (not necessarily for profit). I hope I get a chance to work on something I can consider my magnum opus, to at least be a footnote in human history.

I'm also typically far more patient than most people in my area. I tend to live life on a daily basis, rather than have a plan for everything. I think it keeps me from getting upset if something goes wrong, and is also less structured and therefore more interesting. Dying is also not a concern of mine. The way I see things, I will be reincarnated. Not with any memory of previous lives or ideals, or connected to my original mind in anyway, but as a new person, who will get to see and hear and feel things that I haven't.

As I'm still not entirely sure what you mean, I'll leave it at that.

Papersatan · « **Reply #23 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 08:45 »

Quote from: Slick on 03 Jul 2008, 05:18

Quote from: Papersatan on 02 Jul 2008, 23:16
I don't believe in time. No, seriously.

Pardon me, but what the hell do you mean?

Certainly the earth continues to turn with out us having a way to mark it. The sun rises every day and I am getting older. It's not that I refuse to admit that, it's just our system of dividing it is arbitrary and I feel like the people around me don't understand that. In the beginning the words we used to describe time were just tools to make talking about something so abstract possible. Winter, summer, year, day, thats fine. I don;t want to plat all my crops on the first warm day in February because I didn't know it wasn't spring yet. I might have some issue with 'Fridays' being more valuable than 'Mondays', but I fell like people don't let that rule their lives as much, particularly since as a world we still use more than one system to divide the year. What really irks me is clocks not calendars. It used to be noon when the sun was highest in the sky. That's useful to have a name for, and then from that we divide the day into units. But we didn't all use to have clocks so it was an approximation, and so I figure people probably didn't let the arbitrary numbers rule their lives. Then the railroads came and it was decided that we needed the time zone things because it was ridiculous to have it be a hundred different times in one state, it's more useful if we have less times to worry about. Then we decided that we needed daylight savings time. And then in the first half of last century they changed the definition of a second. While it still used to be based on the revolution of the earth around the sun, now it based on the decay of an isotope. The thing is, all of this would be ok, if people still treated it like a useful tool, but people run their lives around it. Now we all have precise clocks and we all use them to gauge our lives. "Oh god, I'm so lazy, I slept until 11:00" "Oh it's 6:00 I have to go eat dinner." ("My God, it's not even noon, you can't have a margarita..."

) People get so stressed out about it, and its all fake, I mean it is only 11:38:53 because Congress decided it was and if I am hungry I will eat, and if I am tired I will go back to bed. Certainly I'm not suggesting that we should do everything when ever we want. I mean I have to go to work and it is not useful if I show up 12 hours late, or early. If I want to benefit from my classes I need to be there when they start. But people check their clocks constantly and they let them run their lives. In class people start packing their books 5 minutes before class ends, because they are less concerned with learning, than with leaving the room at 1:50 when the class is over. But on the other hand some professors will lock the door at 2:00:01 so maybe some of them have a reason to panic and race to the next class. People get mad when someone is 5 minutes late meeting them. It just all seems stupid to me. It doesn't help people it makes them more stressed out.
I liken it to someone believing that there is a God, because that can be a useful way to try and make sense of the big abstract concepts in the world. But then compare that with someone who lets their religion rule their life (which some would argue is what a religion should do). It seems silly to someone on the outside that people don't eat meat and milk in the same meal, or won't eat pork, or wouldn't get married on a certain day because it is not an auspicious day according to the charts or would torture and kill people for not following the same arbitrary rules.

MadassAlex · « **Reply #24 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 08:58 »

Quote

- interpreting things differently to those around you

In this way I am abnormal. I interpret things on a level that is more basic than others, or rather I see through unneeded information and simplify things for myself, so I can hit the crux of the concept being put before me. Other people are more easily distracted by extraneous data.

Quote

- having different priorities to other people your age/gender

Definitely. Truth over security and freedom over safety, both in emotional and psychological ways. I like to believe that I lie to myself less than others do and see the flaws in our perception of "freedom". It's all very pretentious and long-winded. Long explanation made short, I think I've reconciled with my own flaws and the flaws in my viewpoints far earlier and more effectively than most of my age group.
This means my major priority is to become a person I'm happy with, who I think deserves the love of others.

