Should being Normal or having something Normal be accepted as being the correct way or thing. This is not a Political, Religious, or Legal Musing topic per say, but more of a light hearted Musing. Topics such as homosexuality, if debated on a level that would divert the main point of this page to one on homosexuality should be posted in the other Musings Boards.

To start the ball rolling...

One of my more strange points that I've thought about has to do with teeth. Normal teeth are odd-shaped and misaligned. Should this feature be accepted. If the majority of humans come with not just imperfect, but crooked teeth, why then is the Norm being set by something that is obviously unnatural?

Another one:

(slightly political)
On the national level, our congressional leaders have gotten themselves depicted as corrupt or in-with-special-interest-groups. This is the Normal atmosphere of life on capital hill. Should not, by definition, "repaying" i.e. representing these groups, be thought of as correct. Why are people angry if the leaders represent Companies, Unions, and/or Associations seeing how it was their large finacial contribution that helped get them elected. Government today in this regards is more of a Union-with-dues style of representation, yet until "some sort of" revolution occurs it will probably continue.

Normal normally equates with average. On the average, each tooth should be straight. Therefore, a mouth full of crooked teeth isn't normal.
On the other hand, a wacky sense of humor is normal for some of us. I have a very Nitcentral sense of humor: me mum calls it British, I calls it fun. At my last job, they couldn't understand my sense of humor and thought I was weird; at my present job, they think I'm normal. Then again, I'm now surrounded by engineer types, whom most people would tell you aren't normal.
It's like logic. Logic, as it's normally understood, is a man thing. Women have a different sort of logic, which is sometimes called intuition (but they're not always the same thing). My sister and brother used to play Risk (a war board game), and my sister would usually win. Which would bug my brother, because she 'wasn't logical'. Meaning, she didn't use a guy's logic. But she won, didn't she?

I am nominal. Norman is normal. My sense of humor is beyond different it is unique.

Normal normally equates with average... mei

In regards to teeth, I've read the following distinction:

Around 90% of the population have caries (holes in their teeth). This is normal in the meaning of average. However, a caries-free, healthy tooth is normal in the meaning of healthy, not deviating(sp?) from a norm.

Its often hard in discussions to keep these two meanings seperate. However, just accepting the normal-average (the "it is at the moment") standard as normal-healthy (the "how it should be norm") can be dangerous: if we say teeth with caries in it are normal, why should anybody bother to brush his/her teeth? If healthy teeth are normal, and caries is widespread only because people eat wrong and don't brush, something can be done to reach the normal-healthy standard.

I've never heard of caries, or do you mean cavities? Either way, I have absolutely none. Very abnormal, apparently.

Tom,

my online dictionary gives (dental) caries [medical] as valid translation of the german word (Karies). Caries are the little bacteria which, when digesting sugar and carbonhydrates, produce the acid which produces cavities. So if you have too much caries in your mouth (disturbing the "normal" balance of bacteria and chemicals in your mouth), sooner or later you'll get cavities. (There is a nicely told story about two guys, Karies and Baktus, which drill holes in teeth to live there, and which can be fought by having the dentist plug their holes and brushing the teeth. This story is told to many kindergarten- and primary-school children, so people are familiar with caries).

Normal is what we in the collective say it is. You are a deviation from the norm.


I hope that clears things up.

Normal is as normal does.

Why be nermal .. er, normal? (I read a lot of Garfield.)

Normal is that bull//// my dad used to scream about. Despite his efforts, our family would up being anything but "normal"

Normality can be a sliding scale.

I've noticed when I'm in the car with my sister she wants the radio to be so quiet that I practically can't hear the dang thing, literally. I remember being in the car with her and she kept turning down the radio or asking me if it really needed to be so loud. We were changing the stations looking for a song and I couldn't even tell what songs were playing she had them so quiet.

On the flip side of this my old roommate Maria likes to have her radio up so loud that (hyperbole alert) you ears are about to bleed. I remember one time I was in the living room and Maria and her friend Andrea were in her bedroom, with the door opened, talking and I interjected something to the conversation from the living room. Maria said that I have "ears like a bat" because I could actually hear what they were saying from that far away. That got us talking about car radio preferences and the girls mentioned Maria's X-BF of several years who likes to blast his car music so loud that people in the next county can hear it. I said that all her time in his car might have actually damaged her hearing and that's why she likes it so loud.

Since I'm in the middle of that I conclude that I'm normal and both of those girls are abnormal. It's like the old saying that on the street anyone going slower than you is a pain-in-the-butt/hassle, while anyone going faster than you is a maniac speed demon; so all you have to do is press down on the gas to turn maniacs into hassles.