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Sign in 16 17 Just Be Normal About Things 18 19 On sleepmaxxing, beef-only diets, political hysteria, and the lost art of being 20 reasonable 21 22 [13] 23 JA Westenberg's avatar 24 [14]JA Westenberg 25 Jun 09, 2026 26 133 27 19 28 44 29 Share 30 [19] 31 man sitting on floor 32 33 For all we’re obsessed with wellness, we’re not well, are we? 34 35 It’s not that we care too much; caring is good, and conviction is good, and 36 discipline is good etc etc etc. Wanting to improve your life, your body, your 37 work, your politics, your relationships, your finances, your mornings, your 38 sleep, your habits, your dinner, your sense of meaning, all of that is fine. 39 40 I’ll grant it. 41 42 The sickness that concerns me is that everything has become so very totalizing. 43 44 Nothing is allowed to be small anymore. Nothing is allowed to be moderate, 45 partial, ordinary, seasonal, boring, or just good enough. Every preference must 46 become an identity, every habit must become a protocol, every disagreement must 47 become a moral emergency, every meal must become a philosophy, every viral post 48 or breaking news item must become a referendum on civilization, every feeling 49 must become a public performance, every hobby must become a monetized personal 50 brand, and every single decision must be optimized, defended, aestheticized, 51 and turned into something approximating Von Clausewitz’s total war. 52 53 You can’t just go to bed earlier - you have to sleepmaxx. 54 55 You can’t just eat a balanced diet - you have to eliminate seed oils, and track 56 your glucose, fear vegetables and consume nothing but beef, drink raw milk, and 57 talk about “ancestral living” and “blue zones” on your longevity TikTok. 58 59 And of course, you can’t just exercise. You have to train like a tactical 60 athlete, buy recovery wearables, plunge yourself into ice, supplement like a 61 racehorse, and describe walking as “zone two.” 62 63 And of course, you can’t just disagree with someone’s politics. You have to 64 decide they’re either a fascist, a communist, a groomer, a traitor, a 65 neoliberal shill, a terrorist sympathizer, or a brainwashed NPC. 66 67 You can’t just dislike a movie, a celebrity, a book, a brand, a podcast, a 68 tweet, a hairstyle, a product launch, a parenting choice, or someone’s annoying 69 opinion. 70 71 You have to turn it into a statement about the death of culture. 72 73 Everyone is bloody exhausted and bloody exhausting; and somehow, the solution 74 offered everywhere is to become more extreme. More intense. More pure. More 75 optimized. More committed. More certain. More aligned with the right tribe. 76 More hostile to the wrong tribe. More suspicious of ordinary pleasure. More 77 contemptuous of ordinary compromise. 78 79 Well, here’s my radical position: 80 81 Just be normal about things. 82 83 That’s it. 84 85 Be normal, and opt out of the deranged belief that the only way to take 86 something seriously is to take it to the most extreme possible conclusion. 87 88 Normal is the condition that makes meaning possible. A normal diet works fine 89 without a manifesto. A normal sleep schedule doesn’t need a name ending in 90 “maxxing.” A normal political view allows for uncertainty, tradeoffs, and the 91 possibility that your opponents might be wrong rather than the evil descendants 92 of Satan and Satre themselves. A normal reaction to the news is to be concerned 93 and to want more information - not to succumb to immediate emotional 94 combustion. A normal life has habits and preferences and inconsistencies and 95 repairs and occasional contradictions. 96 97 That’s what makes it all a life. 98 99 Part of the problem is that “taking it too far” is highly legible, in a way 100 that moderation simply isn’t. Extremism photographs and posts well. It gives 101 people a script, and it creates instant belonging. If you’re “all in” on 102 something, anything, people know what to do with you. You’re carnivore. You’re 103 anti-seed-oil. You’re doing hustle culture. You’re trad. You’re poly. You’re 104 antiwork. You’re 995ing. You’re pro-AI. You’re anti-AI. You’re sober. You’re 105 feral. You’re an accelerationist. You’re post-left. You’re in founder mode. 106 You’re living a soft life. You’re a doomer. You’re based. You’re cringe. You’re 107 whatever the algorithm currently finds most useful as a sorting mechanism. 108 109 But if you say, “I try to eat pretty well, but I try not to be weird about it,” 110 there’s just nowhere for that to go, and nowhere for the world to put you. It 111 doesn’t polarize, recruit or inflame. It doesn’t invite a pile-on, or signal 112 total allegiance. It doesn’t make strangers feel either validated or threatened 113 - the two things left that seem to make the world go round. 