Quote

- how 'well-adjusted' you are

I dip into and out of depression monthly or fortnightly. It's not clinical, but I doubt it's normal to feel the way I often do. On the other hand, I am quite in control of my emotions.

Quote

- how you compare to your friends

Really general. I'm the most intelligent, but physically weakest of them. If my friends and I were in D&D, I would be the Sorceror or Wizard. With a few levels of Bard.

I am completely aware that the above makes me sound like a douchebag of the highest degree, but honestly I can't see the point in lying about my viewpoint when it comes to my own behaviours and thought processes.

Dimmukane · « **Reply #25 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 09:12 »

So your concept of time is kinda like how math only works because we assume we're using the correct system of numbers?

yelley · « **Reply #26 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 09:30 »

i don't know how i would compare to my friends of my own age... since i've moved to california i don't really have any friends of my own age. most of the people i see outside of work are closer to 30 or older and are knitting friends, which i guess already makes me not normal. but when i was in college and shortly after, when most people i hung around with were my age, it was pretty clear to me that i am not all that normal.

ways that i feel i differ from the average person of my age...
-i don't like to go out to bars and clubs and stuff. at first i thought it was because those places are smoky and i can't handle smoke... but now that smoking isn't allowed in those places, i still don't want to go. i just don't like going out and paying ridiculous amounts for drinks and listening to music i don't like while watching everyone try desperately to score a mate for the night. maybe i'm going to the wrong places?
-my idea of an awesome saturday night - knitting and watching ninja warrior.
-i get along with my family and i genuinely enjoy their company. growing up i rarely had any problems with my parents or how they were raising me. yes, they were a little over-protective at times, but even then i understood why.
-watching other people destroy their relationships or stay in relationships that destroy them kills me. so many people that i know seem to enjoy sabotaging things! women who make a big deal out of everything and seem to enjoy the drama that ensues... what the hell? i don't get it. relationships aren't easy, but they're not all that hard either. people that can't see that they deserve better for themselves... i can't live like that anymore and i am starting to forget how anyone else can. granted i had some pretty extreme experiences with this before i finally learned not to take shit from people...
-if i want something, i'm going to do what it takes to get it. if i like a guy, none of this sitting at home wondering, wishing he'd call, debating about it shit. i will do something about it and find out if he likes me too. if not, he's not worth my time, move on to someone else. i don't get people that don't go after what they want.
-i think it is perfectly fine to have a network of friends that lives in my computer. traveling across the country to meet up with people that you don't technically know, perfectly okay. also it is fine to date them. ^_^
-if you guys knew what sort of stupid shit jason and i talk about when no one else is around... well let's not get any further into that.

that being said... i don't feel abnormal either.

Caleb · « **Reply #27 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 09:47 »

This is such a hard question to answer.

I think most people wouldn't consider themselves "normal".

Honestly I never really fit in anywhere and I don't make friends very easily.

I did well on standardized tests and did well in all schoolwork without working too hard. But I am not really smart. Not in a way that let me make a ton of money or anything. Plus I am too lazy to really do any of the "important" things that would get me ahead in society.

I don't really have any strong views on anything. Except that people lie to themselves too much.

It seems like sometimes I am just sleeping through life and sometimes I wake up and I realize just how separated I am from reality.

I dunno. I mean I suppose from the outside I am doing well. I have a cake library job through the city. I get to help people with genealogy questions and order books. I am paying off my college dues and own my car.

But I still don't have any friends and I don't believe in anything because most other people on this planet seemed to be filled to the brim with horseshit. I am am scared to death that I am missing out on something and that I just did something I could find out really matters.

Thlayli · « **Reply #28 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 09:58 »

Ha. I spend most of every day dealing with people who have Axis II disorders. I know for a fact that I'm one of the sanest people around.

However, to answer this in the spirit in which it was presented, I think most people have some sort of group in which they're considered 'normal'. Even crazy people don't seem quite so odd when the only people they interact with are other headcases. I don't drink heavily, do drugs, or sleep with slutty girls, so I don't fit in with other young guys; but whenever I hang out with people ten to thirty years older than me, I fit in perfectly.

