HUMILITY ISN'T SHRINKING
The high horse issue of Elixir by Royel was inspired by and set to the song "High Horse" by Kacey Musgraves.
Captured through the discerning eye of Mitchell Royel, today’s photos in the Fashion District (8/27/26) reflect a visual tapestry that speaks to both creativity and ambition. The energy of the moment resonates in perfect harmony with the sounds we’re immersed in—“Don’t Get To Love” by Nevada, Brooke Williams, Mopiano, and ORKID sets an evocative tone, while “Lie to Me” by Steve Aoki and Ina Wroldsen amplifies the mood with its intensity and edge. Together, the visuals and music converge to create a powerful narrative of style, emotion, and movement.
Dear Friends,
Years ago, I wrote a piece for the "High Horse" issue. Back then, the magazine still went by ELIXIR by Royel. Many of us knew it then; some of us know it now as Bennett and Monroe. Same spine, different name. It's strange how a thing can keep its heart while shedding its skin. I've thought about that a lot lately, because I think many of us have done the same.
The "High Horse" issue asked a simple question with a heavy answer: what did it take for us to step back and humble ourselves? I answered it then with all the confidence of a man who believed he already understood the lesson. I wrote about lowering my head. About giving ground. About the quiet grace of admitting we were wrong. I meant every word. I just didn't know what the words cost.
Here is what I've learned since.
For a long time, I mistook two very different things for one. I believed that asking people to treat us with respect was a form of arrogance. So I stayed quiet. When someone crossed a line, I called my silence humility. When someone took more than they gave, I called my patience grace. I thought bending was the same as growing.
It wasn't.
Demanding respect and integrity from the people around us is not pride. It is not climbing back onto the high horse. It is simply standing at our full height. And humbling ourselves — real humility — has nothing to do with shrinking. We can hold our ground and still hold our ego loosely. We can insist on being treated well and still admit, freely, when we've failed.
I confused the two because they can look alike from the outside. A person who refuses to be mistreated and a person who thinks too highly of themselves can wear the same expression. But inside, they are worlds apart. One is protecting their dignity. The other is protecting their image. I spent years defending the second while telling myself I'd abandoned it.
The magazine's new name helped me see it, oddly enough. When ELIXIR became Bennett and Monroe, nothing essential changed. The people, the purpose, the standards — all of it stayed. Only the label shifted. And I realized humility works the same way. It isn't about erasing who we are. It's about being honest enough to change the name on the cover while keeping the truth on the pages.
So I want to correct something I wrote back then. Humbling ourselves does not mean accepting less than we deserve. It means being teachable. It means saying "I was wrong" without it breaking us. It means letting other people be right without feeling smaller for it. None of that requires us to abandon our standards. In fact, the two belong together. We can demand better and still be soft enough to learn.
For those of us who have stayed quiet when we should have spoken — hear this. Respect is not vanity. Integrity is not a luxury we have to earn back through suffering. We are allowed to expect both, and we can expect them while still keeping our heads clear and our hearts open. Those two things were never enemies. I only thought they were because I was tired, and tired people confuse peace with surrender.
I'm not on a high horse anymore. But I'm not on the ground either. We never had to be. We just had to stand where we should have been all along — asking for the decency we give, and staying humble enough to know the difference.
With honesty, and a little late wisdom,
Oliver Brynnum
Captured through the discerning eye of Mitchell Royel, today’s photos in the Fashion District (8/27/26) reflect a visual tapestry that speaks to both creativity and ambition. The energy of the moment resonates in perfect harmony with the sounds we’re immersed in—“Don’t Get To Love” by Nevada, Brooke Williams, Mopiano, and ORKID sets an evocative tone, while “Lie to Me” by Steve Aoki and Ina Wroldsen amplifies the mood with its intensity and edge. Together, the visuals and music converge to create a powerful narrative of style, emotion, and movement.
Epilogue
The curtain falls, but does it truly end? This question, dear friends, lingers in my mind as I reflect on what remains. There is a kind of magic in reinvention, a quiet alchemy that breathes life into the forgotten and polishes the once-loved until it gleams anew. I’ve come to understand it now, through time and distance, through the changing of names and the bending of light that slips between eras.
What was old does not disappear; it reshapes. It wears the costumes of its time, adapting to the stage it finds itself on, while the heart beneath beats steady, unchanged. From golden spotlights to forgotten marquees, there was a lesson in every flicker of those fading bulbs. The artifice—the pride, the poise, and the untouchable sheen—was never the substance. The substance was in the silences, the moments between applause when the mask slipped, and the truth of character quietly bared itself. Those are the parts no one tells you to remember—but you do.
The triumphs and tragedies we hid for the sake of appearances were never lost; they just found new forms. The tales of resilience, of insistence on dignity amidst dazzling facades, endured—not because they belonged to one golden age, but because they are universal, even eternal.
And so here we are again, standing in the quiet after the final note, after the cameras stop rolling. If there is greatness to be found, it is not in some sheen of perfection, but in the way we stand through reinvention. The past may recede, yet its essence is sewn into us, stitched into the seams of who we choose to become. Leave the high horse behind, yes, but never the ground you’ve earned. Walk forward, deliberate and unafraid, through the shedding of skins and the quiet perseverance of what truly matters.
The stage changes, the name changes, but the heart does not. And for that, we bow.
With care.