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A "Normal" Life?


Iun

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Abby and Brittany Hensel are two conjoined twins: they have one body shared between them - two hearts and lungs one reproductive system, one colon.

 

They are trying to live a completely normal life - but what is "normal"? White bread, orange juice and reading the Times? Can two girls like this ever live what would be considered an unremarkable life?

 

Discuss.

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Normal is 'conforming to standards'. Since the majority of people aren't conjoined twins, the two ladies cannot live a 'normal' life.

 

 

In my opinion, they shouldn't even try to live a normal life. They should just live the way they want to and don't think about being 'normal'.

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The question should be: What is 'not normal'? Or rather, what makes you 'not normal'?

 

I think that you cannot be normal or abnormal 'by yourself' (I'm having a hard time expressing my thoughts in English, sorry if it's difficult to read/understand).

It's others who do that for/to you. Pressure from outside, the standards that society has established, standards that have their origin in some kind of majority. Only if you think about what's normal, you can become 'abnormal'. And that's what everyone does. I believe that's the reason why there even is something like 'normality'.

 

If Abby and Brittany (as they are the example given) stopped trying to live a normal life, they would achieve exactly that.

 

It's awfully pretentious to ask the following questions, and I hate it but...why fit in? Why conform to standards, especially when there is no way to make that possible?

 

Then again, maybe a happy life actually is what they mean by "normal".

 

Why not use the word "happy" then? By using the word 'normal', they actually make themselves 'not normal'. They are doing what society does. Impose a label based on a set of arbitrary standards.

Edited by drahkon
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Why not use the word "happy" then? By using the word 'normal', they actually make themselves 'not normal'. They are doing what society does. Impose a label based on a set of arbitrary standards.

 

Maybe that simply is what they consider normal: living a happy life, regardless of whatever differences one might have from the rest of the population.

 

In other words, I think they are just referring to the ability of fitting into society, not necessarily through a common standard.

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What fascinates me about this is that these two girls redefine what we think of as constituting a "person": Two heads, but one body, two different perspectives on the world, but only one pair of hands to touch it. Amazing.

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Not really. The actual program just seemed to be their parents saying how normal they wanted them to be, and their friends saying how great they were. I know it wasn't supposed to be a freak-show, but it just threw up many more questions than it answered.

 

I've seen documentaries about them before (when they were younger) which were much more informative i think.

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