Sox · « **Reply #29 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 11:50 »

Every single person is different!

Dissy · « **Reply #30 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 12:42 »

I am on the fringe. Certain people do not understand me, or some of the crazy stuff I do with friends/family. Like yelley.

Slick · « **Reply #31 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 13:07 »

Quote from: Papersatan on 03 Jul 2008, 08:45

WORDS

It seems like you have a lot of problems with the way people deal with, react to, and think about time. I don't think that qualifies as 'disbelieving in time'. Saying you do not believe in time is kind of misleading in my opinion. To me it sounds like you are saying "I do not in spatial dimensions" when in fact you have issues with the metric or imperial systems.
And while 11:38:53 may seem fairly arbitrary, so is language. A common time system just lets us interact and communicate efficiently. I understand that some people are really picky about being five minutes late and this is annoying, but busy people need to get stuff done without waste.
Why do I need a standard time thing? So I can know when to leave my house to make it to the airport. Better yet, when do I leave Toronto to get back in time to make it to work and relieve the person that's been there eight hours over-night.

est · « **Reply #32 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 18:22 »

That most people are saying things like "everyone believes they are not normal", questioning the semantics of the original post & just generally saying that this is a hard question to answer makes me kind of happy! I am pretty glad that this thread didn't turn into a "omg, I am liek, soooo abnormal"-fest, because that would be pretty shit.

So anyway, I made my Tahoma-Comic Sans reference because while I think I am a pretty normal kind of guy I work with a bunch of people who are completely different to me, but also normal. Y'know, the kind of people who think that using comic sans in emails and company memos makes it seem more cheerful? Those fuckers. I may disagree with them on just about everything, but it doesn't mean that either of us are odd. We're just different people.

ViolentDove · « **Reply #33 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 19:39 »

Quote from: est on 03 Jul 2008, 18:22

So anyway, I made my Tahoma-Comic Sans reference because while I think I am a pretty normal kind of guy I work with a bunch of people who are completely different to me, but also normal. Y'know, the kind of people who think that using comic sans in emails and company memos makes it seem more cheerful? Those fuckers. I may disagree with them on just about everything, but it doesn't mean that either of us are odd. We're just different people.

Here was me thinking you were a typography nerd. Good thing I didn't make any jokes about fonts and such.

Blue Kitty · « **Reply #34 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 19:48 »

Normal-esque

From time to time I enjoy having conversations with myself in weird voices, laughing at odd pitches, or even barking out the window at cars that I drive by. Often when I wash my face I believe I look like the Joker, crack the biggest smile I can, and ask the mirror, "Why so serious?"

Cernunnos · « **Reply #35 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 21:17 »

Quote from: Sox on 03 Jul 2008, 11:50

Every single person is different!

Exactly! Normal is a setting on the dishwasher.

yelley · « **Reply #36 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 21:58 »

Quote from: tommydski on 03 Jul 2008, 18:32

If it provides any comfort at all, you are a biological marvel. Your inner workings and functions are astounding. The fact that you are alive to read this makes you absolutely incredible. Don't fuck it up, you have a finite amount of time to enjoy this preposterously unlikely scenario we call life.

. . . i'm kind of depressed now. i am spending my finite amount of time pipetting small amounts of liquid back and forth and talking to people in my computer. i should travel more.

IronOxide · « **Reply #37 on:** 03 Jul 2008, 22:18 »

What about working towards a non-viable career?

I'm going to be a fucking dragonslayer.

fatty · « **Reply #38 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 00:23 »

OFF-TOPIC

Quote from: Papersatan on 03 Jul 2008, 08:45

Quote from: Slick on 03 Jul 2008, 05:18
Quote from: Papersatan on 02 Jul 2008, 23:16
I don't believe in time. No, seriously.

Pardon me, but what the hell do you mean?

Certainly the earth continues to turn with out us having a way to mark it. The sun rises every day and I am getting older. It's not that I refuse to admit that, it's just our system of dividing it is arbitrary and I feel like the people around me don't understand that.

The thing is, all of this would be ok, if people still treated it like a useful tool, but people run their lives around it. Now we all have precise clocks and we all use them to gauge our lives.

