Quantifying quality...

"I said to myself when I saw you - I said, 'That's a guy with the most normal-looking face I ever saw in my life'...It's great to see a normal face, because I'm a normal guy. It would be great for two normal guys like us to get together and talk about world events - you know, in a normal sort of way..." - Clare Quilty

How much energy goes into maintaining an appearance of collective normalcy? In your relationships? In your community? On your planet? Is it quantifiable? Of course not. I ask because I think a lot of this is going to start to unravel as we redefine ourselves and our concepts of social space in the years ahead. It could be a bumpy ride for some. Or a welcomed less-normal normal for others.

If the 20th Century was about fighting to build mega-systems, if it was about quantity and achieving scale, then I have an optimistic hunch that the 21st Century will be about reducing the numbers, rethinking the scale of things, and reinvesting the systems with quality. And by quality I mean soul, though I'm sure other unreliable narrators will have other perfectly normal definitions.