Phantump.

0:00What if I told you the creepy little ghost stump everyone tells scary stories about is just lonely, and trying to make a friend?

0:03This is Phantump.

0:06People know it as a horror story.

0:10A spirit haunting an abandoned forest, crying out in a voice that sounds like a scream, luring people off the path until they're hopelessly lost in the trees.

0:13Parents warn their kids about it.

0:16Stay out of those woods.

0:19But that is not what Phantump is doing.

0:23Phantump is alone out there.

0:26A small, lost spirit drifting through a forest everyone else abandoned, and all it actually wants is a friend.

0:29So it calls out.

0:32It reaches for anyone who might come close.

0:35The trouble is the only voice it has comes out sounding frightening, so instead of coming toward it, people run.

0:39Or they try to follow and lose their way and never reach it at all.

0:42Think about that.

0:45Everything it does to reach out only pushes people further away.

0:48The harder it tries to be heard, the more alone it gets.

0:51Some of you know that feeling all too well.

0:55You reach for people, and somehow it always comes out wrong.

0:58Too much, too intense, too needy, too something.

1:01You were trying to say please stay, and it landed as a warning.

1:04So people stepped back from the exact thing you were offering, and you learned that reaching out just makes it worse.

1:08So you went quiet, alone in your own woods, telling yourself it's better this way.

1:11It isn't.

1:14You were never trying to scare anyone off.

1:17You were calling out for a friend in the only voice you had.

1:20And the right people learn to hear what you meant, not just how it came out.

1:24Have you ever reached for someone and watched it push them away instead?

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