Dips and bumps

Have you ever noticed how it's the dips we tend to focus on rather than the bumps? That when things seem normal or even going great, we take them as one in the same. But as soon as something goes wrong, bingo! Now we notice. Things are no longer normal. I have for several years now attempted to mentally note the ups as well as the downs. What I've discovered is that they tend to come in semi-regular waves: swells and troughs, dips and bumps, ups and downs. Which of course means that the in-betweens are what we think of as normal, though to my mind the pattern appears more reminiscent of a sine wave where "normal" is the zero crossing, the ups and downs everything else. Here, have a look. Note that the majority of time (X-axis or left to right) is spent in some measure of either an up or down state. The zero-crossing point (denoted by the center line) is nearly non-existent. It is the point of normalized zero energy and nearly zero time: neither up nor down. Normal. What this suggests to my nerd's brain is simple: we spend nearly no time being normal. That normal is but an illusion: a bit of breathing space between the ups and downs that occupy the majority of our lives. What would happen if we came to recognize that most of our time is spent negotiating life's ups and downs in an effort to get back to a normal that pretty much doesn't exist? Food for thought.