Someone can spend years trying to prove they are normal. Sometimes they succeed in appearing normal to the people judging them, only to discover they have spent a great deal of energy hiding what they enjoy.
There is another possibility. You can enjoy the difference. You can be curious about it, live with it, learn about it and sometimes laugh about it. You can choose what you want to change and what you want to keep.
For some people, that feeling comes easily. For others, it follows years of trying to meet expectations they never agreed to. For others, it remains difficult or changes from day to day.
We are interested in all of those experiences, with a particular interest in the happiness that can come from being abnormal.
The moment the insult stops working
If someone tries to shame a person by calling them abnormal, their words depend partly on the meaning the person gives that label. When the person is pleased to be abnormal, the expected shame may not arrive.
That can change the exchange. It can also reveal where real power remains: in rules, access, threats, jobs, relationships and institutions. Reclaiming the label is meaningful. Removing practical coercion may require more.
The voice we carry inside
Even when an outside judgement loses its force, an older expectation can remain. We can continue to ask ourselves whether we are acceptable, whether we are doing enough or whether we should hide what makes us happy.
This series explores the differences between choice and learned pressure, between developing a skill and trying to erase a part of oneself, and between the protection of self and the fear of being seen.
An invitation
What do you enjoy about the way you think, make, learn, feel or experience the world? Was it always something you enjoyed? Did someone teach you to be ashamed of it? Did anything change when you began to own it?
You do not need a dramatic story. You do not need to be exceptional. Being happy being abnormal is interesting all by itself.