The Unseen Seen

 I exist in the minds of many, but not their attention.

They see me — at least, I think they do. I post. I speak. I comment when I feel there’s something worth adding to the noise. I try to make meaning in this crowded void of curated lives and emotional cosplay. But more and more, I feel like a lighthouse blinking in a fog that no ship is sailing through.

They don’t respond. They don’t engage.
I’m not ignored in the aggressive way — I’m tolerated in the passive kind.

There are people I’m connected to who have chosen, perhaps unconsciously, to half-acknowledge my existence. Like I’m an artifact in a digital museum. They scroll by, they glance at the label, but they don’t stop long enough to take it in. I might get a like if it aligns with their current algorithm of interest. A reaction if I hit some emotional frequency they can't fully ignore. But rarely does it spark conversation. Rarely do I feel heard.

And the irony is: I do the same thing to others.
But it feels different when it’s done to me.

It’s worse when it’s family, or people from my past who once swore we were “forever.” The ones who act as if knowing me now is a responsibility rather than a desire. Their eyes pass over my life like I’m a billboard on the highway of their attention — not offensive enough to remove, not interesting enough to read.

What gets to me most is the cold neutrality of it. I’m not being hated. I’m not being ridiculed. I’m just... not being felt.

And I’m forced to wonder:
Have I become inconvenient to engage with? Too much effort?
Too thoughtful in a world that prioritizes scrolling over stillness?

It stirs something darker in me. Not rage — no, I’m past that kind of teenage rebellion. It’s more like... erosion. A gentle wearing down of the belief that I matter in the way I want to.

I’ve always been loud in the mind and quiet in the room. I used to think that would eventually balance itself out — that those with depth would recognize my current, even if I wasn’t splashing. But people don’t always want to dive in. Sometimes they just want a wading pool.

So I ask myself:
What does it mean to be “seen” if you’re never truly registered?
How do you keep sharing when it feels like a performance for an audience that walked out halfway through the monologue?

Sometimes, I picture myself as a character in a Clive Barker story — a soul lingering in the background, misunderstood not by the villain, but by the indifferent crowd. Not feared. Not loved. Just... faded.

But even as I drift between attention spans, I persist.
Because I know my value doesn’t decrease just because they stopped noticing.
I remind myself:

"I am as great as a selected few, yet better than most."
And that is not arrogance. That is reclamation.