What is a Narrative: An Information Theory Interpretation

A narrative is a compressed explanatory layer of the real world. When pressure comes it will test how close that narrative is to the real world. The real world is not open to perspective; it is physics. The lies we tell ourselves for Ego, identity, and active interpretive consciousness, will be slapped in the face at that time. I believe this is where the desire for myths, misinformation, and denial come from. When reality strikes, the psychologically healthy thing to do is to update our internal model. The unhealthy thing is to avoid confrontation and friction as a sorting mechanism in order to build an internal model of the world closer to reality.

In much of the modern world we teach people things that short term psychologically will empower them. We incorrectly teach people that EQ means understanding another person's perspective—not necessarily that it is congruent and worthy of acceptance integration into our model of the world. The problem is if their perspective is built on a model that is decoupled significantly from the cause and effect real world forces of reality we are long-term hurting them. They may develop insecurities, delusions, and incoherent belief systems in order to sustain their addiction to insulation from reality with a narrative and fused identity with it.

Narratives that survive edge cases and the world under pressure are better than those that do not. There is a hierarchy. Harmony between incongruent identifies and narratives is not the objective here. Congruence with narrative and the physics of reality is the objective exclusively: not avoiding short-term friction with people.