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Life, Normality, Perfection, and ramblings.; Read it. You know you want to......
Topic Started: 13th October 2007 - 08:21 AM (333 Views)
GrimviewGrot
The Uber-Grot
All right... I'm bored... so... I'm just going to ramble. :P Bear with me... if it makes sense, this could be interesting. If not, it'll be quite entertaining for me to see reactions nonetheless. ^_^ OMFG, Grimview using colour?! Yes. I'm gonna start using colour. Shush.

To start off with... people - of every generation - seem obsessed with the concept of "normality." The problem with this, of course, is that the very concept of normality is flawed. Normality relies upon all people having certain traits in common; for something to be "normal," it must have certain things identical with other things - by default, that conflicts with the very nature of human personality and thought. We all think in different ways. We all see the world in different ways. We each have our own idea of what is beautiful and what isn't; what's good music and what's bad; what one should and should not do in life; what is and is not acceptable. No two people on this planet have any of these things 100%, or even 99%, or anything anywhere over perhaps 75%, in common.

When you analyse all of these things, from person to person, all you find is that each new person is increasingly different. Some people may have similar opinions on things, but no one will ever share the exact same opinion with the exact same vehemency as any other person. This, in and of itself, defeats normality - because to be normal means conforming to the common traits. Because no two people ever have anything that is actually completely common between them - similar, but not exact, which is what is required for a "common trait" (think mathematics and factoring) - there can never actually be a "normal" standard of "common traits" between everyone to conform to... thus meaning that it is, quite literally, impossible for anyone to be "normal."

And if it's impossible for anyone to be normal, it makes it impossible for normality to exist... yet people still strive to be "normal," to "fit in," and all that other complete and utter tripe. Why does anyone care about fitting in? Why does anyone want to be "normal?" Why do we strive to be like others, rather than striving to be ourselves, and accepting eachother for who each of us really is? Is it such a scary thought to reveal our personalities to eachother, bare it all, to be honest and open and not hide behind "norms," and what's accepted, and the conventional, and all this other crap?

Each and every person is unique. Even people born as identical twins (usually) will grow up to have radically different personalities, and will often, despite being called "identical," have minor discrepancies in physical appearance, noticeable only after prolonged periods of time spent with either twin. No two people look exactly alike; no two people think exactly alike; no two people speak exactly alike; no two people see the world the same way; and most importantly, no person on this planet will ever live up to the standards that the term "normal" implies: Complete conformity and agreement with every other human being on this planet. To do so would mean not only the total erasure of their own personality, but enough inborn personality conflicts to quite likely drive them insane. :P

And now, another thing that, despite the impossibility of achieving it, people strive for - Perfection. Modern society - especially Western society - has a disgusting obsession, and twisted interest, in perfection. We only see people with flawless skin in advertisements; we only see women with what some jackass in a design studio decided was "the best shape" on tv, in magazines, in movies, and the rest; we only see men that are either sporting a six pack, or (and this is a rather recent development) unhealthily thin; we only see the rich and the famous, the fake and the unattainable, wherever we go, in every form of media, in every possible medium around us.

We have become a society that bases our first impressions on someone else's appearance, rather than their manners. We base our opinions of others on the words they say, rather than what they are saying. We think that everything in life can be brought to perfection, rather than appreciating the beauty in life's little imperfections. We see only what is wrong with our lives, our friends, our partners, our coworkers, our bosses, our teachers... and never what is right. We have become a society that looks only for the wrong, and does not appreciate the right. We have become a society that views imperfection as something that ruins things, rather than being what makes them beautiful. We have become a society that does not think.
Worse, we have become a society that acts, that follows, that speaks, that buys, that consumes, that devours... all without thought.

Our striving for perfection has erased all sense of conscience. All sense of wonder. All sense of appreciation for what we have. All freewill. All bloody sense.

We buy what we're told; we shop where we're told; we do as we're told. We are all just mice, in an endless little game, while the few cats in the world line up ever-growing mazes and puzzles for us to find our way through, never-ending, never leaving us a chance to just think, never leaving us a chance to realise how shallow our society is. Never letting us think, "What if?" or "Why?" We just run through the same maze, complete the same puzzles, live the same lives, and never realise just how trapped we all are. The never-ending cycle of life of the "lesser" classes; those who strive to improve, those who strive for the much-vaunted "normality," the "wealth," the "perfection..." the worthless, trivial crap that has been sold to us for generations, and the majority continue to swallow all too willingly.

Life is what you make it, not what you're told it is. Perfection does not exist, no more than Normality does. Material wealth is not something that will make anyone happy; no more than a lifetime without love would make someone feel fulfilled.

The things that we're told are important are nothing more than fantasies, and the things we're told are "nice" are the true essentials; love, friendship, companionship, trials, beauty, art, music... and of course, living life itself.

Then again, it's entirely possible that each of us lives in our own reality; our own dimension; our own universe. All those around each of us could be nothing more than an illusion created by our subconscious, nothing more than a figment of any one of our imaginations. Any one of us, or all of us, or none of us, could be real, or unreal, or God, or nothing more than a single cell that has created an incredibly elaborate fantasy.