114 115 Platforms don’t reward “normal.” In pursuit of profit, they reward mania, 116 purity, escalation, and novelty. They reward the person who says the thing with 117 absolute certainty and maximum contempt, who can turn a minor observation into 118 a civilizational diagnosis - the man who has no off-switch, no sense of 119 proportion, and no respect for the idea that some things are not that deep. 120 121 And because we live inside these systems for hours a day, we keep confusing 122 their idiotic, base incentives for reality. 123 124 But most people don’t need a biohacking protocol. 125 126 They need to stop scrolling in bed and get as many hours of sleep as their 127 schedule allows. 128 129 Most people don’t need to become zealots about nutrition. They need protein, 130 fiber, vegetables, water, fewer candy bars, and a less hysterical relationship 131 with their lunch. 132 133 Most people don’t need a complete ideological conversion. They need to read 134 more than one source, stop confusing vibes with facts, and admit that 135 complicated problems are - in fact - complicated. 136 137 Most people don’t need to turn every social conflict into therapy language, 138 legal language, war language, or liberation language. They need to talk like 139 adults, apologize when they’re wrong, set boundaries without staging a press 140 conference, and let small things be small things. 141 142 Most people don’t need to go “all in” on every trend, every cause, every 143 discourse, every outrage, every self-improvement system, every productivity 144 framework, every moral panic, every luxury, every fear. 145 146 They need a life with enough structure to support them and enough looseness to 147 let them breathe. 148 149 The culture of extremity flatters us by telling us that intensity = virtue. If 150 you care about your health, you must care in a way that consumes your 151 personality. If you care about justice, you must be angry all the time. If you 152 care about success, you must sacrifice rest, friendship, and dignity.If you 153 care about the planet, you must perform guilt on command. If you care about 154 your body, you must monitor it like a hostile asset. If you care about your 155 mind, you must turn every feeling into an analytics dashboard. 156 157 There are many things worth caring about. 158 159 But the more something is worth caring about, the more dangerous extremism 160 becomes. 161 162 Being weird about shit - extremism in all its forms - might burn hot, and it 163 might perform well, but it always collapses. 164 165 Being normal about shit compounds. 166 167 Someone who eats normally for twenty years will likely do better than someone 168 who cycles between puritanical restriction and indulgent rebellion. Someone who 169 sleeps decently most nights will likely feel more rested than someone who turns 170 sleep into a neurotic performance and then panics every time their watch gives 171 them a bad score. Someone who reads widely, updates slowly, and resists 172 political possession will likely understand the world better than someone who 173 receives every event as ammunition for a pre-existing narrative. Someone who 174 can have an ordinary disagreement without annihilating the other will likely 175 have better relationships than someone who treats every conflict as evidence of 176 abuse, betrayal, or ideological contamination. 177 178 Extremism might give you a feeling like control, but it’s usually a signal of 179 possession. You think you’ve chosen a system, but pretty soon the system is 180 choosing for you. You no longer ask, “What do I think?” You ask, “What does 181 someone like me think?” You no longer ask, “What does this situation need?” You 182 ask, “How do I perform my allegiance?” You no longer notice reality, so much as 183 you complain when reality either fails to confirm, or threatens your identity. 184 185 This is how people are made ridiculous. 186 187 The seed oil wanker can’t eat dinner at a friend’s house without making 188 everyone aware of their purity hierarchy. The political obsessive can’t watch a 189 natural disaster unfold without immediately sorting victims and responders into 190 ideological categories. The productivity extremist can’t enjoy a walk unless 191 it’s contributing to a measurable objective. The social media addict can’t 192 experience a private emotion without imagining its public framing. The wellness 193 convert can’t be tired without interpreting it as a hormonal, spiritual, 194 dietary, environmental, or civilizational crisis. 195 196 Sometimes tired just means tired. 197 198 Sometimes hungry just means hungry. 199 200 Sometimes disagreement just means disagreement. 201 202 Sometimes a bad day is just a bad day. 203 204 Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake. 205 206 Sometimes a preference is just a preference. 207 208 Sometimes a joke is just a joke, and sometimes it’s just bad. 209 210 Sometimes a person is annoying without being an existential threat to Western 211 Values. 212 213 Sometimes the news is upsetting without you becoming catatonic for the rest of 214 the day. 215 216 Sometimes your body is asking for a ham sandwich, not a new ideology. 217 218 Proportion is the ability to respond to things at the right scale. Not 219 everything deserves your whole nervous system, and not everything deserves a 220 boycott, a confession, a thread, a pivot, a diagnosis, a feud, a rebrand, a 221 protocol, a purge, or a ten-year plan. 222 223 Some things deserve a shrug. 224 225 Some things deserve a nap. 226 227 Some things deserve a private conversation. 228 229 Some things deserve a week of thought before you speak up. 230 231 Some things deserve attention, but not obsession. 232 233 The internet hates proportion because proportion slows the machine down. A 234 proportionate person is harder to manipulate. They don’t instantly buy the 235 supplement, join the mob, share the outrage, adopt the label, or panic at the 236 headline. They have a buffer between stimulus and response. They can say, 237 “Maybe,” “Not enough information,” “This seems overstated,” “I’m not 238 convinced,” “I don’t need to have a take on this,” and, most dangerously of 239 all, “I’m going to log off.” 240 241 A lot of what passes for conviction is poor emotional regulation. A lot of what 242 passes for discipline is anxiety. A lot of what passes for moral clarity is 243 group belonging. A lot of what passes for being informed is being repeatedly 244 agitated by people who profit from repeated agitation. 245 246 If the house is on fire, go right ahead and scream. But if every room you enter 247 feels like it’s on fire, check whether you’ve just trained yourself to smell 248 smoke everywhere. 249 250 The point is to stop living as though maximum intensity is the same as maximum 251 truth. 252 253 A normal person can still have principles. In fact, they probably have better 254 principles, because theirs aren’t constantly being rewritten by adrenaline. 255 They can oppose cruelty without becoming cruel, and they can pursue excellence 256 without despising rest. They can care about food without fearing either dinner, 257 dessert or the noble tradition of the cold pizza midnight snack. They can care 258 about politics without surrendering their entire personality to politics. They 259 can be ambitious without turning every hour into a transaction. They can be 260 online without letting the timeline assign them a worldview. 261 262 It sounds modest, but it’s hard. We are constantly bombarded with a thousand 263 and one tiny invitations to madness. The invitation to escalate; the invitation 264 to simplify; the invitation to belong through hatred; the invitation to turn 265 insecurity into doctrine; the invitation to convert ordinary discomfort into 266 emergency; the invitation to treat your own life as content; and the invitation 267 to substitute intensity for depth. 268 269 Eventually, you have to draw a line in the sand and start saying no to the 270 dopamine hit you get from going too far. 271 272 You’ll likely disappoint the folks who want you to be more extreme - because 273 your extremism would validate theirs. The zealot wants company, and the 274 obsessive wants a mirror. 275 276 The algorithm wants fresh meat. 277 278 The mob wants your voice added to the chant. 279 280 The brand wants you to feel deficient. 281 282 The guru wants your uncertainty. . 283 284 To be normal about things is to preserve a private center that doesn’t get 285 annexed by every passing demand. I can care about this without becoming it. I 286 can improve this without worshiping it. I can be concerned without being 287 consumed. I can participate without surrendering judgment. I can change my mind 288 without staging a conversion narrative. I can be imperfect without making 289 imperfection my brand. I can be serious without being unbearable. 290 291 A normal life has room for contradiction. 292 293 You can care about nutrition and eat cake at a birthday party. You can care 294 about sleep and stay up late sometimes. You can care about politics and have 295 friends who don’t share your every worldview. You can care about your work and 296 still close your laptop when your kid wants you to play Uno. You can be 297 spiritually curious and still be skeptical of people selling enlightenment 298 subscriptions. You can be disciplined and still be fun. You can be principled 299 and still be kind. 300 301 This shouldn’t sound radical. None of it should sound radical. It only does 302 because our culture has become so stupidly binary. 