In one of my earliest interactions with @m0dest___, I told him how much I loved Shad0ws. I said I wanted three. Done. Just like that. He sent the art first. I sent the ETH after. And then again. And again. Several times like that. I remember thanking him for trusting me to send the ETH after the fact, after all, I’m scamart. His response was simple: “I never had a doubt.” That sentence stuck with me. In some alternate timeline, do we even cross paths? Do we even follow each other? Does it matter whether I’m friends with some alt version of m0d in another branch of the simulation? Probably not. What I do know is that moment was the beginning of a real friendship - with m0dest. Shadows. Error messages. Purple app groups. Collecting 1/1s for the love of it. Practically for free in those days. Slowly becoming whales in projects we both believed in. Watching m0dest grow into what he is today, the toast of the town, has been something I’ve been quietly proud to witness. I remember how early it was when we first followed each other. Back then collectors would speculate about who he might be. Those conversations eventually faded, because through his work, the consistency, the discipline, the sheer output, the answer revealed itself. I realized who m0dest was through what he built. His profile says: “False ideas about yourself will destroy you.” Maybe that’s why he embraces modesty. But I like to think there’s another half to that sentence: true ideas about you, recognized by those around you, are what create you. Yes, there was noise. Accusations of cabals and conspiracies. I’m not part of any cabal. What I saw instead was someone trying to say something through the work and clearly a lot of others understood it too. How else could someone so prolific, so committed, lift up entire ecosystems of artists almost single-handedly? Citizens. On-chain game. Communities forming around ideas. m0dest can remain modest if he wants. That’s his nature. But we, the citizens, are here to celebrate him. And I hope that for even a brief moment he allows himself to feel proud because it’s deserved. And no, that pride wouldn’t be a false idea about himself. Destroyed? Nah. This is just the genesis. 🖕📈