If you don’t blog about it, did it really happen?

I’ve always been confused by the ‘if a tree falls in the forest’ anecdote.

Like, YES OBVIOUSLY the tree still made a noise when it fell, despite there being no one around to hear it. That’s just science.

Yup, I can be a really pedantic asshole.

But recently I’ve been thinking about blogging, and how my life is becoming more and more consumed by this weird 21st century phenomenon, and how addicted I’ve become to sharing my life online.

I take my camera with me everywhere I go, and I think about 99% of my experiences in terms of ‘how can I turn this into content’. It probably sounds mental – terrible, even – to anyone who isn’t part of this blogging world, but I know for the rest of you this is not so strange at all.

But how does this relate to trees falling in the forest, you ask? I’ll get to the point in a sec, promise.

I think this feeling isn’t only for bloggers, btw. It’s the same for anyone who’s hooked on social media like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, even good old Facebook; you’ve got this feeling like you’ve gotta take a photo and share every experience you have – otherwise, what’s the point of it happening?

Can we all admit that we’ve had that little niggle in our minds when you go somewhere or do something cool and you don’t have your phone or camera to take a photo? And after the fact, the feeling of ‘mourning the moment’ because you don’t have any proof of it happening, or anything more solid than a memory in your brain.

…This is getting a bit deep now.

So anyway, now I understand the question “If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise?”.

You are the tree, doing a thing (be it falling dramatically to the ground with a crash, or drinking the most instagrammable cup of coffee you’ve seen in your life) and if no one else can hear (or see from a photo, or read about in a blog post) you do the thing, then…what?

The answer of course is that you did make a noise; you did do the thing. But my question for you, the tree, is are you cool if no one hears/sees you?

I guess I am, sometimes… but the blog/social/internet obsessed side of me is like NO I NEED TO HAVE PROOF AND SHOW EVERYONE.

It’s a pretty shitty way to think of life but I’m gonna cop out of taking responsibility of this, and say that I guess I’m just a product of my generation. #justbeingreal

Mmm…depressing. Cheers for putting up with my cheery ramblings ;)