Please, Doc, am I normal?

coberst · Post by **coberst** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:19 pm

Please, Doc, am I normal?

In New York City a woman who gives away all her possessions and goes to the streets to help the street people might well be placed in protective custody. In Delhi she might well be considered as a saint.

Normal in one culture is abnormal in another. One culture is often the enemy of another. American culture and Islamic culture are apparently good reason for killing one another. The Shiite culture is apparently good reason for killing Sunnis. A few centuries ago Protestants and Catholics found good reason to kill one another.

“Social life is a ceremonial that has to be flawless so that man can disguise his fictions and justify them; the last thing he can admit to himself is that his life-ways are arbitrary¦If you reveal the fictional nature of culture you deprive life of its heroic meaning because the only way one can function as a hero is within the symbolic fiction.

The paradox of human existence is that on one level we consider our self to be of great importance and on another level we know we will die. The despair inculcated by the knowledge of death is a heavy burden, even more so to those who are unique, those who are the most individuated, the most abnormal. Those who are the least normal are the most in danger of despair. “The problem of despair can be met only in one way; by being a cosmic hero, by making a secure contribution to world-life even though one may die.

“The humanization process itself is the neurosis: the limitation of experience, the fragmentation of perception, the dispossession of genuine internal control. To be normal is to be neurotic.

Quote from “The Birth and Death of Meaning by Ernest Becker

Questions for discussion

Are we guided to a large extent by our first five years of life?

Can we change this childhood effect to a significant degree?

Can we be considered as free men and women if we are so determined?

SuzyB · Post by **SuzyB** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:27 pm

As most of you know, I am having to see a psychologist for my severe PTSD. On Friday he said that their is no such thing as being 'normal'. He used another word but I'll be damned if i can remember!!

Carl44 · Post by **Carl44** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:29 pm

SuzyB;579636 wrote: As most of you know, I am having to see a psychologist for my severe PTSD. On Friday he said that their is no such thing as being 'normal'. He used another word but I'll be damned if i can remember!!

now thats not normal :wah: :wah:

YZGI · Post by **YZGI** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:32 pm

SuzyB;579636 wrote: As most of you know, I am having to see a psychologist for my severe PTSD. On Friday he said that their is no such thing as being 'normal'. He used another word but I'll be damned if i can remember!!

Was the word AB-NORMAL?

Carl44 · Post by **Carl44** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:34 pm

YZGI;579641 wrote: Was the word AB-NORMAL?

nah you missed out very :wah: :wah:

SuzyB · Post by **SuzyB** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:35 pm

jimbo;579638 wrote: now thats not normal :wah:

:p

YZGI;579641 wrote: Was the word AB-NORMAL?

Double :p

weeder · Post by **weeder** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:44 pm

Im not " Normal" I know that I am not, and I am glad that I am not.

If the first 5 years of my life were examined.. the observer would be stunned to see who I am today, and what my perceptions of normal choices are.

Uncle Kram · Post by **Uncle Kram** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:23 am

YZGI;579641 wrote: Was the word AB-NORMAL?

Is AbbeyNormal?.....or what about AbNomad?

YZGI · Post by **YZGI** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:36 am

Uncle Kram;580073 wrote: Is AbbeyNormal?.....or what about AbNomad?
As long as they didn't tell her she was just plain Kram-mad.