Verfabula: The Art of Narrative Nonfiction

Verfabula is a form of narrative nonfiction that blends elements of fiction and nonfiction to create a compelling and engaging story. It has become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in longform journalism and creative nonfiction. In this blog post, we'll explore the meaning and etymology of Verfabula, its history, important figures in its prominence, and its current state in contemporary nonfiction writing.

Meaning and Etymology

Verfabula comes from the Latin words veritas (truth) and fabula (story). It refers to a form of narrative nonfiction that uses storytelling techniques to convey factual information in a compelling way. Verfabula has its roots in the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 70s, which emphasized literary techniques in journalism. Over time, it has become more prominent in longform journalism and creative nonfiction. Examples of Verfabula in popular culture include Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Joan Didion's The White Album, and Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

History of Narrative Nonfiction (Verfabula)

Narrative nonfiction has its roots in the 19th century, with works such as Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Verfabula is a form of narrative nonfiction that emphasizes storytelling techniques to convey factual information. It has become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in longform journalism and creative nonfiction. Examples of prominent Verfabula works throughout history include Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

Important Figures in Verfabula's Prominence

Key figures in the popularity of Verfabula include Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Jon Krakauer. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is often cited as one of the first and most influential works of Verfabula. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Joan Didion's The White Album are also important works in the genre. Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is a more recent example of Verfabula, and has been widely praised for its gripping storytelling and meticulous reporting.

The Current State of Verfabula

Verfabula remains a popular and influential form of narrative nonfiction. It has been used to great effect in a wide range of topics, from true crime to environmental disasters to personal memoirs. In the age of social media and instant gratification, Verfabula offers a way to engage readers with complex and important issues in a way that is both informative and entertaining. However, it is important to note that Verfabula is not without its critics. Some argue that it blurs the line between fact and fiction, and that it can be misleading or manipulative. Others argue that it is a necessary evolution of journalism and nonfiction, and that it offers a way to engage readers with important issues in a way that traditional journalism cannot.

In conclusion, Verfabula is a form of narrative nonfiction that uses storytelling techniques to convey factual information in a compelling and engaging way. It has a rich history and has been used to great effect by some of the most influential writers of the past century. While it is not without its critics, Verfabula remains a popular and important form of nonfiction writing that offers a unique and effective way to engage readers with complex and important issues.

the church of goodness

what we know is that we don't know.

No need to reject.

We want to do what's good for self. Who is the self? So long as we utilize the advantages of societal life, our selves are dependent on the structure of that society. Therefore, in our pursuit of self good, we must also pursue societal good. How do we define societal good? How do we define self good?

Churches have aided societal progress in their establishment of standards of goodness for members of society to abide by.

We should be living for self and societal progress. Therein lies goodness.

concepts of society always should account for environment since societies are dependent on their environments.

basically we should just do what's best for everything.

But what is that?

bibles let deities guide us to righteousness and the ultimate good.

We don't need to ask deities. We need to ask each other.

The church of goodness should exist for the good of the good.

Everybody wants to be happy. We should all respect each other's right to achieve the goals that lead to personal happiness so long as our pursuit does not inhibit the pursuit of another. This becomes cyclical so we set up societal standards to establish rights and guide action to avoid unintentional inhibition of the action of others.

the church of goodness should be the keeper of those standards that transcend local societies in universally guiding all intentional action.

Let's do it.

we need a new pronoun

i spend too much time thinking of personhood, consciousness, agency, and identity. when writing about agency, i like to speak of agents independent of their particular identities. this allows for a conception of agency generalizable to anything that acts rather than confining agency to persons or living things. the problem with this is that we have no pronoun to represent the general category that agency encompasses.

the man reacts to his environment

the dog reacts to its environment

the agent reacts to ___ environment

what word should fill the blank?

if I put the word "his" in the blank, then our template would prevent us from speaking of any gender-neutral agents. using the word "its" in the blank creates a template that doesn't acknowledge the consciousness behind a great deal of agency.

