Curves and Exceptions

It's a curious thing: if one dropped marbles into a matrix of pegs with collecting stations spread out evenly across the marbles destination, they always start to approach a normal curve. Normal not in our normal use of the word, but normal meaning that the distribution is spread in such a way that 68% of whatever is being measured will be found within one standard deviation +/- of the center point.

The term "normal" has developed quite a negative connotation. I mean, would anybody go to see a film with a hero termed normal? Perhaps since I studied psychology in college, normal means something quite different to me. Normal is what is expected. If one stumbled on an island of sociopaths where every citizen was a serial killer, prosocial behavior would be abnormal. Normal is just what defines what is abnormal. Far from drawing confining parameters for me, the normal curve has always struck me as being quite hopeful actually.

I have come to terms with the reality that I don't do much of anything the absolute best. No matter how hot my racquetball game might be, someone will put me in my place. My poems might make me smile sometimes, but then I read Billy Collins. I might think myself a great thinker, or public speaker, or graphic designer, or any number of other things, but there are plenty of folks out there who can show me how it is truly done. So why do normal curves appeal to me given the fact that I know that only a select less than 1% is down on the third standard deviation from the mean?

The normal curve is generally shown with quite the slope on either end. That precipitous drop on either side of the mean tells me that if I do almost anything extra, I can be above average. I decide I want to read more, so I read one extra book in a year. In a world where most people don't finish books after high school, that's a quick way to be above average. If I serve on a city committee when most people don't and next to nobody my age, hey! another short cut to that above territory. If I'm a little bit kinder, a little bit more interested in others, a bit more curious about life, a bit more adventurous, courageous, or financially wise, I'll be joining that magic 68% percentile.

Which leads me to where I began, however, praising what is normal. Normal is extremely useful and, for better or for worse, is where most of us live. But wouldn't it be grand if our culture shifted so neighborhood kids could play until dark in the summertime without parents being given any reason to worry because violent or predatory behavior was so abnormal? Or if reading 12 important and/or engaging books a year became a standard norm? Or if dishonesty was a thing seen as being such an unusual trait that it was banished to the third or fourth standard deviation. Norms can be defining, but we all get to decide what the scope of that definition is. Let's all be just a little above average.