I liken it to someone believing that there is a God, because that can be a useful way to try and make sense of the big abstract concepts in the world. But then compare that with someone who lets their religion rule their life (which some would argue is what a religion should do). It seems silly to someone on the outside that people don't eat meat and milk in the same meal, or won't eat pork, or wouldn't get married on a certain day because it is not an auspicious day according to the charts or would torture and kill people for not following the same arbitrary rules.

I'm sorry, but this is just stupid. Likening the existence of Time to God is not really suitable. Time exists and it is considered a 'fundamental quantity'. God is a belief, an act of faith in believing in something that can not be proven.

What you are referring to is not time itself, but the metric quanitifcation of time being arbitary and 'meaningless'. In which case, the comparison to belief in God is slightly more appropriate. But when one person says they do not believe in God, it is assumed they do not believe in a higher 'spiritual' being. By admitting that you actually do think the measurement of time exists, you can not say you don't believe in it.

Furthermore, Slick's assertion is completely accurate, every form of measurement and communication is arbitary. Just because you don't like the effect of exact measurement of time, doesn't mean you can say it ceases to exist in your reality.

The way you have distinguished measurements of time such as seasons/years and hours/minutes has no grounds. If you eat when you are hungry and not because it's noon, that is still obviously affected by the time it takes for your body to have digested the last meal and let your brain know it's hungry.

If time actually does not exist in your reality, and my interpretation is completely wrong, I love to read an elaboration of what your alternative concept is.

Caspian · « **Reply #39 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 02:39 »

I like to think that I'm relatively krazy (not the K instead of a C, thus showing just how unusual I am). But chances are I'm probably not that weird. I like some relatively weird music; I'm pretty antisocial and I guess a bit unfriendly, much of my value system is stuck in the 50s, and when I'm not working I tend to just go down south and spend my week off (I work in the mines on a fly in fly out thing, see) surfing by myself. I like to think I'm a weird dude, but fact is that I'm mostly likely just another faceless automaton (as we all are) consuming products like a bunch of sheep sitting around in a paddock chewing grass.

heather · « **Reply #40 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 03:08 »

I am Batman.

MadassAlex · « **Reply #41 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 03:39 »

Quote from: fatty on 04 Jul 2008, 00:23

TIME DOES NOT HEAL DARK ANGEL FUCK YEAH

I think the idea here is that time is an abstract concept, in that it has no physical existence. We just named and put a system to the measurement of a sequence of events. So time, really literally, doesn't exist even though it does. I think it's kind of a pointless thing to argue because things will happen regardless of our conclusions about time.

Also, ON TOPIC, I would argue that NORMALCY IS A LIE. I don't think anyone feels truly normal, which is evidence enough for me that being "normal" is pretty impossible.

Caspian · « **Reply #42 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 03:42 »

Hey, someone did a reference to dark angel? I can't believe I missed that.

THE CITY IS EMPTY! THE CRIME IS LIFE! THE SENTENCE IS DEATH! DARKNESS DESCENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

etc.

parm · « **Reply #43 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 04:22 »

So, recently I had a job interview where they gave me one of those stupid personality questionnaire things (not Myers-Briggs, but something like it). The idea was that it was supposed to rank you against certain personality traits and then indicate how well you'd, say, work in a team or what style of working you're best suited to or whatever. Anyway, I got pissed off with the test because for each question, you were given a set of 7 fixed answers, and then had ten "points" to split between at most three of them to indicate how they reflected you; frequently, none of the answers quite fit, and other times, some did but with caveats, and so on.

When my test came back, the interviewer had a quizzical look on her face. Apparently my results were "unusual". I'd ranked highly in two categories - two categories at opposite ends of a spectrum. Well, says I, I found that for many of the questions, I could say which "end" of the spectrum I was - there are times when, for example, I am dead sociable and talkative, and there are other times when I just want the world to fuck off and leave me alone - and so I just distributed the points evenly. I was surprised that they were surprised at this, because surely everyone is like this? People might tend one way or another, but unless you've got some sort of borderline personality disorder, surely everyone is a little bit of everything?

