Chasing Echoes, Losing Ourselves

By Aadya Gupta

I am drowning in noise,
The world buzzing with voices that clash and collide.
Truth and lies no longer stand apart
Nothing is black and white, only blurred and broken.

The clatter outside has seeped into my skin,
Pulling me in every direction,
Turning, twisting, unraveling,
Until I lose track of where I began.

We live in a world of endless display,
Mistaking mere sight for the touch of our hand.
The world seems vast, rich, abundant,
Yet all that we see is always out of reach.

A simple life—how quickly dismissed.
A home, a family, a love that persists.
Peace and stability, once treasured, now forgotten.
A mundane life holds the joy we abandoned.

We are surrounded by screens,
A constant flood of images and sounds
Too much to absorb, too much to process,
Too much to even understand.

We scroll, we post, we share, we wait,
For a message, a heart-shaped like,
Living for moments reflected in glass,
Mistaking attention for connection.

The phones in our pockets hum
With the possibility of something “better” happening elsewhere.
We divide our attention between worlds,
Missing the one present right in front of us.

We chase validation but never feel seen,
Watching others’ lives instead of our own.
Their world seems brighter, sharper, fuller
Ours fades beneath their light.

Friendships reduced to emojis and memes,
Love stuck between "sent" and "seen".
We mistake convenience for closeness,
Forgetting real intimacy needs presence.

The world is now a digital podium,
A never-ending flood of words.
Some bring wisdom; others breed chaos,
And truth disappears within the noise.

Authority no longer equals trust,
Popularity no longer equals wisdom.
Facts are twisted, reshaped, rewritten,
Until nothing holds meaning anymore.

"This is right." "That is wrong."
"Do this, don’t do that. Obey. Rebel."
Everyone is a preacher, a prophet, a guide
But who speaks with reason, with integrity?

Drinking lemon water cures all disease.
If you’re not rich by twenty-five, you have failed.
You’re poor because you buy coffee.
Every celebrity serves the Illuminati.

We are drowning in a sea of knowing,
Yet understanding feels further than ever.
We can’t be masters of it all.
We listen to those who claim to know better
But do they have the truth, or just the loudest voice?

Everybody seems to have God on speed dial,
Yet I wonder—did I miss His call?
Am I the only one left uncertain?
The only one still searching?

I wish I could speak to the divine,
To hear what is real again.
Maybe He has been waiting for this
For a soul seeking direction, not applause.

A world without limits, or so we believe.
More wealth, more fame, more power, more pride.
But a life well-lived is not in the race
It’s found in the moments too small to even be noticed.

The laughter, the kindness, the quiet in between,
The simple peace of knowing we are enough.
But the world moves faster than we can follow,
Drowning out the voice that matters the most.

Lost in a world of endless wants,
How should we live? Who should we be?
Have we lost our purpose,
Or did we simply stop listening?

Perhaps God does not shout over the chaos.
He speaks in the silence we ignore
Not in the grand, not in the commotion,
But in stillness, in quiet, in the steady and sure.

What do we really need?
To be seen, to be understood, to be valued.
To know that our existence matters.

We rarely allow ourselves to be silent and still,
Yet truth waits in the spaces between the distractions
In the voice that does not compete with the world,
But has been there all along.

So I will close my eyes,
Let the noise fade to nothing,
Wait for silence to become more than emptiness,
And finally hear the voice that was mine all along.