Where is the boundary between what is categorised as normal behaviour, and something more uncommon?
I remind myself here of when I studied libel as a journalism student. I don't know what the standard is these days, but when I was learning, the benchmark was set at whether the 'reasonable man' would be likely to find that something written had exposed the complainant to hatred, ridicule, or contempt. If this hypothetical creature answered 'yes' then the seeds of a defamation case could theoretically be sown in the English or Welsh civil courts.
Similarly, the 'reasonable man' is a useful tool when trying to answer the question I pose in the first sentence. It is obvious, but worth stating - normal behaviour is characterised by a lack of extremes. From this simple premise, there is more to be said about the word 'normal': yes, it implies that someone acts within accepted parameters, but furthermore that they do so consistently.
Such a lack of consistent action causes no end of concern to your author, who seemingly lacks the means to remedy it. Perhaps a lack of certainty, of conviction, and of priorities which fluctuate without reason, is indeed no more than can be expected from a flung-together bag of DNA.
There are times, for instance, when the excitement of constructing Platonic syllogisms (it's part of what I am expected to do for my next assignment) is almost overwhelming. I am at those moments replete with a devastatingly accurate vision of what the completed work will look like. The inner eye is capable of scanning the pages, and I more-or-less vibrate with anticipation at the thought of being able to leave work and set about it.
Inevitably, though, I freeze with fear when the time comes to actually start doing what I expect of myself. The grand vision is no more, and I sit as heavy as stone with the blood whooshing uselessly through my head - I can hear it.
Similarly, one would only need to ask the American girl - the one who complains I never write about her - for evidence of my own fickle sensibilities. Would the fictitious 'reasonable man' see it as normal that, over the course of x years, I have been able to cease communication with her at will, often for weeks, and yet at other times it is more than I can stand to not send her an SMS which just reads: I am thinking of you.
There are numerous problems here. I have a limited attention span, an interest in others which fluctuates from being non-existent to all-consuming, and my ambition to write, to learn, is visible in my mad eyes one morning, and tomorrow everything will be extinguished.
If this is normality, then I have no wish to be normal. If it is not, I wish to be fixed.
