A short while ago, I realised I wasn’t normal. Nothing unusual about this- these thoughts pop up in my head from time to time, usually whilst hopping up a staircase shouting ‘bing’ every time I land (yeah, I get weird occasionally). But, this time, I was actually just sitting in a car, driving down a rural lane. These roads are generally hedged on either side, and these hedges are pruned in about November. As such, by February, their previously neat, regular shapes have generally become more shaggy, although still distinguishable, most notably towards the top of the hedge where the shape is still fairly obvious, with some sparse bits of longer hedge extending above the more densely packed mass. The moment I realised that I was being genuinely weird was after half a mile’s enjoyment of a typical game for me under such circumstances- imagining there are lasers coming out of my eyes and staring at the hedge/stragglier bits dividing line, trying to imaginary-cut the top bits off, and remembering to blink every time a lamp post cut across my field of vision.
Such is one example of quite how my brain works. I never formally realised that I always do this upon sight of such hedges, or that I have only said the words ‘happy birthday’ twice in the last 25 or so Facebook birthday messages I’ve written, or that I’ve only recently stopped blinking every time a car goes past when sitting on the top deck of a double-decker bus, or that I have once given serious consideration (upon cutting my finger open), to sticking it in a water glass and not putting a plaster on it, to see a) how long it takes to stop bleeding and b) see how much blood it would produce. The thing is, it took until I started thinking about it that I realised this isn’t how people usually think or behave.
And yet, I AM normal in so many other ways. I speak like everyone around me, talk on Facebook in a similar style and using similar words to most of my friends, live in a normal house in a normal street in a normal suburban area, am surrounded by normal people, laugh, joke, play cards, chat, wander, do my bits of sport, all like any other normal guy. Normality is, I suppose, entirely relative and field-specific, like so many other things.
What is normality, really? Merely the absence of difference? Maybe a critic would say it is synonymous with boredom and lack of independence, but the people who say that are typically, on a base level normal themselves. Independence does not make you not normal, does not stop you from living in a robot apartment or talking like any other person. It makes you individual to be sure, and makes you different, but abnormal? No. Well, I suppose that at least partly answers the question.
Am I really abnormal? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s just a figment of my mind. Maybe everyone does think like this, and just no-one admits it. Maybe I’m just being self-centred, thinking I’m more different and special than I am. I hope not- those kind of people are some of the most smug, hateful people I’ve ever met. Maybe what I think of as abnormal is exactly the same as how the cynics a la above think of themselves- they think they’re abnormal, just as I do, but, when it comes down to it, they are just like everyone else.
Does it matter? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s just a passing thing. Maybe it’s just part of who I am. Maybe nobody I know really notices, maybe they stand out like a mile. I wouldn’t know- I don’t really know anyone who’s different in that way. Or maybe I do? They don’t seem to treat me any different- or do they? Maybe if who I was were different, I would be treated differently. Maybe not. Who can tell?
Ach, I dunno. Not really sure, to be honest, what I’m writing. Certainly don’t know why. I suppose I am, really, fulfilling what it says in that little ‘About’ box- “this is a small viewing hole into my mind”. Well, what you see in front of you here is just my train of thought, running here and there. Condensed a bit, of course, and resized- normally something like this would take 30 seconds to wander through my head, if it were allowed to run its course. This one has been somewhat forcibly drawn out to its present length, been forced to take its time and wait. To pause every few minutes while I change tabs, while I muse around. It’s a weird experience committing a train of thought to paper. Well, to a server at least. Would that be called e-paper, or does that only refer to a kindle or e-reader. Ach, I don’t know.
Ooh look, starting and finishing a paragraph the same. Symbolism n shit.
I’m not really sure how to end this- trains of thought typically don’t end as such, or at least not in my case. Once in a while a definitive thought comes out of them, but for the majority of the time they just sort of peter out, crushed under the weight of the next one. Like that bit of conversation you really wanted to say before someone butted in with their own thing and the subject got changed, it must be swallowed and forgotten. Or at least stored for another time…
The Ramblings of Ix 