We'll never really know the truth of life, and we never can, because, as nice as it may be, none of us will ever get to "look through another's eyes." We'll never know how any other person sees the world, how their morals colour things that they see, how they view what goes on around them, how they perceive things, how they think..... and because of this, for all we know, we could each be far more alone than we'll ever realise. We could be the only person in history to experience things the way we do; the only person to feel certain emotions in the manner that we do; the only person to think a certain way; the only person to have our specific sense of humour...

In the end, there are only three things that we know for sure about life:
1: We only get one life,
2: Each and every one of us is unique, and each of you will always be the only "you" to ever exist,
3: And no one else will (or even could) live your life for you.
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Jackety:
I'm like a mix between GG and ACDM and New Yorker. Wow. No wonder I'm fucked up.
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Bodacious
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Modern society - especially Western society - has a disgusting obsession, and twisted interest, in perfection. We only see people with flawless skin in advertisements; we only see women with what some jackass in a design studio decided was "the best shape" on tv, in magazines, in movies, and the rest; we only see men that are either sporting a six pack, or (and this is a rather recent development) unhealthily thin; we only see the rich and the famous, the fake and the unattainable, wherever we go, in every form of media, in every possible medium around us.

You watch waay too much TV dude. Spend some time outdoors once in a while, ya know: walk the streets ;) .

Also: I'm proud to say that I'm a perfectly NORMAL guy :D .

Achieving the Impossible! It's what makes life worth living for me ^_^ !

Cheers,
Bodacious.

MUTATE: Tip for future rants: Don't use the word 'we' so much. It kinda sounds like your accusing the person who's reading it ifor something that you can't be sure of they are actually doing/thinking.
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Lord Lughtigern
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The Mad Ratter.

... I'm sorry, but why are you ranting? You're going to great lengths to say that being normal is unobtainable, then to say that everyone is unique and that we should all live our own lives, but why?

Your opinion of society seems to be very negative - or is this my mistake and you are saying that things only matter in society if you like them? This could be my misinterpretation once more, however.

Really, my confusion stems from starting at accusing society of being, "harsh" we'll say, blaming others for it, (i.e the cats who run the maze) and then saying we should all be unique. There definitely is a train of thought here, but I don't understand why you have written all of this.
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Rattsu
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Interesting!

The thing about normality though, is that it is based on imperfect perceptions.

If you were intimately aware of what each and every person was, then we would see that everybody was really different, and that we were more alike than we thought. However, we just see what we want to see, and what people want to show us.

So, that means we judge the world by our standards. When we get to know another person we judge them by how much they reminds us of ourselves. The more seemingly alike we are, the more we feel safe with them, because we understand them. I mean the only thing we really understand is ourselves, so of the other person likes similar movies, music, looks about the same and talks the same language we think the odds are they are similar enough inside as well. Most people fear the unknown.

It is this perceived normality that sets the basis for group mentality. And group mentality is something that we, a social species, relies very heavily on. Everything is group based, from family level, to team level, to country level. We label ourselves by being a part of something, a community, a forum, a race or even just a music style. The currently favoured groups are the ones that are perpetuated by media and society at large. Certain ones are encouraged, and others are designated as enemies. Really, that is the surest way to mark the boundaries of a group is for them to define who is NOT in the group. They all need enemies.

Just read the newspapers, they are filled with the current enemies of choice.

So, normality is not a single entity. It is a huge collection of socially accepted groups, and since people belong to many, many groups chances are they will belong to one or more that is in the 'normal' norm.

I mean I don't consider myself normal, yet I am seen as such by most people, because I belong to some large socially accepted groups. I work, I pay my taxes, I accept my country, I like sports, I like to read books... those are the parts most people come in contact with, so they label me as normal.

The other bits... they generally don't see since I these days don't have any wish to flaunt my abnormality. It gets tiring in the long run. So those bits I share with people who also consider themselves not normal.

Hehe shows me to rant before breakfast, I think I lost my thread.

Anyways, in short:

It is impossible for anyone to live up to all the perfectly normal traits.

However, it is very common for people to perceive that others do. This is because people hide the parts of themselves that are deemed unacceptable, and because people want to see what they want to see. Not unnecessarily the truth.

We really have NO clue about how the world really is after all, all we can see is our perception of it, flawed as it is.
I am currently writing an epic Dragon Age 2 adventure that can be found HERE!! or on my deviantart.

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GrimviewGrot
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Lord Lughtigern
Oct 13 2007, 02:06 AM
... I'm sorry, but why are you ranting? You're going to great lengths to say that being normal is unobtainable, then to say that everyone is unique and that we should all live our own lives, but why?

Your opinion of society seems to be very negative - or is this my mistake and you are saying that things only matter in society if you like them? This could be my misinterpretation once more, however.

