Being Normal – My Christmas ramblings and wish to you!

As we drove home from my brother’s on Christmas Eve, after eating the yummiest sponge cake (with real cream) to celebrate Alannah’s 4th birthday, the kids and I contemplated “normal”.

Are we a “normal” family? What does “normal” mean and what does it look like? Am I a “normal” parent? Are your friends “normal”? Are their families “normal”?

Once I “knew” what normal meant, or so I thought. Well the Brady Bunch set the bar, didn’t they? Highly reasonable, tolerant parents – who appeared to have suffered no ill effects from their previous relationships (?btw, how did those relationships end??). Awesomely talented, popular & beautiful children – whose banal transgressions were amusing and non-threatening to life or society. And happily & predictably, after half an hour, everything would work out just fine. I soooo loved the happy ending.

The pervasiveness of television on my early reality and personal values only hit home as an adult. How was “normalcy” determined prior to government sanctioned rhetoric beamed directly into your home? As a child of the tv era, I can never know or understand how life was before tv. TV told us how we should live, what we should aspire to, and indeed what we should consume. ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ expanded way beyond aspiring to what the folk next door had – the folk who could afford to live near you because of their similar socioeconomic background. Television opened our eyes to enormous possibilities and created wants beyond our status and birth rights. Dare we dream of these things? Can a girl be educated? Can I have a career? Can I play the game too?? Damn straight!

Consumerism really came alive in the tv era. As we wondered whether it was ok to change our lifestyle and were supported by the stories and messages transmitted into our homes. It’s ok to:

•   eat fast food;
•   take big-pharma pills to cure our ails;
•   shop in centres and avoid the little guy – even though he passionately knew his stuff;
•   use swear words & be rude to our elders;

all this, we were assured, was “normal”. The facilities to enable consumerism to thrive were quickly provided too. I remember my parents getting their first credit card. A bankcard. bbb. Now we could have stuff we couldn’t afford. Hooray!! As a society, our naivety resembled that of my kids. “Mum just use your credit card!! Dah!”, they tell me. You don’t pay – it’s “free stuff”. Instant gratification.

I recall the Christian camp I attended as a teenager. Their attempt at brainwashing was fairly good – we had so much fun, who wouldn’t want to be part of their community. Brady Bunch values – wholesome good fun activities. Unfortunately, they received me as a horny teenager – thirsting for attention from boys and a blossoming body of hormones … so it just wouldn’t stick. But the one message I received from the camp – which stuck to me like gluggy porridge I just couldn’t flick off my fingers – was that credit was the devil. The sign of the devil 666 was remarkably like bbb, they pointed out, and you know what… I think there is some truth in it!!

My children have grown up with computers, the internet and cable tv replacing “normal” broadcast tv . Myles mastered the mouse at 2 years of age, and the little tykes behind him expect to transact on the screen without a mouse, and Myles is only 11!!! In his lifetime technology will change so dramatically we can barely conceive of the possibilities. I attended a Creative Innovation conference in November where Tan Le demonstrated her research in computer mind control – fucking awesome! Awesome possibilities for the disabled – yet scary in the “wrong” hands.

To see such dramatic changes in technology within a generation is previously unheard of, and expectations are the rate of change will increase not decrease. Will society implode due to lagging ethics unable to keep pace with technology?? I know we can’t go back, and sometimes it’s difficult to see forward. (Using ‘and’ instead of ‘but’, Susie ;))

Communication has shifted from TV’s one to many, to the internet enabled many to many. From broadcast, back to person to person. Advertising is so omnipresent I tend to ignore it in favour of trusted testimonial and I don’ think I’m alone. Online forums like Whirlpool, personal networks like facebook, and respected reviewers on Youtube are more likely to persuade a purchase than the enormously expensive TV ad. Who’s word do you trust?? I watch my tech savvy daughter Izzie – who always surprises me with the contents of her Christmas and birthday lists – to see the trends of the young. Where does her inspiration come from ?? YouTube mostly!!  These days YouTube is “normal”, but not for long.

There’s that word again.                         Normal.

Listening to the wisdom proffered by Robert Anton Wilson – “normal” and “average” are calculations. And as for all mathematics, they are total abstractions. No one is ‘the average’ anything. We are like snowflakes – completely unique. And that is the way it should be.

My life is not an abstraction. Nothing I do is normal.

As you try to fit in and be “normal”, remember there is no such thing.  As I stare down the barrel of 50, I realise I am not normal and can never be so. And this is truly liberating.

So to You the snowflakes in my life- I send my purest love. To my enormously weird, wonderfully unique, amazingly heroic, heart-warmingly funny, ferociously challenging, fundamentally creative, and truly beloved family & treasured friends, – my Christmas wish to you – don’t be normal.

Be You.

Much love Kylie xxxx