303 304 We keep building identities out of overcorrections. One group is reckless about 305 health, so another becomes hysterical about purity. One group ignores politics, 306 so another makes politics metabolize every human interaction. One group 307 glorifies workaholism, so another insists ambition is inherently pathological. 308 One group pathologizes every emotion, another denies emotions matter at all. 309 Back and forth, forever, everyone reacting to the worst version of everyone 310 else. 311 312 Stop letting the most annoying person in the opposite camp design your life. 313 314 You don’t have to become the inverse of someone else’s stupidity. 315 316 You can just be normal about things. You can live a life where you don’t need 317 to make every decision under the pressure of symbolic meaning. 318 319 It puts the bar where a human being can reach it repeatedly without becoming 320 deranged. 321 322 Refusing to be yanked around by every discourse preserves dignity. Refusing to 323 overfit your life to trends preserves intelligence. Habits that don’t require 324 witnesses build strength. Letting some things pass without turning them into 325 proof of your worldview is maturity. 326 327 Just be normal about things. 328 329 Eat food that makes you feel decent. Sleep enough. Move your body. Read things 330 that challenge your priors. Be kind to people in real life. Don’t outsource 331 your politics to the angriest person on your feed. Don’t make your body a 332 battleground for someone else’s theory. Don’t confuse self-improvement with 333 self-surveillance. Don’t confuse certainty with wisdom. Don’t confuse being a 334 dick with courage. 335 336 Have beliefs. Have standards. Have ambition. Have taste. Have boundaries. Have 337 causes. Have things you refuse to tolerate. 338 339 But don’t give every part of yourself to every fight. 340 341 Most things need attention, not obsession. 342 343 Care, but keep your head. 344 345 Rest, but don’t turn it into a competitive sport. 346 347 Eat, but don’t join a cult. 348 349 Think, but don’t let politics eat your entire personality. 350 351 React, but not to everything, and not at full volume. 352 353 Learn what deserves your whole self and what deserves a normal, proportionate, 354 adult response. 355 356 At the very least - at the bare minimum - it might make us all less annoying on 357 Twitter. 358 359 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 360 361 Subscribe to WESTENBERG 362 363 By JA Westenberg · Launched 6 months ago 364 Field Notes on the Machine Age. 365 [33][ ] 366 Subscribe 367 By subscribing, you agree Substack's [35]Terms of Use, and acknowledge its [36] 368 Information Collection Notice and [37]Privacy Policy. 369 [38] 370 Bitter Beloved's avatar 371 [39] 372 Ed's avatar 373 [40] 374 SemicolonExpected's avatar 375 [41] 376 Fumbling Through's avatar 377 [42] 378 valis's avatar 379 133 Likes∙ 380 [43]44 Restacks 381 133 382 19 383 44 384 Share 385 386 Discussion about this post 387 388 CommentsRestacks 389 User's avatar 390 [ ] 391 [ ] 392 [ ] 393 [ ] 394 [51] 395 Mitch Teplitsky's avatar 396 [52]Mitch Teplitsky 397 [53]Jun 9 398 Liked by JA Westenberg 399 400 I couldn't agree with you more! (Well, I don't mean to be extreme about it - 401 let's just say, I agree~:) 402 403 [56] 404 Like (8) 405 Reply 406 Share 407 [57] 408 Macey Shofroth's avatar 409 [58]Macey Shofroth 410 [59]Jun 9 411 Liked by JA Westenberg 412 413 "To be normal about things is to preserve a private center that doesn’t get 414 annexed by every passing demand. I can care about this without becoming it. I 415 can improve this without worshiping it. I can be concerned without being 416 consumed. I can participate without surrendering judgment. I can change my mind 417 without staging a conversion narrative. I can be imperfect without making 418 imperfection my brand. I can be serious without being unbearable. 419 420 A normal life has room for contradiction." 421 422 THAT PART!!!!! 423 424 [62] 425 Like (6) 426 Reply 427 Share 428 [63]17 more comments... 429 TopLatestDiscussions 430 [68]The AI writing witchhunt is idiotic 431 [69](Not to mention, pointless) 432 Apr 4 • [70]JA Westenberg 433 900 434 238 435 [https] 436 [75]I'm Begging You to Leave Your AI Note-taker at Home 437 [76]Stop Bringing Your AI to Coffee 438 Jul 1 • [77]JA Westenberg 439 152 440 50 441 23 442 [https] 443 [82]Comparison is a con 444 [83]The most important thing I've done isn't on my CV 445 Jun 19 • [84]JA Westenberg 446 140 447 45 448 11 449 [https] 450 See all 451 452 Ready for more? 453 454 [100][ ] 455 Subscribe 456 © 2026 JA Westenberg · [102]Privacy ∙ [103]Terms ∙ [104]Collection notice 457 [105] Start your Substack[106]Get the app 458 [107]Substack is the home for great culture 459 460 This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. 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