Normal is what is widespread in the society. In poor African countries, it's normal to die of starvation. In Czech Republic it is normal to drink and smoke and be angry at the world. But I will certainly not teach my potential kids to aim for that........
It's a good written post, but somehow I cannot really relate. Maybe because I was born in a place where the tanks in streets were "normal", it was normal there was only one kind of meat in the butcher shop and if you were not friends with the butcher, you got a low quality piece only. It was normal to have shortage of toilet paper or female hygiene products. It was normal your neighbors could rat on you to the Party. It was normal that your friendly colleage was a low level secret police....
...then there were people who were not normal, wore long hair, listened to rock songs in English language and wrote theater plays the "normals" did not understand and wrote pamphlet talking about "non-normal" things like freedom and human rights. One of them because a president. Got inaugurated in pants too short on him, wore sweaters and was friends with Mig Jagger. We gotten some normal presidents after him, in suits and not caring about the people, cold and calculated. And things are much sadder and bleaker under these guys.
I am just saying, sometimes one has to go against the society's definition of normal. Otherwise we'd still have slavery.