الأمل يكمن في غضون

What is normal? But really, what is it? When we look at our lives in retrospect, we often reevaluate what we feel is important. Ultimately, we question our morals, our beliefs, and ourselves. But why? A test of faith and character is always good, but when we begin to demean others’ values and character, what exactly does that say about our own?

I just got back from San Francisco, and I loved it. The city itself is an amazing melting pot of cultures, beliefs, and ways of life. In the middle of the trip, someone in our group saw a gay couple in a park and scoffed, saying, “It just isn’t normal. Things like that just aren’t.” My main question then arose, “How is normality so easily defined?” Maybe your normal is someone else’s abnormal, and maybe your normal is only yours. As culture changes, normal changes. Our definition of normal is constantly shaped as we are exposed to new experiences. This constant call for new perspective is more frequently appearing in our books, films, and television shows.

Next fall NBC is releasing a new dramedy The New Normal. The title, content, and basis have already begun to spark controversy among several different groups. The show features a a gay couple looking to start a family, and they are paired with a surrogate who plans to use the money she is paid to go to law school to create a better life for her daughter. The tagline of the show gives an entire new meaning to “normal”: “Family is family, and love is love.” We have to remember that tolerance is to be conscious that you aren’t the only person in the world. Whether or not you decide to add the show to your weekly lineup, remember that beauty is constantly refocused from day to day. I challenge and encourage you to all find something new that you consider beautiful and rewarding. Find a new perspective of “normal,” and allow it to add new meaning to your own definition. It can be far more rewarding than you’d think. 

So maybe one day when it’s all said and done, hatred will be destroyed by love, indifference will be trumped by acceptance, and normal will be all we ever know.