Normalcy: The Gateway To Anxiety
How our demand for conformity cultivates anxiety
As some of you may (or may not) have noticed, Absurdus has been inert for the past few months. Meanwhile, life continued on its forward track. As it tends to do. In the interim, my novel Imaginary Order can be found online and in bookstores, and I started my studies at Columbia University. All credentials that excellently mask my inner unrest.
In our quests to live a good life, we tend to choose an ultimate value around which to orient our lives. Some outside goal to numb our internal quandary. Though I thoroughly value my time at Columbia, it has verified a notions that I’ve felt for a while: there’s an expectation to think alike. To fall out of line means to endure inevitable shame. Trigger-warnings are the norm and to bring a story to class, however fictional/whimsical/fantastical it may be, that isn’t also sensible, means to face retaliation. And though I am sensitive to the wellbeing of others, I can feel a tangible correlation between conformity and anxiety. And while the latter isn’t necessarily fatal, it does slowly drain the life out of living. It places us in a constrained box, a slowly shrinking comfort zone. It fills us with regrets and guilt for wasting away our potential. The fear of “abnormality” can affect anyone, not just the deviant. As Jung stated in Problems of Modern Psychotherapy: “There are just as many people who become neurotic because they are normal, as there are people who are neurotic because they cannot become normal. That it should enter anyone’s head to educate them to normality is a nightmare for the former, because their deepest need is really to be able to lead ’abnormal’ lives.” (The word “normal”, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt).
In an unhealthy society it is difficult to detect disease. Unlike physical illnesses, which are easier to diagnose as they diverge from our known/agreed upon biological equilibrium, psychological diseases (which infect so many of us — making them the norm), are more difficult. The fully functioning person (Carl Rogers), the individuated person (Carl Jung), the autonomous person (Erich Fromm), etc., are all attempts, taken by incredibly intelligent psychologists to create a roadmap for those who want a way out of the insanity of conformity. Why is such a roadmap necessary? One reason could be that we find ourself in one of the most fear-mongering periods in history. Money and power resides in our fear, and without a well-lit way out, our captivation may not even be clear. The longer we strive for normality within our sick ecosystems, the more the development of a healthy society will remain nothing but a distant dream, thought up by some child yet to be born.
Our demand for normalcy leads to the agony of the human soul. Psychiatrist Benjamin Rush summarized it as follows: “Sanity—aptitude to judge things like other men, and regular habits, etc. Insanity a departure from this.” According to Rush, those who conform to the standards of society will be regarded as sane, no matter the health of said society. Such a measurement of global health, of course, brings to mind Brave New World: “The really hopeless victims of mental illness”, Huxley writes, “are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence… They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society.”
On a personal level, as an adolescent I was always somewhat terrified by abnormality, conscious as I was that I fell under the category. I, like many others, spent much time and energy molding myself to the “norm”. It wasn’t so much the fear of being different, but the fear of being mentally disordered in some way. That my strange preferences and quirks were indicative of underlying insanity. In short, I became terrified of my individuality. I failed repeatedly to heed the call of my conscience, to develop the idiosyncratic side of my nature. I was “ incapable of living (my) own life and finding the character that belongs to (me).” (Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation). But the Self has a way of latching on. And though my social successes acted as a barrier towards further self-exploration, I developed all kinds of bad habits to repress the thing, this Self, that wanted out. My conformity, my inability to be “abnormal”, not the abnormality itself, morphed me into a neurotic person, numbed to the core. What I needed was a symbolic death, the letting go of the familiar, in order to give way to my individualistic nature. Relationships, career choices, my habits in general (of thought and behavior), all needed to be put on the scaffold. Sacrificed so I could be “drawn out of (my)self” (Jung).
Our world has turned into one that values ease and despises fear. Fair enough. We have evolved to fear isolation, to be seen as different and so be left behind. But, to end on a cliché, what is normality anyway? According to Freud, everyone is ill to some degree, with our own unconscious neuroses which influence the way we think, feel, and behave. Why, then, this consistent battle? Why not learn to be normal in the realm of our own being? Be normal comparative to what we were birthed to be?
On another note, I will be reaching out to all of my paid subscribers, so I can send you a signed copy of Imaginary Order. Thank you for your patience and loyalty! Whoever else wants a signed copy, please email me and we can discuss the details. I look forward to corresponding with all of you via email too!
Very true. I always felt society, especially in public school, wanted to shove me in a box. I tried, but in high school I began to see that box was more of a coffin and the harder I tried to fit the worse I felt, both emotionally and physically.
I’m still working on me, dealing with years of repressed self, trauma, and anxiety, but as I do, I’m discovering that my ‘weird’ is beautiful and have come to frequently quip, “I may be weird, even a bit crazy, but it could be worse... I could be boring.”
The Cheshire Cat said it best... we are all mad here! Maybe it’s time we, as a society, embraced that.
love this post! Your critique against the suffocating nature of "norms" reminded me of the Italian theorist, Antonio Gramsci and his idea of "cultural hegemony." In a sentence, it's the idea that the elite of any given society cannot control the masses through force alone (especially if it is a "democratic" state), and so they must control society through more subtle means--through ideology. The beliefs and visions of the ruling class thus become the *expected* way of thinking about society, and to not conform to this way is to thus be punished, either by having your opinion invalidated or simply dismissed as absurd.
i also thought about Franz Kafka's short story, the trial. I think the situation is the same: josef wakes up one day to find that he is condemned--but no matter how hard he searches for answers, no answer is ever given to him. I interpret this as Kafka's way of expressing a similar sentiment as Gramsci's: society somehow punishes its own inhabitants, and there is no reason ever given. It is just what society does 😮🧐🧐🧐