The Philippine Tarsier is a small primate residing in the trees of jungles and sanctuaries throughout, well, the Philippines. The Tarsier has long been considered to be a slow, lazy, non-motivated, somewhat dim-witted cousin of their more famous family members due to the fact that they really do nothing all day except sit around yawning and stretching while one member of their group obtains enough food for all of them. Wake up in the morning, stretch, yawn, move to a branch, stretch, yawn, lounge a while, stretch, yawn, move to another branch, lounge, stretch, yawn. Not entirely unlike what I do at work. They are the most boring animals on Earth, with the lifestyle of a sloth but without the endearing facial features; in fact, the Tarsier is something of a hideous looking creature. He has bug eyes and giant teeth and his incessant yawning gives him the appearance of being constantly on the verge of screaming.

It was this realization that led a researcher at Texas A&M to look more closely at the Tarsier, when it occurred to him that when most creatures yawn, their eyes squint and close; when the Tarsier yawns, his eyes open wide. It's such an odd thing! What a strange little animal; it can't even yawn correctly! Of course after they thought about it and tested their theory with the proper equipment, it was revealed that the Tarsier is not yawning at all, it is in fact screaming. Always. All day long, at a frequency of 75 kilohertz. This is almost four times higher than the range that the human ear can detect, and is higher than the range that many animals can detect. This prompted the researchers to take another look at EVERYTHING they knew about the Tarsier, and everything they thought was wrong, wrong. The Tarsier, rather than lazing his days away basking in the sun while his brothers tended to his every need, was in fact the only alarm system standing between the entire primate colony and the predators in the surrounding area, and spent all day screaming instructions at a frequency that only his family could hear. All day long, protecting his family and home. Wake up in the morning, scout, scream, move to another position, scout, scream, observe the predators, scout, scream, move to another position, observe the predators, scream. All day, without taking even enough time to find his own food, so that he would starve if his family did not bring it to him, that's how committed he is to his role.

Sometimes it feels like we are screaming and screaming and screaming, whether it's a warning or a plea or whatever the hell it is we're screaming about, and everyone around us just marvels at the simplicity of our life. How easy it is, how effortless, how nice it must be to have what we have and be who we are and live our monstrously fucked-up lives without a care in the world. Not a single care; free and easy and poppin grapes. It isn't true, though, and our friends and family know that and maybe we don't sit around talking about it all the time but that's fine and you know why? Because I know that when the time comes that I'm on the ground, scuttling around trying to find enough food for my tribe, my tribe is up in the trees looking out for me, all day, every day, and even if no one else knows it, I do. And that's a comforting silence.