When Did Crazy Become the New Normal?
What’s normal isn’t normal any longer.
I was reproached in the comments on Medium because I came up with a new word in one of my posts. According to the man who scorned me, we are not allowed to do that. The comment at first left me speechless and then I laughed in disbelief.
New words are being invented every day by writers as well as general public. 500 words and phrases have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the last quarter of 2016 alone. ‘Selfie,’ as one of the most notable examples of newly invented words, did not exist prior to 2002, when Australian Nathan Hope first used it in a forum post. It became the word of the year in 2013.
So telling me that we are not supposed to make up new words is ridiculous, to say the least. But this was just a last drop in the long series of absurd comments I’ve seen in the last few months that inspired this post.
When meaningful discussion becomes impossible
It is sad to see how people in a country so privileged as the Unites States can be so ignorant. It leaves me speechless how prevalent this seems to be in the Trump’s era, with Trump acting like the king of inability to reason logically, which makes any meaningful discussion all but impossible.
Logical fallacies are now being used as a matter of routine to avoid acknowledging and presenting facts. Trying to reason with such people is frustrating because they tend to be so out of touch with reality. Most disturbing, however, is that such posts do not come just from Trump. Social media, blogs, and comment sections are flooded with them.
Wanna hear something funny?
A couple of weeks ago I saw a post in a grief support group that utterly shocked me. A woman shared a funny story, for she wanted to cheer us up. The so called funny story was about how she let her 13-year old son and his friends play with a gun and how her son then shot himself in the leg.
When he was brought home wounded and crying, she took her time to get ready before taking him to the hospital. He urged her to hurry up and she laughed at him saying he would just have to wait since he was not going to die, was he? So she thought how amusing that whole thing was.
The post wasn’t removed by the group’s administrator. Instead, she agreed that the story was indeed funny. This was going on in the group where people mourn the loss of their loved ones, quite possibly including someone who had been shot and died from it. It didn’t cheer me up, it horrified me.
How can this be happening?
I guess it just takes too much effort to reason and think things over. It is so much easier to act crazy instead. Because giving a 13-year old son a gun and then laugh at him when he shoots himself is acting crazy. Posting it in a grief support groups to cheer others up makes it scary-crazy.
How come there is an epidemic of people who act completely irrationally and seem to be proud of it? It gives me the creeps, for it feels as if we are having a case of mass hypnosis on our hands. It’s like someone hijacked these people’s brains and prevented them from thinking straight. They somehow still retained the ability to utter words and have the right to vote, though.
I’m not sure whether they voted for Trump, but I strongly suspect they did. With the voters who are capable of that level of irresponsibility, chances are they will vote for someone equally or even more irresponsible. Because that’s what they seem to be fighting for — the right to act crazy and be ignorant and unreasonable regardless of the consequences.
The new normal isn’t normal
Hadn’t it been for the Trump’s presidency, I would have remained blissfully oblivious to how widespread the epidemic of irrationality is. The numbers needed for Trump to win, however, are staggering. They cannot be ignored, even if Russians had something to do with it. The problem, clearly, is not Trump nor are the Russians.
It’s the number of people who voted for and keep supporting Trump. It’s the mothers who are fighting for the right of their 4-year old to play with loaded guns. It’s the guys who think you are not allowed to come up with new words because we just cannot have that kind of freedom. It’s the people who will harass you mercilessly for criticizing Trump or supporting feminism…
With Trump’s victory, these people feel empowered. His outrageous behavior makes it OK for them to behave equally outrageously, openly and with no reservations. It’s as if Trump opened the Pandora’s box and the very worst in people came out of it. It’s like his mental condition is contagious. It makes me wonder has the world gone mad?
I guess I badly need some Impeachara to be able to keep dealing with this new kind of normal, because it doesn’t seem in the least normal to me.
Mateja started to write short stories at the age of ten and later became a freelance writer, radio personality, and counselor. Her life resembles a roller coaster ride full of ups and downs and some pretty wild turns. Among other things, her car was destroyed by tanks and she survived several brushes with death. She graduated in psychology from Arizona State University and is now a brain whisperer at Transform the Pain and Personal Brain Whisperer. Connect with Mateja on LinkedIn.
