The "normal" world reacts. It reacts in terms of its experience and what it has been taught and accepted from the society around it. This works reasonably well when it is confronted with facts that are not too far outside the "normal" range, events that are not too extreme. It works for the people whose inherited physical, mental, and emotional structures are reasonably within a "normal" range, and whose experience of life has not overly damaged them and reduced their ability to cope with life.

The "normal" world does not think. It does not need to. If it is confronted with abnormal events or people, it classifies them into "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong". "Good" people are those who make one feel safe and good, at least in the short term. "Bad" people are those who make one afraid. Rules, regulations, and laws, rewards and punishments, are set up to make bad things go away.

The "normal" world is not "scientific". The "scientific" world, when confronted with strange events, even ones that can be very threatening and frightening, says: "Look, things are happening; let's see if we can understand what is happening, and why." It does not divide events and people into good or bad, right or wrong; it tries to see "things" as they are, and to understand them, not force them to "behave".

Are we "normal" people? Does our experience of the world show us that we will be treated with interest and attention, or does it tell us that we will be shunned and mocked and bullied? If the latter, is there some way of understanding that, in contrast to the "normal" world that does not try to understand us? Are there some advantages to being not "normal"? Does our distress force us to achieve something that is not required of the "normal" world?