It's strange what can trouble one at 4am. Woken up by work thoughts my brain rapidly decided it didn't want to stick with the topic and wandered off on a random digression:
Normality is more extreme than you imagine, this is why the news is almost always bad.
Normality is consensus concept and so is maintained by general perception and is not a tangible or given, neither is it measureable, evenly distributed or universally available. People's experience of normality is vastly different based on location culture and life experience.
As you live in a mediatised culture your expectation of normality is most likely set by a mixture of media representations and social expectations/experiences. Unfortunately media content is saleable and is largely sold on the premise that it is news or new information. This selling needs to takes place even when there is little or no news or information and so minor information is hyped as important and even when it isn't. This is much easier to do with bad news than good news as our innate survival instincts have a greater push away from risk than they do a pull toward benefit (risk might kill you but a benefit is likely to be marginal except in rare cases where it could provide a competitive advantage - this would refer to basics like sex and food really).
Note to self: This is an incomplete thought and needs work.
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