If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The way I lead my life is nothing but a peculiar form of this thought experiment that come to life: a shadow-like creature, overarching and overwhelmingly strong. The more I try to chase it, the harder it strikes back, inevitable and imminent, dragging me with its claws all the way back to everything I swore I'd try to grow out of.

It finds its way to me in the small and big joys and wins alike, the heartaches, the nights spent crying, the times I'm taking part in something I love, following me everywhere regardless. Inescapable.

It's emblazoned in the cracks of whatever state of mind I find myself in. I seek it during the aftermath, interrupting the course of the experience in doing so, almost as if I were creating a barrier of opposition to the purpose of it all, although I never recall myself indulging in those activities with a goal like that in mind.

I constantly find myself demanding an audience for my sadness, my joy, my despair, and my enjoyment. For my mere existence. 

Like crying over a situation in the process of grieving it, then remembering the reason you're crying is not here to witness you or even know about it, so you deem it purposeless and useless, just like that. Although you never mourned it for them, you know you sat with that feeling for yourself, only yourself in mind. 

It takes the form of an echo that resonates in a long tunnel, never quite enough to reach its end. But you didn't even know the tunnel echoed. No one told you so. So why the helplessness? The hopelessness? The disappointment? 

I feel it creep up on me when I do something as simple as picking up a new hobby I was initially excited about, only to get hit with a wave of emptiness once the realization that it practically serves no one but me sinks in, as if somebody else was supposed to be there with me to see it all unfold.

I find myself aching and itching to record every moment I deem remotely enjoyable, whether it be a splendid sunset, my own appearance, or even the smallest of my whimsical habits. It renders everything I do nothing but a performance that must be applauded, recorded, seen, no matter how intimate or mundane it is. As if the lack of outsider witnesses makes it vanish from existence.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" The answer, to me, in my head, has always been yes, but the deeper I look into myself and my inner workings, I realize that my heart has been nodding "no" for longer than I can remember.

"Maybe the sound wasn't loud enough, or maybe, in fact, it doesn't make a sound." That's what my actions and thought processes say, which in turn makes it so that a pair of eyes and a soul should be there to observe everything I do, no matter how small, take place.

Like a child at the end of a school play scanning the room for their parents' faces in the crowd. Except children know their parents must be there, yet I feel the same level of disappointment when it turns out no one was there to watch, strangely so.

Marwa Ait Fares