Really, my confusion stems from starting at accusing society of being, "harsh" we'll say, blaming others for it, (i.e the cats who run the maze) and then saying we should all be unique. There definitely is a train of thought here, but I don't understand why you have written all of this.

Lack of sleep caused thinking. Thinking caused ranting. Coherency of the rant (or lack thereof ;)) can be traced back to lack of sleep. :P

And no - my concept of society is pretty much just that, while there are good people within it, we've allowed the whole thing to go to hell, by the majority allowing themselves to be pacified by the media and the government and (blah blah blah, you get the point. :P)...

And I'm not saying that we should all be unique, I'm saying that we all are unique - we just hide it, so we'll be accepted, so we'll "fit in," so we'll be "normal."

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You watch waay too much TV dude. Spend some time outdoors once in a while, ya know: walk the streets

I do exactly that on a daily basis. Regardless of where I go, who I see, who I meet, the majority of people I encounter only really reinforce the rant. ;)
(although, that could be a side effect of living in a town that has the world's most marijauna grow-ops per capita...(British Columbia has the most grow-ops per capita on the planet, for a region. My city has the most in BC. By extension; most in the world, per capita.))

And I used the term "we" because I was talking about society at large; there are exceptions (technically speaking, I'm one of them). However, in order to make my point without sounding like someone who doesn't accept the simple fact that we are all to blame, to some extent, for allowing these things to happen - I had to use something that included everyone in the description. And the only way to avoid sounding like a totally accusatory jackass, doing that, was to use "we..." the other option was "you." :P

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Jackety:
I'm like a mix between GG and ACDM and New Yorker. Wow. No wonder I'm fucked up.
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bakfire the experimenter
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i tried a similar conversation on a psychology student (my brothers flat mate).. basically:

most people are normal... true or false ( he said true)

some people are strange which is being different to the normal people around them... true or false (he said true)

but everyone is different from everyone else... true or false (he said true)

so being normal is to be different from everyone else.. true or false (he said true)

so if being strange is to be different, and being normal is to different to everyone else then being stange is being different to being different which would make different people normal and normal people different ( his head then seemed to impload :wacko: ... i laughed my ass off)

at least i can blame the above on too much dizzy water and it made sense at the time
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scrivener
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*toot*

imo, you're confusion normal with identical, and perfection with materialism. Normalcy is the approximate average, the standard/common traits. You can have a fantastically unique personality and still be normal because you're just like every other human. You can have a mundane, conformist personality, but an IQ of 300, then you're abnormal because you're outside the average range. You can strive to not be normal, and still be trying to fit in, like dyeing your hair pink and wearing spiked dog collars to be like other "abnormal" social rebels.

Having a hot body, flawless skin or a six-pack is not about perfection. It's about making your peers jealous and getting laid. It's more in the same category as prancing around half-naked or owning the latest Prada handbag than in the category of Mona Lisa's face or the Vitruvian Man.

And that's where the flaw in this comment lies:
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The never-ending cycle of life of the "lesser" classes; those who strive to improve, those who strive for the much-vaunted "normality," the "wealth," the "perfection..."

One cannot try to achieve normality, wealth and perfection all at the same time, because the perfect human being who is also a millionaire is not the approximate average, i.e. not normal.
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Warlord Bloodfang
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Hmm... to be normal. (I'll take it as being part of the majority)

It is a comforting feeling when you (by you I'm talking about myself really) are surrounded by other people who may be wearing clothes that are "normal" (Being no clothes that are meant to define that person as part of a specific social group or what not) as there is a strong feeling of... belonging really, being part of everything else is comforting in a way.

However I found that after a while of wearing the same clothes (namely the hooded top I've got on in my Manthing behind the rat picture on here) I felt... bored with it? Since I'm not the type of person at all to follow any of those social groups, fashions, latest thing and so on, I decided to just wear stuff which I personally liked the look of. So now I wear a knee lenth thin black coat with an orange T-shirt and blue jeans. (am thinking about getting some goth style boots but meh... when I get the money) fashion wise I'm sure it looks awful but I like it..........uh... where was I? :unsure: :rolleyes:

Oh right, normality, as Rattsu said, people tend to need normality so they aren't seperated too much from the majority. I've usually had a quite loose connection with such majority groups and not paid much heed to them (that doesn't mean I'm uncontrollable and do stupid things simply because I can, I just behave and maintain my own morals the way that I am comfortable)

Now perfection. Something that humans have strived for for ages and the great irony might be that it is truely unachievable. To steal a line from a game I played once "How can something inherently flawed achieve true perfection?".
We see the sculptures of Rome and Greek periods where the human form was held in awe. Great marble statues where made with near perfect detail of what they believed was the perfect being, a strong, athletic man who held himself aloft and could be compared with the gods.

Now the feelings of perfection have more or less shifted, from people showing perfection to people 'promising' perfection. You see this in the names of products (Nike (greek god of Victory) and other products named in such ways).

Um... hit the old writers block there... ah well, others have described it better then I have anyway ^_^
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