Different Becomes Normal
When we were in the Woodstock days, we were freaks and proud of it. We used the term for everything someone could be passionate about. Acid freaks, clean freaks, camping freaks, money freaks, whatever. It was cool to be freaky, and the freakier you were, the cooler you were. We actually had a philosophy behind our bent toward “different.” We wanted to empathize with the downtrodden, and all this seemed like a good wholesome thing to do. We wanted to Walk a Mile in My Shoes. However, I don’t think anyone dreamed we would plumb the depths of weirdness that we have come to today.
I saw a cartoon once that had a flapper, a hippie, and a spiked punk standing next to a little kid who looked up at his dad and said, “Do I have to be weirder than the generation before me?” This sparked an article that I recently wrote, and I have included some excerpts.
Definition of Different
To be different is to be not the same, or distinctly separate from something else. In today’s culture, the “something else” is what people think is normal. So, each child grows up trying to be not the same as whatever normal is. The more unlike normal you are, the “cooler” you get. However, when “normal” changes, so does different, and so does “cool.”
Ways to be Different
You can be different in a good way or a bad way. You can be better than normal or worse than normal. The trouble is, most people think the only way to be different is to be stranger than what used to be. Long, weird hair, freaky makeup, and bad language are the ways to achieve “cool.” This has been going on for generations. What young people did to be different in the 1920’s became normal in the 1960’s. So, kids in the 1960’s had to be more different than their parents were. Then, what was 
different in the 1960’s became normal in the 2000’s. So, kids now have to be even more different than their “different” parents were before them. Do you see where this is going? How weird do we need to get?
When Normal becomes Different
Here are the facts. Normal is the average of the majority. When more and more people try to act “different,” they become the majority. Their many ways to be cool suddenly become the average… they are the ones who are normal. So now what do you do?
When sloppy clothes, spiked hair, hats on backwards, tattoos and bad language become normal, there is only one thing you can do. According to the definition of different, you have to change. You have to be unlike that. If you want to be different, you need to be normal.
Definition of Normal
Being normal means to conform to a standard. This is not a bad thing. It is standard to drive on one side of the road. What if everyone zig zagged back and forth down the highway? In order to avoid wrecks, everyone must drive “normally.”
People used to say it takes courage to stand up and be different. But these days, different is what everybody is doing, and if you don’t, they may not like you. So guess what? It takes courage to not be different, to not go along with the crowd. And if the crowd is not doing the right things, they will suffer for it, and you do not want to suffer with them. Also, people look up to those who stand for what is right and good. So, do you really want to be different? Be normal, and you will definitely stand out… you will definitely be different!
and cinnamon rolls. As he sits in the wooden booth, sipping his coffee, Dustin looks out across the street. There, beckoning him from a small saloon, is a glowing, red neon Michelob sign. It’s a blast from the past, intruding into his new life from the other side of the road. It’s saying,
The contrast is stark, and the choice is clear. The church side of him is here, in a coffee shop, with his church friend, representing his deliverance. And the saloon side of him is over there, with the tinkling glasses, the smell of liquor, the crack of billiard balls in the back. 
the doorway hard and looked down.
celebration – the Birthday of Jesus! You know, the night God came into the world in human form with 
know no end? Yes, that’s the story that has inspired manger scenes on fireplace mantles everywhere, moved musicians to compose magnificent hymns of Christmas celebration, and brought the message of peace and goodwill to all men. THAT CHRISTMAS STORY!!!
sacrifice to watch these things with her… even acting genuinely interested. That’s how I found out that they not only ignore any references to Jesus, they seem to deliberately go out of the way to scrub any vestige of the Savior from the script. The background carols are all about Santa, and Jingle Bells, and sleigh rides.
experience from listening to a recording. The singers tell the story of Christ in song with the musical backup of a symphonic orchestra. Sitting near the front, it is as if they are singing it directly to me. It brings tears to my eyes every time.
minority. I told her about the fights we had with the rednecks and how the Blacksburg mountain hippie culture was born. Peace and love with leather and knives. I told her about our own hippie Fonzie with his long black hair flowing over his shoulders, his bare feet and studded jacket… and how he beat up rednecks at the drop of a hat.
the lead singer (yours truly) was slamming the ground with a big club like the apes in 2001 A Space Odyssey. I think that’s the one where I threatened to beat Germana over the head with my club for no apparent reason.
exploding version of the National Anthem paints the picture of everything the revolution stands for, and Morgan knows he is part of it. Woodstock has sealed the deal; he has sold his soul. A great swelling of emotion rises up in his heart, and he cannot contain it. He raises both hands into the air, with his fingers forming the “V”, and cries like a baby.
Why was this woman crying? In many ways, for the same reason Dustin Morgan cried at Woodstock. A truth bigger than herself had revealed itself to her. A truth bigger that the earth, or the universe, had suddenly taken root in her heart. This Man before her had come down from heaven to save her and deliver her from her sin. He was God in human flesh. And He came here to show the world there is a God, and His Son is Jesus, and He is going to transform the world with His love. Not only that, He had just transformed her. Knowing that this Son Who was sitting right in front of her had taken away her sin and made her a new person demanded that she give him her full devotion.
message that we should see, feel, and experience what someone is going through before we pass judgment on them. This is the reason thousands of young people who already had it made tried to look, feel and act like they didn’t have a thing in the world. They wanted to walk a mile in their shoes. They wanted to experience poverty when they weren’t poor. They grew their hair out so they could incur abuse for their shabby outward appearance, just like people who couldn’t help it did. They wouldn’t admit it, or put it that way, but that’s what it boiled down to. 
Morgan was already an attractive, normal looking young man. What would possess him to grow his hair out and intentionally make himself look unattractive? He was already in the middle class. What advantage could he gain by intentionally making himself look like a low class bum? He already had a 
home, so why would he want to make himself look homeless? He already had shoes. Why would he want to run around barefoot?
