I happened upon the following quote while watching a TED talk:
The pursuit of normality is the ultimate sacrifice of potential. The chance for greatness, for progress, and for change die the moment we try to be like someone else.
- Faith Jegede
TED, November 2012
What I've learned from my autistic brothers
I believe Faith. I concur whole heartedly. It's been my life long unofficial credo. And because I have believed this my entire life, I can tell you the downfall of this ideology.
It's lonely.
I imagine that it is so much easier to just follow, to get along, to fit in. I imagine that being like everyone else means that you always have a friend. And that friend is like you in enough ways to make it worth being friends. I imagine moving to a new city would always be easy when you just fit in.
It seems like there are some places where being like everyone else, or normal, just makes sense. At church, school, work, and families.
I live in a place where sameness and conformity equals peace and happiness. Where I live, the majority of people I know were born and raised in the same city. They grew up going to the same schools and same churches. They went to college together, and while they were in college they all married each other and moved back to the same neighborhoods that they grew up in. These people have similar perspectives and paradigms. They have depth of character, because every one has their individual struggles and challenges. I am convinced that you don't need to leave home in order to suffer. Suffering comes to all, which suffering gives us our richness. These people are different, though, because they come to the table with their personalities and dynamics. In so many ways they are the same. But is that normal?
I live in Utah where being Mormon is normal, but I am from a family where I am the only Mormon, which makes me abnormal. I grew up with Deaf parents, which makes me normal among my CODA peers, but which makes me abnormal amongst my friends with parents that can hear. I want to get my Ph.D and write a book and travel the world and see the aurora borealis with my own eyes, which makes me abnormal among my friends who see staying at home with their children as the ultimate satisfaction in life, but normal among my ambitious peers.
What I am finding is that in my pursuit to be abnormal, to stand out in a crowd, to be different, that I am, in fact, just like everyone else. Because whenever I am abnormal in one way, I'm perfectly normal in that way to someone else.
I keep thinking about the Incredibles. Dash and his mother, Elastigirl, or Helen, are talking about being special. "Everyone is special, Dash," the mother says. "Which means that no one is," replies Dash. It's lonely yet comforting to know that we are all special, but not really.
