The Human Roar: A Scream into The Abyss, “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?!”
If No One Hears the Scream, Did It Ever Exist?
There’s a question that lingers in the quiet spaces between heartbeats, between unsent messages and words that dissolve on the tongue before they ever see daylight: If we cry out into the void—whether in anger, grief, or desperate hope—and no one turns their head, did we ever truly speak?
In honor of my Birthday today and for all the years I have spent, as a kid and into adulthood, silencing myself, swallowing my words like jagged stones, feeling them settle heavy in my gut. I refuse to be silent any longer, to let the weight of unspoken words poison my insides. And I know I’m not alone.
We are all screaming into the abyss in our own ways, yet the sheer weight of our collective voices forms nothing but a roar. So, What happens to a world where everyone is shouting, but no one is truly heard?
If there’s no one listening, no one reading, no one paying attention to what you’re screaming into the abyss—are you even making a sound?
It’s the old question about a tree falling in the forest: if no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound at all? And if not, what does that mean for us? For the words we never say, the emotions we suffocate, the truths we withhold? Do they simply vanish?
I’m sure you—like the universe itself, like whatever higher force may be watching—are tired of hearing me go on about this. Maybe your eyes glaze over, heavy-lidded and weary, as I deliver the same message in every form I can think of, each version a little more desperate than the last. And yet—yet—there is still so much left unsaid.
“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”
How many times have we swallowed the bile of words that claw their way up, demanding release? How many times have we walked away, gone to bed, or sat in silence, carrying a novel’s worth of unspoken thoughts?
I have spent too many years being quiet, being shy, being so damn understanding that I forgot to demand my own voice be heard.
But that’s just it, isn’t it? We are all doing this.
All of us. Across all walks of life, across every chaotic and clashing fragment of the human spectrum. Holding back, biting our tongues, tucking our truths into the spaces between our ribs where no one can see them. And yet, everything—everything—in existence simply wants room to be. To breathe. To be acknowledged, to matter.
“CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!?”
That old Verizon commercial—overplayed, ridiculous—was clever because it struck a nerve. We all want to be heard. But our voices are being drowned out, muffled, twisted, compressed into background noise. A roar, a scream, a plea—the true sound of humanity. Primal. Guttural. And Terrifying.
We are not heard because we do not speak as one.
We are not listened to because we have lost the language to articulate our pain, our needs, our truth.
We are not taken seriously because we barely understand what we are trying to say in the first place.
Children. That’s what we are. Not in the way we think of children, but in the sense of consciousness itself. A young species, lost in the early stages of its own awakening. Reckless, emotional, stumbling in the dark, not yet fully aware of what it means to exist.
We are our planet, just as our planet is us. We are our species, even in the isolation of our rooms, even in the quiet, even when we feel like we are screaming into nothing.
And maybe that’s the tragedy of it all. Maybe that’s the whole point.
But if no one is listening—then what? Do we stop screaming? Do we just give up?
No. We adapt. We evolve. We refine our voices, sharpen our message, and learn how to truly communicate. Because as long as we keep trying, as long as we keep speaking—even when it feels like the void is all that answers back—there is hope.
We are not alone in this. We never have been.
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Since the dawn of our existence, we have screamed into the unknown—at the sky, at the stars, at the ocean’s abyss. And in return, the universe has given us echoes, patterns, whispers of something greater. We are wired to reach out, to connect, to understand. And maybe we haven’t quite figured it out yet. Maybe we’ve built entire empires of technology to translate our wants and needs, only to remain confused about what we truly desire. But if science has taught us anything, it’s that failure isn’t an end—it’s just another step toward discovery.
If there is any truth to be found in our endless screaming into the abyss, perhaps it is this—that even when we feel unheard, unseen, and insignificant, every word, every action, and every connection we make ripples outward. We are not alone in our searching. And maybe, just maybe, the echoes will answer back.
To leave you with some of the most impactful words I’ve read from a book, I offer this from Cloud Atlas: