"To be normal about things is to preserve a private center that doesn’t get annexed by every passing demand. I can care about this without becoming it. I can improve this without worshiping it. I can be concerned without being consumed. I can participate without surrendering judgment. I can change my mind without staging a conversion narrative. I can be imperfect without making imperfection my brand. I can be serious without being unbearable.
The issue, I believe, is that "more" gives an identityto some people who don't understand that it is something that goes deep inside. They see the fruits of identity and desire it, without understanding that the fruits are the results of the roots. Not the other way around.
I'm so glad this popped up in my feed today! & Totally agree that it's all SO EXHAUSTING. Is it a symptom of capitalism or capitalism by design? Either way, late-stage capitalism doesn’t just sell us products anymore - it sells us a sense of self. & We sucker for it! I mean, talk to any sales person & they will say that a well known technique is to tie the product to the potential buyer's identity.
But why are we so desperate to buy? I don't think it's just vanity or stupidity. I think it's because capitalism has stripped away so many of the older sources of meaning & belonging: community, ritual, stable work, shared public life (& spaces!), leisure, interdependence, even privacy. Then, into that vacuum, it offers the self as the final project. Optimise your body. Curate your taste. Declare your politics. Monetise your hobby. Brand your trauma. Turn your breakfast, your workout, your wardrobe, your reading habits, your mental health, your moral position & even your exhaustion into proof that you are someone who somehow matters within a system that treats you like you don't. So every protocol, tribe, aesthetic, wellness doctrine or political posture becomes a kind of substitute for home. A way of saying: I belong somewhere. I know who I am & I have found some kind of structure that means I'm not just floating through a system that has made ordinary life feel intolerably unstable.
So yeah, your call to "just be normal" is kind of revolutionary. Sure, some people may mistake it as a plea for milquetoast moderation but I reckon a refusal of the idea that we have to use selfhood as labour, that the self has to become the last remaining site of productivity, performance & extraction is so valuable. Because to be proportionate, private, contradictory & ordinary is to resist being endlessly converted into a market segment or a brand identity. & God, it's so weird but I actually felt a bit uncomfortable even writing that sentence because how DARE I even consider the idea that I can survive as an artist without having a clear "brand identity"!!
Maybe what we’re really craving beneath all this isn’t optimisation at all - it's relief. Because we're sold on this idea that if we work hard enough, if we life-maxx ourselves into the most extreme possible versions of our identities, we will one day earn enough to buy ourselves a fucking break from it all.
Much of this extremism IMHO stems from concurrent phenomena: (1) the engagement—or enragement—algorithms of social media and the Internet, (2) the continuing commodification of everything, and (3) a healthy dosage of consumerism sold as an identity.
Some stupid—often costly—thing needs to become your whole identity so that you have one for social media.
I couldn't agree with you more! (Well, I don't mean to be extreme about it - let's just say, I agree~:)
"To be normal about things is to preserve a private center that doesn’t get annexed by every passing demand. I can care about this without becoming it. I can improve this without worshiping it. I can be concerned without being consumed. I can participate without surrendering judgment. I can change my mind without staging a conversion narrative. I can be imperfect without making imperfection my brand. I can be serious without being unbearable.
A normal life has room for contradiction."
THAT PART!!!!!
I would like for this to become the future manifesto for humanity, please.
I, for one, have had more than my fill of cringe-maxxing.
In the Netherlands, we have a saying, "be normal; that's crazy enough."
It mainly means not to let things go to your head, i.e. Keep your ego in check.
But we could do with a whole lot more normal these days.
The issue, I believe, is that "more" gives an identityto some people who don't understand that it is something that goes deep inside. They see the fruits of identity and desire it, without understanding that the fruits are the results of the roots. Not the other way around.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece and taking the “dope” out of my dopamine proclivities.
One of the best articles I've read in a long, long time
Well said. Inspiring
Hell yeah, join me in my new #NormalAveraggging lifestyle
Typical normalmaxxing.
I'm so glad this popped up in my feed today! & Totally agree that it's all SO EXHAUSTING. Is it a symptom of capitalism or capitalism by design? Either way, late-stage capitalism doesn’t just sell us products anymore - it sells us a sense of self. & We sucker for it! I mean, talk to any sales person & they will say that a well known technique is to tie the product to the potential buyer's identity.
But why are we so desperate to buy? I don't think it's just vanity or stupidity. I think it's because capitalism has stripped away so many of the older sources of meaning & belonging: community, ritual, stable work, shared public life (& spaces!), leisure, interdependence, even privacy. Then, into that vacuum, it offers the self as the final project. Optimise your body. Curate your taste. Declare your politics. Monetise your hobby. Brand your trauma. Turn your breakfast, your workout, your wardrobe, your reading habits, your mental health, your moral position & even your exhaustion into proof that you are someone who somehow matters within a system that treats you like you don't. So every protocol, tribe, aesthetic, wellness doctrine or political posture becomes a kind of substitute for home. A way of saying: I belong somewhere. I know who I am & I have found some kind of structure that means I'm not just floating through a system that has made ordinary life feel intolerably unstable.
So yeah, your call to "just be normal" is kind of revolutionary. Sure, some people may mistake it as a plea for milquetoast moderation but I reckon a refusal of the idea that we have to use selfhood as labour, that the self has to become the last remaining site of productivity, performance & extraction is so valuable. Because to be proportionate, private, contradictory & ordinary is to resist being endlessly converted into a market segment or a brand identity. & God, it's so weird but I actually felt a bit uncomfortable even writing that sentence because how DARE I even consider the idea that I can survive as an artist without having a clear "brand identity"!!
Maybe what we’re really craving beneath all this isn’t optimisation at all - it's relief. Because we're sold on this idea that if we work hard enough, if we life-maxx ourselves into the most extreme possible versions of our identities, we will one day earn enough to buy ourselves a fucking break from it all.
i love this, we've been brainwashed to live binary life, long live the inbetweeners
Much of this extremism IMHO stems from concurrent phenomena: (1) the engagement—or enragement—algorithms of social media and the Internet, (2) the continuing commodification of everything, and (3) a healthy dosage of consumerism sold as an identity.
Some stupid—often costly—thing needs to become your whole identity so that you have one for social media.
But how are you supposed to monetize "normal"? 🙄 😏
Amen and amen!