When Freaky Seems Normal...and how it gets there

[gingerbaker]

I have a number of viewpoints that I consider completely normal, that I have been reminded at times are...well, not. They funny thing is, my viewpoints weren't always so far out there, and many of the things I now consider perfectly average myself of say 10 years ago would be astonished by. How does this happen, and why is it useful?

The how is fairly easy. All those uber-conservatives railing against homosexuals being accepted in the media? They're scared for a good reason. Exposure to a differing viewpoint begins to weaken our thinking of it as "alien" and "unacceptable." As a particular concept gets out there more, people who previously held that same view but kept it under wraps begin to open up about it. You might suddenly find out your helpful, friendly, upstanding neighbor is in fact gay. But you like him! He always shovels your elderly neighbor's driveway when it snows, invites you over when he barbecues, and never *seemed* evil...so what gives? Do you denounce him completely and rewrite your entire view of him, erasing all these past good moments? Some people do, or do in the short term, but many people take a first step of "well, *they* are all X, except for Gary, he's a *good one*". And that is the first step down a slippery slope.

Now personally, I LOVE that slippery slope! It is a great entrance into breaking down barriers in your own mind, and opening up a world of possibilities. But it is precisely this acceptance that terrifies closeminded people. :-)

So, we've covered the how a bit. Needless to say, the internet is a vast resource for exposure to new, even "bizarre", ideas. I love it!

So what happens when you become accustomed to this new concept, when it stops being a "wow I never thought of it that way" idea, and starts being something you just do/think automatically? If you allow people that actively block this expansion in your worldview to drop from your circle of friends, and bring in more friends who think of this same worldview as "normal", you will start to settle into this new view, get comfortable with it, and eventually you might forget that it was so weird to you in the first place.

The most noticeable place that this happened to me was with breastfeeding. Breastfeeding rates around the world are MUCH higher than in the US, and attitudes in other places are likewise much different. When I first had a baby, I knew I was not going to go the bottlefeeding route - that was easy, a very simple "decision" that really wasn't one, since in my mind there wasn't any other choice. But as time went on, I had to contemplate the idea of "when do you stop?" At first, the idea of continuing when a child could walk, was a toddler, seemed very strange to me. I didn't judge women who did this per se, but it felt...odd. How would that work exactly? And then, time went magically on, and that fateful day came, only...my daughter didn't seem suddenly grownup just in one day. Huh. So I kept up what we were doing, and just didn't think about it much, except to limit a bit more how often we nursed in public, since she now had other food options and could be put off a bit with that. One day, when I had pretty much come to terms with the whole "child-led" weaning thing, or close to it, I met a lovely 11 year old girl who came up and commented on my nursing my second child. She said "Wow, that's great, I remember when I used to do that!" And we had a great little conversation about it. I found out her mother weaned her at 4 1/2. This particular girl, and he family, which I came to know pretty well in the weeks after, were everything you could want in raising kids. She was smart, compassionate, friendly, polite, you name it. Several years after that I can tell you that my mindset on breastfeeding has changed so much that I would no longer consider nursing till 2 to be "extended breastfeeding" at ALL. After all, the World Health Organization recommends going at least until two, and who am I to argue?

Why is all this important? Because every time you go through one of these paradigm shifts (often so slowly you might not notice till someone calls you on it in conversation!) you become That Person. The one that your coworkers like and hang out with and generally think is a cool, upstanding guy, and when they find out that in fact you believe in 11:11 type stuff, they have to reconcile their "you're crazy!" reaction with their past opinion of you as a remarkably sane person. Every day, without trying, you are a chance to radically open someone's viewpoint, not by proselytizing (a roundly horrid idea in general) but just by being yourself, an example of someone "who just so happens" to be something they didn't expect.


You can read the post that led to this here:Conscious Sexuality - A Peek Inside the Mind of a Girl that Thinks like a Guy

[Poiesis Hagakure]

amen! having an open mind leads to many new viewpoints. you will always be rewarded by a willingness to expand your sense of reality.

The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.

While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.

--Hafiz

[RT Wolf]

Good post. I know what you mean. I'd imagine it is a process of changing friends. You can still cherish the time you had together (things don't have to be permanent to be meaningful) and move on when you're incompatible.