Anyway, I didn't get the job, and I'm can't say as I was terribly upset by that, because anyone hiring on the basis of trying to pigeonhole people into artificial categories probably isn't hiring for the kind of job I want to do, and anyone who is willing to let themselves be pigeonholed is probably setting themselves up for a fall later on.

I think what I'm trying to say is that if you start trying to quantify what constitutes a "normal" person, you get into difficulties very quickly. Sure, there's edge-case things like psychologically disturbed people, people with sociopathic tendencies and that, but most people, by statistical definition (and by whatever measure you choose to quantify on) are within a standard deviation from the norm - and equally, I'm sure if you pick the categories carefully enough, you can find something for which you lie in the 99.9th percentile too.

Stop worrying about whether you're normal, and go fly a kite or something. Kites are awesome.

MadassAlex · « **Reply #44 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 04:31 »

Quote from: parm on 04 Jul 2008, 04:22

Stop worrying about whether you're normal, and go fly a kite or something. Kites are awesome.

That's something that normal people do.

McTaggart · « **Reply #45 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 06:00 »

Umm, the way I see it is that biologically and structurally and physically we're all pretty much the same thing. From here, I think that since we're basically the same, we should all respond to the same things in the same way. However, this is clearly not the case, and the way people respond to situations depends on their past experiences. So you include those past experiences into the set of things that people use for their descision making. However, the situations you end up in depend on other people's descisions too, you need to include everyone else in the set of things that affect people's actions. Essentially people are like incredibly complex and chaotic functions of a huge number of complicated initial conditions. Everyone's thoughts and actions are governed by the same function, but everyone's initial conditions are different.

So I'm perfectly normal, as is everyone else on a fundamental level.

Naturally, all the states that people are in would be different and you could do statisical things to see what is 'normal' or 'average', but that requires far too many value judgements to terribly meaningful in the long run.

jhocking · « **Reply #46 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 08:13 »

Quote from: est on 03 Jul 2008, 18:22

Y'know, the kind of people who think that using comic sans in emails and company memos makes it seem more cheerful? Those fuckers.

Dimmukane · « **Reply #47 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 08:16 »

My design and typography teachers taped this to their door when I printed it out for them.

KvP · « **Reply #48 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 14:12 »

Quote from: McTaggart on 04 Jul 2008, 06:00

Umm, the way I see it is that biologically and structurally and physically we're all pretty much the same thing. From here, I think that since we're basically the same, we should all respond to the same things in the same way. However, this is clearly not the case, and the way people respond to situations depends on their past experiences. So you include those past experiences into the set of things that people use for their descision making. However, the situations you end up in depend on other people's descisions too, you need to include everyone else in the set of things that affect people's actions. Essentially people are like incredibly complex and chaotic functions of a huge number of complicated initial conditions. Everyone's thoughts and actions are governed by the same function, but everyone's initial conditions are different.

So I'm perfectly normal, as is everyone else on a fundamental level.

Naturally, all the states that people are in would be different and you could do statisical things to see what is 'normal' or 'average', but that requires far too many value judgements to terribly meaningful in the long run.

I would agree with this, but while we're all made up of the same stuff and are similar up to a point, it seems like the most miniscule differences in conditions can produce profoundly different results such that our apparent similarities are largely irrelevant in any case. I don't know if that makes any sense. It causes me to wonder, if you could control conditions absolutely, could you "recreate" a person exactly?

Nodaisho · « **Reply #49 on:** 04 Jul 2008, 16:23 »

Well, I suppose my problem with discerning normalcy is what frame of reference to use. Within my subcultures, I think I am pretty normal, but to people that aren't on the internet frequently, jokes I make might make no sense, to people that don't listen to the same music, my music references will indubitably leave them uncomprehending, I am sure there are other examples that I simply can't think of right now.

I do tend to have odd thought progressions, though. They make some sense to me, but just about none to the people around me. Also, my personality changes a lot depending on the mood I am in, if you see me saying contradictory thins about my personality or my outlook on life, it is because it has changed since I made the last post, and will certainly change again before long.

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(Please read the post first) Where do think you fall on the bell-curve of 'normality'?

Author Topic: How "normal" do you think you are? (Read 26280 times)

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