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The Lie That Every Story Has In Common – Kurt Vonnegut On The Shapes of Stories

Pursuit of Wonder | August 9, 2025



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In this video, we look at author Kurt Vonnegut’s analysis of the shapes of stories, and what they suggest about our experience and consideration of life. Of course, not every story lies, but in a sense, most do.

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Written by Pursuit of Wonder

Comments

This post currently has 44 comments.

  1. @jagmichaelgilbert8523

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    This is pretty stupid. We all have insanely bad or good things that completely change stasis constantly and move towards something. We don't live in ambiguity in general most of us have pretty strong opinions, many at midlife feel this monotonous drudge and yet still it's only colored by the end which is known to approach

  5. @markvwood2007

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Serial TV sometimes has arcs that continue from episode to episode but not always and perhaps not most of the time. There is the much talked about "reset to zero".

  7. @joemerl1145

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    The only Vonnegut book I've read was Slaughterhouse Five. I hated it, which has made me reluctant to pick up another.

    This makes me more reluctant.

    (I mean, I get it. You can judge events in different ways. But this sounds a lot like no, you can't, everything is literally neutral and meaningless. This does not strike me as a story worth telling.)

  8. @Crospic

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    For this is not the same story you tell yourself? I do not wish to be confounded by such remark. Stories are not meant to show our humanity but by peoples values. The persuit of wonder might as well be a called the persuit of no wonder for this instance.

  11. @operaguy1

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    V. Is describing naturalism. It is not the only school. Romantic Realsm …….. insread of a drone of the dreary same details, it projects life as it ought to be.

  12. @Level_Eleven

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Summary in layman’s terms for my convenience:

    Depending on the type of story you are trying to write, remember that life goes on. If your story, too, goes on, it may feel more grounded in reality.

  13. @apex9841

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    His judgment on the plot is fundamentally flawed, good and bad doesn’t mean anything in terms of a story. Bad luck and give good fortune and vice versa

  16. @iparagonepersonalvlogs1061

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Quite important to make the case of the argument centered around how a never-ending TV series ends up being closer to reality than stories from movies or books. It reveals yet another lesson – we like to think about relatively brief chunks of either ours or others lives, but it's only one chunk out of a much longer life. There is still value in listening to stories to perhaps motivate us in a crucial chapter of our lives, but to really get a true understanding of how life works, it's a bad idea to only look at a year's worth of ups and downs, instead opting to look at things across many different lives that have occurred throughout centuries.

  18. @JohnSmith-td7hd

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    This assumes a show where each episode leads into the next. Many shows don't do that. Many shows reset everything before they end, and the next episode will be on a brand new story line or topic.

  20. @anthropocene-

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    The only few channel on YouTube where i don't skip a single video, eventhough some of those topics don't compel me but i still listen to it knowing i can learn a thing or two . And you people don't disappoint..

  22. @terrifictomm

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Life to be satisfying must be played as an infinite game, not a finite one.

    The goal of a finite game is up win.
    The goal of an infinite game is to keep playing and in the meantime to make the game play interesting, exciting, intriguing, gratifying, fulfilling, etc.

  27. @Airoxen

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    If liked this video, please for the love of God, what this movie called "Mr. Nobody". It's perfect, I think it accurately captured a lot of what was said in this video.

  31. @tyrantking9000

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Real life is a rollercoaster. Everyone will have their ups and downs, leading to either great lives coming from shit beginnings, or bad lives from great beginnings. Just like a story, people's lives (typically) end on a different note than when they began. This entire video is way too disagreeable that it is impossible to agree with anything presented.

  38. @helenbostock2350

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    A chief of an India trade was asked when hes was hurt in the a hurting accident. He was asked if it was bad He said it might be or not. The next month his country went to war because his son can not fight was a good thing. I like happy end I think we all do thank for a great video.

  39. @ShinSheel

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    I'd really disagree on "just the line". Unless you are completely apathetic you have opinion on your life events and unless your IQ is precisely 0 your opinion has some predictive power.
    You can think of it as more complex stat graphs, as quantum-like superpositions, but "just the line" is very rare case to happen in reality.

    If anything Anglo-Saxon literary tradition is ill by creating meaningless agency-less plots every time author tries to be deep and creating the same rollercoaster when author writes for the average person.

  41. @Ispeaktruth12

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Good or bad both are disease of mind, leave both and reality rush in. He who is not influenced by this duality created by mind is actually free otherwise mind can show such illusions which is the result of limited information people have and which is the only truth for them for the time being because everything will not go according to an individual perception of what is good or bad, it's funny how some people talk about things giving life is good and taking away life is bad, you kill living plants for your survival, you kill animals to give yourself a living, kill so many insects and stuff just because you think they can harm you but your human centric egoistic mind tells you it's good so it's morally acceptable to do because you can't live without it, humans are funny for sure though, laughable creatures😁, atleast other animals are not that hypocrite and are not suffering psychologically because of their self created concepts of good or bad.

  42. @Ispeaktruth12

    August 9, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Stories are just a source of entertainment with fabrications and sometimes complete lies and since its ultimate aim is to entertain people just like any other source of entertainment so it doesn't matter to a person if he just see it as a source of little entertainment without getting delusional about it being the actual reality.

Comments are closed.

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