If there is consciousness without gender, then we need a new pronoun. There may not yet be the need for the pronoun because of a lack of apparent gender-free persons, but as computer sentience evolves, it will be silly to continue to arbitrarily assign gender to bots. We should just go ahead and realize that all of this nonsense "he/she" and "his/hers" has been a warning that we need to step back and create a concise pronoun label to encompass the identity of any conscious agent.

that is all.

as things are. things will be.

sitting in the seat of shame
knowing there's no one to blame
happiness is out of reach
but in our hearts it does beseech
why have things become this way
is this the way that they must stay
mysteries excite our selves
souls and bodies nymphs and elves
hearts and brains this isn't real
then why is it we always feel
we are we and they are us
no reason to make a fuss
love is tender love is mild
love is nothing without child
just because we want to be
something that the others see
something that makes me be me
proves that we can not be free
but why hold freedom as a goal
a way to please the heartless soul
freedom without love is fake
living just for your own sake
free from who or what she asks
free from you. menial tasks
freedom from the things that are
freedom from house job and car
freedom can never exist
this is a point that can't be missed
but who needs freedom antway
what do we call freedom today
something that freedom is not
something false missing the spot
the people will always hold
responsibilities untold
limiting free choice and will
guiding people to fulfill
purpose and truth until
all of existence becomes still
but this is not the way of good
it's not the direction of should
we must do what we must feel
we must be nothing but real
people are more than they do
people must do what is true
in doing that through and through
i am me and you are you

light

in the dark without a spark
the sharks will stalk prey in the park
dogs and trees silently bark
as man tries to make his mark
hark, we hear the man remark,
"it must be real, call it a quark"
these silly concepts are the spark
that release him from stifled stark
they are the words that bring the light
the light that makes all the things bright
the bright light providing man his sight
and with this sight, he sees all's all alright
but both in night and in the light
we can not know just what is right
there's always light that allows fright
light that lets us see the night
see the world as a we might
see our being as a fight
unsure of how light might smite
destruction as an act of spite
light will be just as it will
with no intent to thrill or kill
but certainly not sitting still
it is as it is meant to be
while we think that we can be free
the light is all that lets us see
it's all that shapes what we call we

the soul of my shoe

here is a question that matters:

• do souls exist?

fuck if i know. but i'll take some time to try to establish a concept of the soul that can be used to reasonably accept their existence.

first off, i'd like to say that i don't believe in religion, but how can i not believe in it when it obviously exists..? instead, i'll just say that i don't accept most religious doctrine. there are aspects that i find compelling and especially important for shaping morality, but all in all, religion is founded off of man's thoughts and man's thoughts are always led by impure motivations.

the conception of the soul that seems most mainstream in today's society is one based primarily off of religion and the prospects of an afterlife. people are souls with bodies. the body lives on earth..but when it dies, the soul transcends and continues existence in heaven.

"people are souls with bodies" - this makes me want to figure a distinction between souls and minds. personally,  i hold that the mind is the control unit for the body. is it a distinct entity separate from the brain? that's a silly question whose answer is entirely up to speculation. i speculate that the mind is the nervous system in action with consciousness coming in degrees with respect to the complexity of that nervous system. but is a nervous system necessary? if a being has some sort of control over itself, then it has a mind..it just can vary in complexity and conscious awareness. robots and computer programs can have minds. we just haven't yet seen any that have minds that adequately mimic those of the typical human. can other things have minds? do computers as they currently are have minds? prolly not what i'm tryna get into right now.

the relation of the mind to the soul..?

not the point of this post.

the soul...transcends physical existence free of a body. how can something transcend physical existence? it's not that i can't experience anything other than physical interactions with the world..i can certainly experience my internal mental life. it is that life that we expect to transcend our physical being when life escapes our bodies. we expect our selves to as well. our selves..our souls. but if our minds are simply instantiations of the complexity of our physical structure and the self is seated in the mind, then what are we to think of the soul and its transcendence. the soul must not be the self that arises from the functioning conscious mind.

transcendence happens.

heaven or not..our souls, and even our selves (in a sense), transcend our physical bodies and continue to exist as long as our impact on existence continues to have an impact on existence.

we live to affect the world...and all of existence. the effects that we have on existence do not die with us. the soul of steve jobs will no doubt continue to exist as long as apple and pixar exist. but more than that. the soul of steve jobs will exist eternally. existence will always show traces of the impact left by steve jobs. this is the case for us all.

coming to a point, our souls are immortal in the sense that the impacts of our being in existence are permanent.

be good and your soul will exist in heaven as those who remember you by thinking of your impacts will think of the good you left on earth.

be evil and your soul will still continue to exist, but this heaven/hell concept is nothing other than a subjective mental placement of identity in the minds of vastly different individuals. if you think it's good to kill americans so you act in that direction, then - although americans see you as evil for performing those acts - you will still transcend physical existence and take a seat in heaven in the minds of those that hold the same opinion as you about killing americans. 9/11 terrorists are remembered positively by their al qaeda co-conspirators and have therefore transcended into some heaven for the time being.

heaven is just the idea of ultimate goodness subjective to each individual. hell is the opposite. those who are good go to heaven. those who are not do not. it's all in the mind.

