Nonchalance is Robbing You of Your Humanity

Illustration by Anthony Liang.

There are lilies on my kitchen table. Delicate white lilies, bursting fragrantly from a thin glass vase. They catch the late afternoon light gently and remind me each morning how lucky I am to have someone who remembers my favourite flower. Across the room, a box of cookies sits half-eaten on the counter. There are a few bites missing from each one, to the point where it looks like we may have a mice problem in our home. My house has an outspoken rule: Metro cookies are not to be brought home because no one can keep their hands off them, and the box ends up empty after a mere day or two. During times of hardship (exam season), we make an unspoken exception, and the box has kindly been replenished by one of my housemates. 

I pitched this article back in September because I wanted to write about my distaste for nonchalance. I hate it as a concept, I hate it as an aesthetic, and I hate that it’s something people take pride in having. Nonchalance, the performative act of not-giving-a-fuck, and being too cool to care about anything, is the death of being engaged and sincere. However, when I think back on the first semester I’ve had, I can gladly say that my past few months have been textured with chalance: remembering the little things, and keeping cookies in the kitchen. I care very deeply about the people in my life, and I do so vocally. Instead of venting about how nonchalance will rob you of your humanity, I am going to reshape this into a piece dedicated to detailing how to navigate a nonchalant world as someone who is not a very nonchalant person.

It is unfortunate that we are living in a time where emotional unavailability has plagued us like an epidemic, and “I must not be too much” has become a collective mantra. As a generation, we have become addicted to hedonism, to the rat race, to the fleeting rewards of instant gratification. We text and we don’t text back. We chew people up and spit them back out. We no longer set our eyes on something until we fly headfirst into glass windows and shock ourselves when it becomes a bloodbath. If anything, we are forgetting any moral obligation to care for the emotions of anyone else. I think that the disregard you show others in your pursuit of love—a text here or there, then a few days unresponsive—bleeds into the way you treat those around you. You separate yourself from the collective. Your friends don’t want you to be nonchalant; they want your shoulder to lean on, and your parents want you to remember to call. Why do we praise being void of emotion? We act as if it symbolizes some twisted form of self-control. As if the ability to restrain from loving someone fully is an act of strength. 

Vulnerability is the basis for any form of valuable human connection. As humans, we are born into gasoline-soaked bodies that are supposed to burn at the slightest touch of love. I do still think that the refusal to feel your feelings deeply is to commit a disservice to your humanity. I also refuse to believe that one can simply turn off the ability to care. Picking up the remote and shutting it off as if it’s an annoying flicker on the TV. To protect your peace, you do not have to abandon your emotional depth. To live the fullest life, you have to let your heart flow out of the glass. You turn to people in your life without first running calculations on what it might cost you. Everything becomes a little brighter, a little fuller, and a little less nonchalant. 

Next time you think you may be too much, let yourself stay soft in places where other people force themselves to harden. The denial of nonchalance in your life will open space for others to meet you with the same level of care. Go for coffee with one of your friends, and let them ramble on about their current obsession, or their favourite show. Think about the last time you got to rant about something you love without being afraid of coming off as too intense. We often stop ourselves because there’s comfort in our shell, but there is also courage in being unapologetically yourself. Nothing is meaningless if it means anything to you. When you accept that nonchalance will only lead to a colourless life, you also begin to gravitate towards people who care just as much. Being chalant is one of the most radical things you can be in a generation that takes pride in pretending nothing really matters.