Storie.

Normality is merely a matter of consensus, that is, a lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right.

Some things are governed by common sense; putting buttons on the front of a shirt is a matter of logic, since it would be very difficult to button them at the side, and impossible if they were at the back.

Other things, however, become fixed because more and more people believe that’s the way that it should be. For example, have you ever wondered why the keys on a typewriter are arranged in a particular order?

We call it the QWERTY keyboard, because that’s the order of the letters on the first row of keys. The first machine was invented by Christopher Scholes, in 1873, to improve calligraphy, but there was a problem; if a person typed very fast, the keys got stuck together and stopped the machine working.. Thus Schole designed the QWERTY keyboard, a keyboard that would oblige all typists to type more slowly.

A company named Remington, who were sewing machine manufacturers at that time, used the QWERTY keyboard for their first typewriters. That meant that more people were forced to learn that particular system, and more companies started to make those keyboards, until it became the only available model. To repeat: the keyboards on typewriters and modern computers was designed so that people would type more slowly, not more quickly. If you changed the letters around, you wouldn’t find anyone to buy your product. It’s strange now how we always assume that the QWERTY layout was the best layout for people to type quickly.

Another example. There is a cathedral in Florence, which has a beautiful clock designed by Paolo Uccello in 1443. Now the curious thing about this clock is that, although it keeps time like all other clocks, its hands go in the opposite direction to that of normal clocks.

When he made the clock long ago, he was not trying to be original; the fact is that, at the time, there were clocks like his as well as others with hands that went in the direction we’re familiar with now. For some unknown reason, perhaps because the Duke had a clock that went in the direction we now think of as the ‘right’ direction, that became the only direction, and Uccello’s clock then seemed an aberration, a madness.

To sum up. Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving , and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, just as typists accepted that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one.

Anyone who tries to stop and wonder, however, will be deemed mad.