Unique is the new Normal

I have the magnificent pleasure of volunteering with a rambunctious group of high schoolers twice a week. We get together and talk about theater. We play improv games. We plan how to make the school administrators clean up the stage. We even put on small plays for the entertainment of the faculty, staff, students, parents and friends who choose to come. (Well, we have only done one to date, but I speak in good faith that we can do another one. We've only been at this for one full school semester, after all.)

But we also get to have some pretty deep conversations, too. For example, today when I asked the question why they wanted to do theater and be a part of drama club, one of the answers that came up was that they felt like they could be themselves when they were in our club meetings. They could be wild and crazy and not have to worry about what people thought when they acted silly. One of the students observed that "normal" according to our society was the person who walked through life knowing no one's name, doing nothing of note and living in a generally neutral manner. It made me start wondering (and allow me to place some emphasis on this):

Since when did we start conditioning ourselves to believe that "normal" is this robotic lifestyle?