CHALANT! is a not-quite-officially-real-but-still-kinda-real word that I adopted as my word of the year for my 47th birthday’s annual review. It came from a dream:
I was standing on a balcony or something, looking out over a mountain range that was almost comically stark and foreboding. And in the dream I SCREAMED at the top of my dream lungs, “CHALAAAAAAAANT!” Like a scream that I pulled up from the center of the Earth, with an intensity that felt like pure cosmic life energy. And as I yelled this word the mountain transformed into a lush, vibrant, fecund, verdant, ridiculous expression of aliveness.
Here’s a contextless dump of chalant-related thoughts, memes, etc that I’ve collected over the last 9 months:
Chalant is the opposite of nonchalant, which means it’s explicitly not cool, not casual, and not affected.
Chalant is that kind of over-the-top, coming-in-hot, perhaps easy to mistake as overly earnest or awkward, doesn’t always land right, but is grounded and connected and aware of the dignity and value in everything and everyone.
It’s kinda sweaty and gross and awkward, as well as deeply authentic and sincere.
Chalant cares a bit too much about things that don’t really matter to other people, it tries a bit too hard by other peoples’ standards.
Chalant isn’t careless, it’s care-free.
Chalant isn’t consistent and doesn’t have all its ducks in a row. It’s willing to be inconsistent and vulnerable and messy in order to stay true.
Chalant doesn’t know for certain, and also isn’t completely uncertain. It has a best guess and runs whole-heartedly with it until a better guess comes along.
And here are some chalant songs, memes, etc:
I’m always looking for more examples of chalant, so if you know of any, please send them my way!