we don't know what happens when we die. i believe we stop existing. our souls live on as i've said. so what about other things that discontinue existence even without ever having life?

this is where we get to the title of this post. and my reason for believing that all that is must have a soul or there is no point in thinking of souls at all.

my shoes, my shirts, my computer, my bed..all objects i interact with must have souls. they impact existence and their impact is permanent. even when they no longer exist, the impact that they've had will continue to exhibit itself in the ripples and waves of existence.

the soul of my shoe is a reflection of the function it served nearly every day i wore it last year. without it, i would be a different person, and this world would be a slightly different place.

if you have a soul, then so does my shoe.

we are all circles

everythings a circle. everythings a cycle. it's all just movement in loops and spirals.

one of my favorite books is titled, "I am a Strange Loop" - it's basic point is that the concept of the self arises from nothing more than our mind's ability to represent itself and continuously update that representation as it is affected by experience. it serves as an argument for the computational nature of the mind and the possibility to computationalize consciousness. The concept comes so naturally that I had no trouble accepting nearly every point as i quickly turned through the pages.

This account of our conscious awareness won't be the focus of this post, but it will be beneficial to understand the foundation off of which i intend to contemplate the nature of interpersonal love.

to distract myself, i often spend my time on tumblr, usually favoriting and reblogging pictures that resonate with my mindset. about a week ago, a picture (accompanied by some text) on my dashboard caught my eye. i was quick to favorite it and after a few days, when i had time to spend updating my personal page, i reblogged the photo and added a caption similar to what is now the title of this post - "we're all just circles"..here is the photo:

for all of my life and, i assume, the lives of everyone living today, homosexuality has been one of the most culturally controversial topics. I have posted once before about the concept of marriage and the inability of many to accept the transformation of the term - and, in turn, our culture - to account for the union of homosexuals, but i have hardly delved into the topic of homosexual love.

to be clear, i've got a strictly hetero-orientation. I'm just nearly obsessed with the concept of love because, in my opinion, it is an all-encompassing notion that can explain all interaction. not only does it impact our interpersonal relationships, but it really is the driving force behind every interaction a being can have with its environment. beings love beings and that love is what guides them in continuing their existence. everything in existence should be thought of as a being. all of existence is the greatest being of all and that is my concept of god. if there is a word denoting a tangible concept, then in my mind, i would consider that concept as a being. say we have concept x, if we can say x is being x, then x is a being. the sweater i am wearing is a being because the sweater is being a sweater and an item of clothing and whatever else you can think of the sweater being (if i wear it as a turban, then it is being a turban). and i am certainly a being - there should be no qualms with that. there is some degree of love between me and my sweater and that love is what has guided me to wear it today. i love existence, so i choose to continue to exist - to interact with the beings of existence.

so..about the picture..

as you can see, people are represented as circles with protruding shapes representing their gender. sexuality is guided by love. sexual orientation is accounted for by how these different shapes overlap.

while it is important to be aware of the sexual inclinations of others in some instances, for the most sexual orientation should have no bearing on the judgments we make about the people we interact with. i love women..but i also love men..and i love all animals - independent of their gender. it's our expression of love that causes people discomfort.

when in a relationship of mutual love (in an ideal world, this would be a redundant phrase), the best thing to do is learn and be aware of the desires and tendencies of your relationship partner. it's best to express love in such a way that all parties involved are satisfied with the nature of the loving relationship. the only way to have this awareness of desires is to communicate with your partner. it is not enough to signify their sexual orientation with a silly symbol.

we are all just circles. attracted to other circles through our loving tendencies. maybe one day, each person will be expressed by their own unique symbol to allow for computer analysis to determine all orientation and desires of that person - in this hypothetical world, love would not be free. luckily, in this current day, we are all internal. while our bodies are the unique symbols that represent all that we are, there is no computer analysis that can determine exactly what it is that will make us happy. often, not even self-analysis can reveal that.

it takes action and interaction. eventually, through this, we can hopefully find others whose satisfaction and happiness is inversely correlated with our own.

this is easy with simple objects lacking happiness or the ability to feel.. we can project whatever happiness we have held within onto these beings and feel satisfied with the pleasure we receive from these interactions. once the concept of life is introduced, we must have a much more keen awareness of the states of the beings  we interact with. everything that lives has goals. the ability for us to understand those goals and do what we can to assist, or at least not hinder, the being's pursuit of goals is the sole(soul) purpose of love.

man or woman, gay or straight, we should all love each other. we should work to understand where we all stand amongst each other and act accordingly. we love for each other. life would be incomplete without it. we're all circles and none of us wants to be empty.