the underlying text is literally Markdown
The column ZSFNOTE.ZTEXT has the text content, and in my database paragraphs are not separated by a blank line. That is not Markdown, is it? However, Bear is able to identify them. In that sense, Bear seems to be treating paragraphs in some sort of logical way, somehow.
We agree that Bear is promoted as a Markdown (CommonMark I believe) editor plus extensions. My point is that does not necessarily imply you have to hit ENTER twice for paragraphs in the graphical interface. Bear is not a raw text editor. Usability in the user interface may suggest a different option (that you may not like, that is fine of course, not saying you should agree with this choice).
Typora is different, in Typora the way to enter paragraphs (hitting ENTER just once too) is conceptual as well. And, again, that is the user interface. Behind the scenes, the persisted Markdown is extremely clean.