What is normal?

That which is normal falls within the expectations understandings and acceptance of the viewer or experiencer.

Nomal is a relaive term,each of us has a different definition of the word normal.

normal is everything & everyone else!

From a statistical standpoint "Normal" is a value less than one standard deviation from the mean. So theoretically if 68.2% of people would do something similar, you're normal.
(Read more about standard deviations here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation)

Of course the better question is, do you WANT normal? Notice that one can deviate from normal in both a positive and negative direction.

Sociologist have theorized that all societal improvement come from people who reject societal norms. If people deviate in a positive direction and society follows suite, the society improves, if they follow a negative deviation the society either fails, or learns to reject the negative behavior. Societies that insist on non-deviation are by definition stagnant. Hence all social innovation comes from people while deviate from social norms. (Although that hasn't kept innovators out of jail over the centuries.)

It's also worth noting that social innovators rarely reap the rewards. Usually innovators are punished or ostracized, until enough people share their viewpoint, at which time it become the new norm.

Consider Julius Caesar... He took the Roman Empire from a Republic to a Dictatorship. Illegal? You bet. Immoral? Un-Roman? All this and more, but his changes lasted centuries. Of course... he is far too dead to appreciate this, being murdered in his prime and all that. But society found his change good, and it was adopted.

So you deviate at your own risk.

For what it's worth:)

Normal is acceptable behavior by law and society. In the Christians case it is also what is acceptable to God.

There is not a phycologist on the planet that has an "I Am Perfectly Sane" certificate hanging on the wall. We all have normalcy and fruitcake within us.

there is no such thing as normal. normal is a perception and for each person that perception is different.

98.6 is normal, I'm 97.3 on average

merriam-webster

1 : perpendicular; especially : perpendicular to a tangent at a point of tangency
2 a : according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle b : conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern
3 : occurring naturally
4 a : of, relating to, or characterized by average intelligence or development b : free from mental disorder : sane
5 a of a solution : having a concentration of one gram equivalent of solute per liter b : containing neither basic hydroxyl nor acid hydrogen c : not associated d : having a straight-chain structure
6 of a subgroup : having the property that every coset produced by operating on the left by a given element is equal to the coset produced by operating on the right by the same element
7 : relating to, involving, or being a normal curve or normal distribution
8 of a matrix : having the property of commutativity under multiplication by the transpose of the matrix each of whose elements is a conjugate complex number with respect to the corresponding element of the given matrix


fight the power

Normal is the attitude and reactions of the majority of people as opposed to the few who challenge these conventions. It is the unwritten law that restricts indivdualism and turns us to social conformists, who dares to stand out from the crowd and be different?

I definately am not normal,....LOL!

It is a stigma that I wish to avoid at all costs.

normal is what we all like to think ourselves

Normal is a baseline put in place by psychologists to tell us we are all freaks.