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Does a Bear Shit in the Woods?

People usually ask that question when the answer is so obvious it’s almost insulting.

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Yes. Obviously.

But the other day, a different version of that question crossed my mind.

Is my life meaningful if no one is around to observe it?

Not as funny.

Not as obvious.

And far more uncomfortable.

I’ve spent most of my life deeply internal. Thinking. Observing. Reflecting. Growing in ways that don’t announce themselves well.

Even as a child, my inner world felt dense — layered, busy, alive. I was aging inward long before anyone could see it.

Externally, though, my life has often looked quiet. Isolated. Small.

Which raises a very modern, very unsettling question:

If growth happens mostly on the inside… does it count?

We live in a culture that quietly equates visibility with value.

If something isn’t witnessed, documented, reacted to, or mirrored back to us — did it even really happen?

Social media didn’t invent this idea, but it industrialized it.

And the result is a strange psychological distortion: people begin to feel unreal in the absence of an audience.

What’s wild is that this cuts directly against what neuroscience actually tells us.

Your brain does not require witnesses to change.

Neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself — happens whether anyone is watching or not.

New neural pathways form through thought, reflection, memory reconsolidation, emotional processing, and pattern recognition.

All deeply internal processes. Entire identities are reshaped in silence.

From a biological standpoint, inner growth is not only real — it’s foundational.

And yet… humans don’t live on biology alone.

Psychology tells us something else: meaning becomes felt through relational feedback.

Not applause. Not validation.

But recognition. Witness.

The quiet experience of being seen accurately by another nervous system.

That’s why isolation can feel so existentially painful.

It’s not just loneliness.

It’s not just missing people.

It’s the absence of echo.

I’m not asking whether my life has inherent worth.

Intellectually, I know it does.

What I’m asking is more honest than that.

Is meaning enough if it never leaves my own head?

A tree still grows rings in an empty forest.

A star still burns whether or not anyone names it.

A bear still shits in the woods.

Reality does not require observation to exist.

But humans aren’t trees or bears.

We’re meaning-making creatures who evolved in groups, shaped by shared attention, shared stories, shared reality.

Our nervous systems are literally wired for attunement. For someone else noticing.

So when a life is rich on the inside but largely unwitnessed on the outside, it can start to feel… unreal.

Like expanding in a vacuum.

Like becoming someone without anyone there to confirm you’re becoming at all.

This is especially true for people who’ve always lived a little off the main road.

Neurodivergent minds.

Trauma-shaped minds.

Highly perceptive, inward-facing minds.

People who grow quietly.

People who metabolize experience deeply.

People whose lives look unremarkable from the outside but feel enormous from within.

We’re still evolving.

Still integrating.

Still becoming.

Just… privately.

And maybe the ache isn’t that our lives lack meaning.

Maybe it’s that they lack shared resonance.

So — does a bear shit in the woods?

Yes. Of course.

But maybe the better question is this:

If a life unfolds with depth, courage, and transformation — and no one is there to truly witness it — is it still a life well lived?

I think the answer is yes.

And I also think it’s okay to admit that truth alone isn’t always enough.

We don’t just want our lives to be meaningful.

We want them to be met.

We want someone to say, “I see the shape of you.”

Not to fix us.

Not to validate us.

Just to recognize us.

That desire doesn’t make us needy.

It makes us human.

So if you’re out there — living a life that feels vast on the inside and strangely invisible on the outside — you’re not imagining it.

You’re not broken.

You’re not behind.

You’re not failing at being alive.

You’re just growing in a world that mistakes volume for value.

And if no one is watching right now?

Your life is still happening.

Your brain is still changing.

Your story is still being written.

But you deserve witnesses anyway.

And until they arrive — let this be one.

(… and please — belly laugh with me over my Alan Watts-esque bear image I created for this post… bc I sure did. It’s now my phone’s wallpaper. ☠️😂🤓🫶🏻)