So there’s been another unexpected development with my friend. I’m a little sad to say that she took an early flight home without allowing me any chance to work things out with her. It’s a huge shame, but I guess I have to respect her decision.

Although I screwed up a little, I’ve been completely honest about why, and I can’t do much more than that. But it seems that honesty is not what she wanted and I’ve received an email from her saying how happy she is to be back home with ‘normal people’, that I have my head stuck up my anus and that I’m living in a drug induced fantasy (a reference to the fact I occasionally work with plant teachers like Ayahuasca). Ouch!

Anyway, surprisingly, I’m totally fine about it all, in fact I’ve actually been feeling really good today, however it’s left me feeling like I want to have a bit of a rant about what’s generally considered normal in society. None of this is aimed at anyone in particular.

Now obviously what’s considered ‘normal’ is quite subjective and of course it will vary from country to country and culture to culture. However, I want to aim my sights squarely at western society, particularly in the UK and the US.

The sad fact of the matter is that our society has gotten really sick – and for most people, that’s completely normal. Our culture has become like a cancer to this planet. It’s rampant with greed, lies, corruption and injustice; and almost nobody wants to hear the truth about all that – and that’s considered normal.

Here are many other things that most people in western society consider to be ‘normal’.

It’s considered normal to lie or talk crap about people all the time. It’s considered normal to be superficial and mundane, to meet with your friends and talk about the same old nonsense time after time. Gossip about friends and family, gossip about your colleagues and work, gossip about celebrities and media bullshit, and sport. And let’s not forget about Big Brother or the latest soap opera storylines. It’s considered normal to spend your evenings watching trashy tv programs, reading trashy novels or watching trashy movies that feature a never-ending stream of degrading sex, violence and conflict.

Conflict is all around us, not just in the media, but in our relationships with friends, family, colleagues and even strangers – and it’s all considered quite normal. It’s considered normal to argue, put down, or fall out with people instead of trying to understand them and resolve differences and make peace.

Selfishness is normal too. It’s considered normal to go after whatever you want no matter that others might get hurt. It’s considered normal to be a nothing more than a consumer and spend insane amounts of money buying stupid shit you don’t need and probably will never use. It seems that the most popular type of therapy these days is ‘retail therapy’. Isn’t it considered normal to go out and splash your cash because you’re feeling down about yourself?

It’s considered normal to spend most of your life doing a crap job you really hate because you need to pay your mortgage and all that other debt you’ve acquired. Sadly it’s now perfectly normal to be up to your eyeballs in debt from bankloans and creditcards and storecards (and all because you can’t help buying useless crap to make yourself feel better).

It’s considered normal for both teenagers and adults to go out at the weekend with the sole intention of getting blitzed out of their minds on alcohol and/or drugs so they can’t even remember what they did.

It’s considered normal that the rich keep on getting richer while the poor get poorer and nothing much is ever done about that. It’s considered normal that a very small number of people control the vast majority of the worlds wealth. It’s considered normal that in many countries millions of people lack even the most basic human needs such as food, shelter and water, and that each and everyday thousands of children are starving to death. But let’s just leave it to Bono to sort that out shall we?

Tragically, war is also considered a normal part of our lives on this planet (just so long as it’s at the other side of the world, mind you). It’s considered normal that our governments are regularly committing genocide in far off places, and that the lives of many thousands of men, women and children are being snuffed out in increasingly more disturbing ways – just so that we can all maintain our ‘normal’ lifestyles.

It’s now considered normal that our governments are hell-bent on removing what few liberties and freedoms we have left. That they’re putting us under increasingly more surveillance – all in the name of our safety and protection of course! If you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to worry about, isn’t that right?

It’s considered normal that corporations all around the world are destroying the planet all in the name of profit. Rainforests are being destroyed, rivers and oceans are being polluted, toxic waste is being spilled, millions of species are going extinct, indigenous peoples are being displaced from their lands where they’ve lived for thousands of years – all because corporations are legally obliged to keep making fat profits for their shareholders, no matter what the consequences – and it’s all considered normal by our society.

Now I’m not saying that the majority of people love war and violence and all the other terrible things that happen in our society and around the world. Most people seem nice, and they will usually say they dislike those terrible things and wish they didn’t exist. But all these things are generally accepted, and it’s that acceptance that allows these things to keep happening.

It’s not people like me that are living in a drug induced fantasy world, it’s most of society. Since the moment we are born we’re conditioned to accept the status-quo, conditioned to believe that this is just the way things are. A combination of media (books, films, television etc), education, religion and the people all around us are constantly reinforcing what’s supposed to be ‘normal’. It’s essentially brainwashing, but the brainwashing is so subtle that most are never aware of it, and so complete that most will never escape it.

Anyway, enough of the normal stuff, let’s take a moment to consider what’s generally not considered normal in society. The kinds of people who are not considered normal are:

Anyone who rocks the boat or asks too many questions
Anyone who tries to point out all the lies and the bullshit and the corruption at every level of our society
Anyone who wakes up and realises that our governments and media are lying to us about just about everything (and they really are lying about almost everything!)
Anyone who sees a major conspiracy in the way our society is controlled
Anyone who seeks to know the truth about our reality, about God, about the universe
Anyone who tries to expand their consciousness
Anyone who loves and wants to live closer to nature
Anyone who talks to the trees and the plants and the flowers (and particularly those who get a response!)
Anyone who decides to downshift and simplify their lives and stop buying useless crap they don’t need
Anyone who doesn’t have a television in their house
Anyone who knows there’s a lot more to this world than all the things we can experience with our five senses.
Anyone who talks about unconditional love and acceptance and strives for those ideals (even though they may not get it right all the time)
Anyone who claims to see or communicate with the spirit world, or anyone who even believes the spirit world exists!
Anyone who claims (quite rightly) that civilisation is rapidly heading towards a major calamity that it may never recover from.

Isn’t it strange how the people who are trying to create a better world are rarely considered normal?

I’m ecstatically happy to admit that I’m not not considered normal by most of society. I feel so relieved that I managed to wake up and see through most of the nonsense and the bullshit, and that I feel like I’ve left it all behind. Right now I couldn’t think of anything worse than to be called ‘normal’. I might even consider it an insult!

I long for the day when truth is considered normal and lies are rejected, a time when conflict is a thing of the past and everyone is working together to create a better world and live in total harmony with one other. A time when all of humanity is united and not divided. Although it’s hard to believe sometimes, that time is coming, I’m sure….

PS. This post is a little rough around the edges, but I wanted to post it before I start my trek to Machu Picchu tomorrow. I have to be up in less than 5 hours and it’s definitely time for bed. I’ll be offline for the next 5 days.