There are over seven billion people on Earth and at every point in every life, they are considered either extraordinary or ordinary. The differences between these two seemingly antonymic words are actually quite complex. The word extraordinary literally means beyond the ordinary. It conveys a sense of overwhelming superiority in someone or something over everything else around it. It has been utilized in English for hundreds of years as a term filled with awe and wonder that could only be bestowed upon the best of the best. However, the history of extraordinary by no means conveys its true relationship with the word ordinary. Simply put, extraordinary is relative to the current definition of ordinary. 400 years ago it would have been extraordinary if an average person could …show more content…
It is used interchangeably with commonplace and usual and normal and typical and humdrum. Does this mean that being ordinary makes one humdrum? Being ordinary can be boring or exciting. It is again based on the point of view. If you can run a 5K faster than some people and slower than some others, you are an ordinary 5K runner but completing 5K can still be exciting. In the world of today, ordinary stereotypically entails that a person has little to no college education, a prosaic dead-end job, and a somewhat monotonous existence. However, the meaning is a bit more encompassing. Ordinariness is found in every single human being that has walked on the face of Earth, for God does give with both hands. Even Jim Thorpe, one of the best athletes in history, was an alcoholic who was terrible with money. The plumber who fixes your sink twice a year might be the best shuffleboard player in the county, but at the end of the day, he is still a plumber. The alcoholics and plumbers of the world can relate to the rest of mankind because tens of millions share their situation unlike the tens of ones that share Jim Thorpe’s
Most people want to be normal. The definition of normal however, depends on the culture of the person making the judgment. Far too often, normal is defined in America by looking at the actions and beliefs of the average white middle class family. This definition of normal fails to let other cultures to be accepted, creating distance and misunderstanding.
Ordinary People is a movie that chronicles the struggles of a “normal” family reamed by the death of their eldest child Bucky and the attempted suicide of their youngest, Calvin. The Jarrett’s are a middle class family in the suburbs of Chicago who, at least to outside appearances, have a fairly typical life, though we learn this is in fact not the case. Conrad has just returned from the hospital and seems to be experiencing not only depression but also PTSD. Conrad is the seemingly identified patient, even though the whole family is struggling in their own way, especially Beth. We start to see the background of the Jarrett family through Calvin’s therapy sessions with his new therapist, Dr. Berger.
"There are no extraordinary men...just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with."
...iety does things just as unusual as the character in the poem. What may seem strange for some is perfectly normal to others. In many countries in Asia, for example, people eat various insects and rodents that we, on the western hemisphere, find unsettling. Likewise not everyone finds holding dogs and cats as household pets as normal either, some countries even eat man’s best friend (Chang). Everything we do we justify it as our right to survive. Survival drives us to do unexpected things because we are a species that knows that if we don’t take care of ourselves we will suffer or die.
How does one find the miraculous in the common? Associated with spontaneous wonders, miraculous is far from the ordinary. This is a sound comparison, although Transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson would call the previous statement a fallacy. This is due to his belief of finding the miraculous in the common as “the invariable mark of wisdom”. Emerson along with Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard all answered in regards to finding such miracles. These three authors have displayed their reasoning in their popular works.
The ordinary world is the first stage of the journey for the hero. The normal life of the hero is revealed before the quest begins. The Joads lead a life very common for Midwestern, 1930s families. They own 40 acres of farmland in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. The grandparents, Grampa and Granma, lead the household. Pa and Ma are the middle aged adults living on the farm. Pa and Ma have 6 children- Al, Tom, Rosasharn, Noah, Ruthie, and Winfield. The entire family living together is characteristic of the time period. The family only knows the farming lifestyle. So, like the majority of farming families in the 1930s, the Joads were negatively affected by the Dust Bowl and
Once you are born, you become a part of a larger group. You will grow up starting at a point in your parent's life and then over time they or even you will change the direction of your families subculture in whatever country you all live in. In America, People strive for the best. Not all get it, but somehow or someone will push that family into a situation where they can move up in the world. Over the years America has came to a point where most jobs pay well and mostly anyone can be considered a middle class resident. In America this is considered normal to the general public. Being normal and striving to be normal is the focus most people try to reach within their lifetimes. Normality is a subculture in itself.
Canada has been known as a peaceful country throughout the years. Its modest image has kept them from being attacked by terrorist. In Robert W. Murray and John McCoy article, “From Middle Power to Peace Builder: The Use of the Canadian Forces in Modern Canadian Foreign Policy,” it talks about how Canada wanted to be established as the peacekeeper between other international powers. Robert W. Murray and John McCoy discusses ideas about a Canadian foreign policy that was created to maintain a middle ground between large and minor powers. Canada did a lot to dedicate itself to ensuring its national security by faithfully participating within many international institutions. McCoy and Murray article discusses about the idea of Canada’s peacekeeping and being the middle man power, and how it was established during their involvement in Afghanistan. In the beginning of the article, it explains Canada’s transformation of foreign policy and how it went from being a middle power force to becoming an active force in the policy of peacebuilding.
Ordinary People was Judith Guest‘s first novel published in 1976 and Robert Redford directed the movie version of it in1980.the novel takes place during the late 1970s and focuses on Calvin Jarrett’s family.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is a branch of Christianity, it rooted in the early Church and was developed in the Greek-speaking eastern branch of the Roman Empire. The Eastern Orthodoxy’s faith is very close to the faith of Roman Catholic Church. Orthodox Christianity‘s worship is highly liturgical and very iconographic. The Annunciation Greek Orthodox church that located in Houston Texas is the proto-cathedral of the Denver Metropolis. While attending the high Mass in the Annunciation Greek Orthodox catheral, and the Ordinary form of Mass in a Roman Catholic Church, one can tell the similars and differences between two form of the Orthodox church and Roman Catholic church in celebrating liturgy. The Ordinary Form of Mass also call Novus Ordo, which is the form of Mass that allow people to celebrate the Sacred Mystery in vernacular language. The Orthodox high Mass and the Ordinary form of Mass are both similar in the main orders and elements in celebrating Mass. However, each form of Mass has it unique way in celebrating liturgy, such as the different of the readings in the Liturgy of the Word, the Creed, the offertory of the Gift, and the gesture of the communicants in receiving Holy Communion.
Extraordinary claim: A claim that contradicts the accepted physical laws or our common sense, everyday experiences in the world.
Before taking this class, I often thought that our advanced society was the standard in which to measure all other societies from, but after reviewing the material in this course, it is impossible to make such a comparison. Many of the people in a culture similar to the U.S. would probably find most of the cultures we have studied to be “slow”, strange, or undesirable. In fact, it seems that many of the societies actually prefer to live the way they do and accept it as normal. “Normal” is a relative term, and it is difficult to establish evidence to label a culture or its characteristics abnormal. What may seem to work here often would be disastrous to other cultures.
But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. ”[1] He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or recognition.
themselves to be as common as the common folk. Even in their arrogance they saw
To be considered normal or abnormal has been just a label society places on you to explain individuality. When we are younger, we were given a mixed message that being different and unique is acceptable, however growing up in a society that wants you to blend in and adhere to the norms and usual customs of that culture is difficult. Being dissimilar often leads you to be judged and considered deviant. What you perceive not only defines your idiosyncratic judgment, so does your culture, prejudices, upbringing and generation you belong to. In our modern day society a universal normal has not, nor ever will exist. We think, look and all act differently and the reality of it is, no one is normal.