“Come and check out the best burrito you’ll ever have in your life!”
– Some rando in my TikTok feed
In moving to a new spot several months back, I will admit I had been combing my social media feeds for things to do, places to go, food to eat, and more… Especially moving into a big city, the amount of options available to you can be a little overwhelming, so I wanted to get some opinions about where to start.
10 months later, I am still being inundated by the algorithms and I am simply awash in some version of the “best burrito” or the “prettiest park”, or… some other descriptor that leads me to believe that the experience I may choose to join in on will be one of the most pleasurable or extreme moments of my life.
And… I’m just not buying it. More than anything, it’s pretty much discouraged me from checking out said burrito, which I will probably not take to eat at said park. I’m not sure I’m ready to have such an orgasmic experience in public with something foil-wrapped.
I’ve seen the pattern throughout my life. A lady I used to sing with would proclaim every song we finished learning as, “her favorite song we’ve ever sung”. A friend of mine recently helping me with a job search anointed each resume we worked up “our strongest yet”. Really? I’ve just so happened to apply to each of these jobs in an ascending order of hire-ability? What are the odds?
Poor, it would turn out. Somehow, we’ve entered the era of “the finest massage you’ll ever receive”, or the “best mall in America”. We’re nothing if not our own mini-hype machines, simply searching for the experience that will top that last best burrito/hairdo/night-on-the-town. Is that possible? Maybe. Is it likely? Um, no.
This hyperbolic paradigm is especially evident in the wide world of professional sports, where we’re just positive it has to be the “craziest World Cup we’ve ever seen” or a guy has to be “the best player to ever come through the NBA”. It generates conversation, sure. It gives us all something to debate, and produces so many more clicks than, “I also think Nikola Jokic is pretty good”, which is sadly the whole point of our current attention economy, but…
Hyperbole is also one of the most desensitizing tricks a human being can play on themselves. There is suddenly a loss of meaning or scale when everything is the “best” or “worst” or “MOST INSANE DUNK COMPILATION WE’VE EVER SEEN!”. Suddenly there’s just a ceiling and a floor. There’s no mid-range, with room for nuance and insight. Comparison becomes a tool simply to know who/what/where is THE GREATEST, and not to say, “Wow… these 20 guys were all really effing talented.”
It also comes across pretty quickly as dishonest. Manipulative. By the 10th or 20th or 100th DUNK COMPILATION we watch, all we’ve got left in the emotional tank is ambivalence. Yeah, that one was pretty good too… I guess.
Beyond all that, it also forces people into positions that are so hard to defend that it ends up stirring conflict. Again, that sure gets the clicks, as who doesn’t want to see folks fight it out over “the best point guard who ever lived”, or “which celebrity wore it best”. But damn… that whole idea is so amazingly exhausting.
What if it was true? What if you have already had the best day of your life? What if you have already seen the finest season by the finest center to ever play the game? (Okay, that one might actually have some merit) What if that truly was THE BEST BURRITO YOU’LL EVER STUFF IN YOUR FAAAAAACCCCCE?!?!?!?!
It’s a little anti-climactic, isn’t it? Like when you finally realized the big day at Disneyland is over. What is there to look forward to if all of the best of the best of the best is already done and gone? Life has more layers than that. In reality, it is actually very hard to compare Michael Jordan to LeBron James to Nikola Jokic to Bill Russell because those were different eras. Different mentalities. Different ways of playing those games with different rules. It’s a fun exercise to think through or talk about, but to hang your hat on any one of them is, in ways, to say… the best has already come and gone.
So… if this does happen to be your last day on this rock (and my condolences if it is), you’re probably right. Most of your bests have probably passed you by. But if you’ve got a few days or months or decades left to go, maybe the best thing you can do for yourself is to hope deep inside that the best things are still yet to come. That tomorrow you will find something better. That maybe there really is no “best”. Even if you end up being wrong, you sure lived a more exciting life in search of that next killer burrito.
I hope your weekend is an amazing one. Maybe even life-changing. But forgive me if I hope it’s not your best weekend EVER.
