So, this is the normal (Gaussian) distribution or the so-called bell curve:

The line in the middle, in the green area, represents the average. It’s the mean score – the sum of all scores divided by the number of scores. So you can have a group of things with an average of x, although none of the things actually is x. For example when we take the ages of a group of 10 friends: 21 21 22 23 23 25 25 25 26 29. The average age of this group of friends is 24, although none of them is actually 24. But that’s not their “normal” age. Everything in the 95,4%-range is considered normal, in the case of our group of friends an age between 19 and 29 would be “normal”. Many researchers use the more strict 99,7%-range when testing their hypothesis. So normal are 95,4% of all things, while the average is the mean of all things.

My point is – often people say normal, but mean average. Average doesn’t mean good, it just means average, the arithmetic mean. Normal is almost everything. Normal doesn’t mean good, it just means that something is not extraordinary different than other things.

This article describes the problem really good and simple in the context of child development.

Also hobo mama had a very good post on that topic again in the context of child development.

So my loved ones – I wish you uniqueness and less “normality” and “averageness”.

I want to share with you this video that really made me think differently about life, at least for some moments. The video essentially states, that organic life is simply a more efficient way of absorbing and releasing energy. And since absorbing and releasing energy is essential to keeping the universe in order, that’s what life does. That’s all. It just keeps the universe together by absorbing and releasing energy somehow better than inorganic stuff.

So if that does not impress you, I don’t blame you. I find it weirdly calming. I see it like that – if you have a bad day and everything sucks for some reason, you can think to yourself – well hey, I’m absorbing and releasing energy, keeping the universe together, that’s basically all I was supposed to do, everything else is just made up ephemeral shit that doesn’t really matter, so I’ll just keep calm, absorb and release energy and do my deed to the universe. It’s that a sweet deal? For me it is and helps me go more easily through life. So I’ll just leave you here with this thought – you can enjoy it or not, doesn’t really matter – you still absorb and release energy

PS. yes, I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but again – this is my little peace of the internet and I’ll be posting just as I feel like it. Here I want to thank Chase again for the great comments, that motivated me to post again

I guess raising awareness about it is the first step to changing it. Not so long ago sexist and racist expressions were just as OK as the suicide-phrases now, because nobody thought that someone is getting hurt by them… So just think about it – every time you say something about “killing yourself” people could get flashbacks and be sadly reminded of a deep trauma they carry.

You could get a bit creative there, like try to find the next hot phrase out there “this is so boring, I could start doing yoga” … ?

That’s all not really new, but what is changing is the environment. It’s easier to share something online and once something is out, you can never get it back, so you should be even more careful online. It’s like on the one hand, the internet is giving us the opportunity to communicate more, regardless of the place and time where we are and is making e.g. long-distance relationships easier, but on the other hand the same thing that’s making all this possible, is bringing more and more suspect and doubt in our relationships… It’s like alcohol – it doesn’t really taste good, you first have to get used to it, for some period it makes you feel really good, makes it easier for you to build relationships and have fun, but if you take too much of it, it could make everything go wrong, so the most important thing about alcohol/ internet is to use it with caution

This TED-talk is about this effect. E.g. it says that people, who were taking powerful poses (standing straight, bright arms etc.) before going to a job interview did a lot better than people who were taking powerless poses (head down, touching the neck etc.). But the bigger deal there for me is, that this was due to them showing more presence and personality. Not a fake personality or an ideal personality, there were showing their own real personality more! So, it’s not like you show a fake image of you when e.g. you fake power before a job interview, but you’re just hiding your real personality more when you don’t…

So isn’t this proof that fake really is the new real?

PS. remember this?

Racist Flag

and everyone is really horrified by it, because the black guy is being hang, but the boys can’t get why everyone is so shocked by the flag, because it doesn’t even come to their minds, that the colour of the figures even matter. Well isn’t this how it should be – there are four white guys and one black guy, but all you see are just five guys? And it doesn’t come to mind to treat the black one differently, because skin colour is just as meaningless to you as eye- or hearcolour. Is this even possible?

I really don’t think that I’ll live long enough to see a society like that. Today even hear colour is still sometimes the object of prejudices. A movie about slavery has just won the oscar – so race is still very very noticeable. Maybe we’ll never overcome it, but in many many years, we all will be so mixed up, that all the races will become one “unirace” with features from all races. Then it wouldn’t be that easy to differentiate races… Although, today we see discrimination not only based on race, but also on other stupid things, that you really don’t see at first sight. E.g. in Germany there’s still a big gap between West- and Ost-Germany, although people look pretty much the same in both… So maybe there will always be some kind of discrimination, but only based on different things than race? Is this the best we can reach? What do you think?

It’s pretty sad that today I really can’t dream the dream of Martin Luther King and imagine a world where people aren’t being judged by their colour, OK, maybe they’re not being judged by their colour, but their colour still matters a lot and brings up lots of prejudice and maybe is partly responsible for the enormous gap between black and white prisoners… We need prejudice to simplify the complex world around us, but really, do we need so much? Come on, we can drop some out, let’s start with the big ones, because they really matter! Or if you want start with the little ones, any kind of reducing prejudices is still a step forward

PS. check out this video

It’s amazing how little simple things can be so brilliant. For example an apple slicer, it’s genius! It increases the apple intake by 50% according to my personal experience

You may think – well, this is like really old, it’s been out there forever, why talk about it now? Well, I just discovered it two weeks ago. I was visiting friends, saw it in action and was like totally amazed It’s like – you get perfectly shaped apple slices with only one hand grip, that’s amazing! It’s also good for your apple intake, because you can easily share an apple with other people, so the apple wouldn’t get wasted for sure. It’s these little genius things that give me hope in humanity.

What makes me doubt in humanity is, that this little piece of genius only costs 1€ in every 1€-shop. Why do we need 1€-shops anywhere? So that people would buy useless things only because they only costs 1€? Otherwise, a genius thing like an apple slicer could be useless for someone else…

What I find most fascinating about this love is, that It’s a very simple kind of love. In this post it’s suggested that there are three kinds of love: “I love you because”, “I love you if” and “I love you in spite of”.  So I thought about our love and it’s none of these three, it’s just a simple “I love you”. In case of  doubt it’s a “I don’t know why, but I know that I love you. I don’t need a reason to love you, I just need to look into your eyes and I know that I love you”. This is how love at first sight works for me, from the first day on.

I believe that it is way different when you first build a friendship with someone and learn to love each other step by step. This would be a very mature love from my point of view. Love at first sight is  very irrational.

The tricky part is, that it can be over like it started. It’s all about the spark in the eyes when you look at each other. And this spark can as well just disappear someday, you never know… If you are lucky, it’ll never happen. The eyes don’t really change with the age, so it really can last forever. But the same eyes may lose this special spark, then they’ll be just another normal unexciting pair of eyes… Still you have one other lucky option. You can develop one of the other kinds of love in the meantime and end up not having this simple love anymore, but a more mature kind of love, which is at least as good