So the house, and in extension the tape, is a parallel to the flashback phenomenon before death. Chronologically, the events of the game are: the man grows up -> he was on the verge of death -> in that split second he experienced the house and got to watch his entire life up to that point -> he wakes up and discovered he's still alive. I also understand that, from what is presented, it's not clear as to why the man was hopeful at the end. Truthfully, I just wanted to leave the story on a somewhat uplifting note (this decision happened after someone pointed out that they've only been telling grim stories in the discord). You can probably make the argument that the things he saw in the tape, especially prior to the office scenes, would have convinced him that there's more in life, but that's not hinted at in the actual game.
Viewing post in Observer and the Observed jam comments
Your comment actually inspired me to end on a higher note. I was going to end on the protagonist dying, which happened in some of the chapters of the manga, but decided against it. I recall Dylan also saying something about why stories shouldn't just be depressing for depressing's sake, and I thought I hadn't shown enough of his life before the incident (or at least the happy things about it) to warrant ending the story in such a manner.
That makes sense! Depressing is something that, like a lot of elements of a work, should be applied responsibly. I do think that keeping some element pertaining to the protag's passing would have made some sense, though; he was watching a tape of his entire life, or at least that's what I thought based on your inspiration.
From the angle of him finding reason to keep on trucking in form of the bear, I suppose that bear showing up in real life but not the tape is him trying to go against the downer fate set before him and instead make improvements in his life... much like how you decided to make a less downer ending and instead go for something less excessively upsetting.