Scared of Normal

A topic that's been on my mind lately is the idea of simplicity. In a world that often values complexity and sophistication, simplicity can easily be overlooked or undervalued. Be warned — here come some rambling thoughts.

I own a bike. It’s not an expensive bike, but in terms of functionality I genuinely think it’s the pinnacle of human mobility and freedom. It takes up little space, gets me around quickly, keeps me fit, and runs on calories — arguably the most abundant fuel on the planet. It’s a simple machine, yet hard to imagine life without. Put on a pair of studded tires and you can ride it 365 days a year, in almost any weather. The one mechanical service I couldn’t fix myself cost me 500 kroner.

A human tendency I’ve become increasingly aware of is what I like to call “comfort creep,” or hedonic adaptation. The idea is simple: once we get used to a certain level of comfort, that level quietly becomes the baseline. Going below it doesn’t feel neutral — it feels like loss. We start taking comfort for granted, and worse, we begin tying it to our identity and sense of self-worth. Suddenly even small sacrifices — like not choosing the “Pro” model of the new iPhone — feel like a subtle status drop. And just like that, we justify spending money on things we don’t really need, all to preserve a slightly inflated sense of well-being. Once other people start noticing or commenting on your nice things, the whole “keeping up with the Joneses” mechanism kicks in, and the spiral of comparison accelerates.

Things get even more interesting when you bring in René Girard’s theory of “mimetic desire.” The core idea is unsettlingly simple: our desires are not entirely our own. We learn what to want by watching what others want. We don’t just desire objects — we desire them because someone else has marked them as desirable. That sets off a subtle but powerful cycle of imitation, comparison, and consumption. Your next-door neighbor goes to a five-star restaurant, and suddenly you find yourself craving the same experience.

It helps explain why celebrities and influencers have such an impact on consumer behavior. They don’t just advertise products; they model desire itself. Before we know it, we’re not buying something because we need it, but because it fits into a hierarchy of wanting we never consciously signed up for.

But back to the story.

Mindful of comfort creep, I’ve never felt the urge to buy an expensive car. My first car was a 2000 Honda Civic hatchback. Japanese reliability, almost no features. It did one thing well: got me from A to B. In 2018 my girlfriend crashed it right before we were going on holiday, and we got a rental while it was being repaired — a 2015 Ford Fiesta. Modest by any standard, but compared to the Civic it felt like stepping into the future. Heated seats. CarPlay. Civilization.

That small jump in comfort felt enormous. And that’s the point. Even minor upgrades recalibrate our baseline. What once felt luxurious becomes normal almost overnight. Keeping the bar low is, in a way, a hack: if your baseline is modest, even small improvements feel like abundance.

The same thing happened with phones. My 2020 iPhone SE — the cheapest model — served me faithfully for six years, until newer iOS updates slowed it down to near unusable levels. I had an old iPhone 12 Pro lying around and switched. On paper, a big upgrade. In practice? Within weeks it just felt normal.

A couple of years ago I read the book "Jakten på den grønne lykken" by Bjørn Stærk. He argues that we are born as evolved apes, but increasingly act like giants — maximizing our resources and capabilities, taking up more space, consuming far beyond our needs. We’ve become extraordinarily comfortable, but in the process created problems we don't really have.

Me being privileged enough to ride my bike year-round feels like a quiet protest against that. It’s a reminder that we can get by with less — and that sometimes less really is more.

What scares me isn’t luxury. It’s how quickly it becomes normal.