Rose: For the first time in a long time I feel heavy of a great burden.
Bud: I’m going ballroom dancing with my friend today! Very excited.
Thorn: Currently studying for my financial accounting exam that is tomorrow, I really hope I do well on ts. I really should get back to that.
Hot take: In a world of modifiers, I think being an absolute is the only thing worth being.
My friend told me recently that I am the most chalant person he has ever met. It’s not the first time someone has given me this compliment (I’ll always take it as a positive), and not even the first time its been posed it as an absolute, but after hearing something enough times, you’re forced to stop and actually think about it.
He’s roughly my age, Eddie. Eddie is from Romania, and we met while we were both studying abroad in Singapore last fall. We’ve only known each other a few months, and even within this, our time together barely overlapped. Between clashing class schedules, travels, and meeting new people, we had the opportunity to hang out only a handful of times.
And yet, he looked at me and decided that in my twenty-one years of breathing, I had achieved a level of “chalance” that surpassed everyone else he’d encountered in his own two-plus decades.
I’ll be honest: I love being viewed as an absolute. As egotistic as it seems (and I am self-aware enough to admit I am a premier self-glazer) I like to be viewed as an expert on something. Even if that “something” is just my own essence. I am humble enough to know that I don’t even know 0.000001% of what there is to learn out there. I am an amateur in the face of the universe. But an absolute compliment? It’s a shot of adrenaline. It’s a confirmation of self. I have no interest in being “pretty good” or “generally chill.” I want the superlative. I want the “most.”
It’s such an ego stroke because it’s a confirmation of my own taste. I have always been obsessed with carefree people. The ones who say exactly what’s on their mind, who do as they wish, who care a lot and show it without a filter. I spend my time looking for those people, and admiring the way they move through the world. So for someone to see that in me might be an ultimate win.
I’m fascinated by this transaction of praise. Recently, I decided to play with the architecture of it. I posted a list of ten compliments to my private story, and told the audience that these were for ten specific people watching, but I refused to name them. Listed below if you’re curious:
The aftermath was admittedly amusing to watch. By refusing to attach names, I turned a list of praise into a mirror. Everyone who viewed it was forced to look and themselves and decide which superlative they were worthy of claiming. Several debated it in my DMs, over call, or asking a mutual friend which one they could be. (I realize how self-important this comes off as, but I have no better way to rephrase this account of events). It’s a interesting thing to watch people try to fit themselves into a compliment they haven’t been given yet. We’re all so starved for the absolute that we’ll scavenge for it in the dark. We want to be the “enigma”, the one who is “the most joyous to be around”, the one who’s “smile makes someone’s day”. We want the confirmation that we aren’t just background characters in someone else’s life. Keeping the names hidden was like shining a spotlight on an empty stage, and the ego can’t help but try to step into it. I think I did it because I understand that craving so well. There’s a certain cruelty in the game, sure, but there’s also a deep intimacy. It forced people to wonder, even if just for a second, if they were the best version of themselves in my eyes. And that, to me, is the ultimate form of being perceived. Being intentionally curated.
The reality is we spend our entire lives working to be the absolute. We are conditioned to chase the peak of every curve. The best GPA, the most prestigious offer, the best accolades. We want to be the smartest person in the room, the best painter in the studio, the coolest person at the party. In the interest of bettering ourselves, we inevitably let our egos take the wheel.
And I’ll gladly accept this.
A little harmless praise that affirms your beliefs never hurts, as long as you are self-aware enough to know that it is your ego speaking. You have to know your own faults to truly appreciate when someone finds a part of you that isn’t one.
All that to say is the human brain is a fickle archivist. Our memories aren’t as good as we think they are (mine certainly isn’t), and we tend to only store the standout moments, the outliers of our experience, the ink in the milk With our decreasing attention spans crushing our ability to hold onto anything subtle, we’ve become a species that only registers peaks. If you aren’t an outlier, you’re just noise.
To be called “the most chalant person” by a friend who barely (relatively) knows me is the ultimate confirmation. It’s like a long-exposure photograph. He didn’t see the movement, only the blur of where I stayed the longest. The conclusion is that even in this comparatively brief overlap, I stood out enough to be an absolute.
I’d rather be an ego with a superlative than a humble person who is forgotten.
Hot take: In a world of modifiers, I think being an absolute is the only thing worth being.
the riva gallery 