Verisimilitude?!

So much of what we think we know is a lie.

With the advent of technology and social media, so much of the information we get fed on a daily basis is, in reality, carefully structured to appeal to the average viewer. How often has it happened that you're sitting in your room at home, bored out of your mind and scrolling through your newsfeed, when you see a picture of some friends that appear to be having the time of their lives? However, it's important to remember that what you're seeing is not what's actually going on, but instead what they want you to think is going on. For example, this link shows how easy it is to make others think you have the perfect life, even though it's not actually as exciting as you want others to think it is. 

In class, we studied books like The Glass Castle and The Things They Carried, discussing how each contained verisimilitude--the semblance of truth. But what exactly is truth, and how does the lack of it play into those two stories? I never really thought about it while I was reading, but looking back, I realized how much of The Glass Castle had to be made up. Seriously--it's impossible for a 54-year-old to remember specific dialogue from when she was 3, or even from when she was 13. However, the fiction in this book didn't affect the reader too much; by filling in extraneous details that she forgot over the passage of time, Wells just helps the reader better understand the story. In the case of The Things They Carried, though, verisimilitude was a huge part of the story. When I learned that nearly the entire story was fictional (despite containing truth in it), I had to sit down and reread some of it, seeing it from a different perspective. It brings up an interesting question: Exactly how important is verisimilitude in so-called nonfiction? After sitting and thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that, despite claiming to be completely true, it was perfectly fine for a nonfiction work to contain untruths--after all, the only nonfiction books that can claim to be entirely, perfectly true are just textbooks. In the case of nonfiction narratives like The Glass Castle and The Things They Carried, the important part of the book wasn't the actual story; it was the message conveyed in those pages. In the words of O'Brien, "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth." For the same reason, it's completely fine for nonfiction narratives to contain lies, half-truths, and exaggerations; ultimately, their purpose is simply to give the reader a better understanding of life.

Going back to the issue of the verisimilitude that exists in modern-day communications, I don't really think there's much that we can do about them. Falsehoods and embellishments will always exist when humans interact with other humans; after all, it's in human nature to portray oneself as better than he/she is in order to elevate him/herself through the ranks of society. Personally, I think the best thing to do when it comes to this issue is to simply be aware that a lot of what you see has been altered to fascinate you. In the words of Steve Furtick, "The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel." So, the next time you see that really cool picture on Facebook or Instagram, keep in mind that the backstory of that picture probably went a little something like this: