What is “normal”?  Have you ever stopped to think how your own prejudices define how you see the world at large, and how you define others?

Just because someone does something differently to you, doesn’t make them ‘abnormal’ or ‘weird’… but the ego likes to think so!

In the video below, renowned physician and best-selling author Gabor Maté shares his knowledge and wisdom on this important yet immensely complex issue.

He astutely points out that the concept of “normal” is actually just a myth or an artificial mental construct, while revealing how mental distress and pathology are mainly a consequence of our modern day materialistic, consumption-driven, soul-sucking culture.

Who decided that people should be valued only by what they produce or consume, rather than who they are?

The best place to be a schizophrenic is not the USA, says Maté, with its ‘pharmacopeia’, but a village in India or Africa, where differences are accepted, and where others make room for your ‘differentness’, where connection is not broken but maintained, where you are not excluded and ostracised, but where there’s room for you to ‘act out’ and express what you need to express.  The whole community might chant with you, and hold ceremony with you – to find some meaning in your ‘craziness’, rather than labelling you and condemning you!

Indeed, disease is not seen as an isolated phenomenon in an individual in such cultures – it’s rightly seen as a cultural phenomenon. Everyone takes on board responsibility for everyone else’s well-being.