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Stories are not invented.

They condense.

When experience becomes noisy, contradictory, or overwhelming,
pressure builds.

At scale, pressure must be reduced.

Stories perform this function.

They compress complexity into something manageable.

They link events.
They assign cause.
They define roles.
They restore orientation.

This is not about truth.

It is about coherence.

Stories that reduce pressure spread.

Stories that increase uncertainty fade.

This selection happens automatically.

No author is required.

Raw experience produces many possible narratives.

Only a few stabilize attention.

Those are repeated.

Repetition hardens them.

What is repeated enough begins to feel inevitable.

It becomes “what’s happening.”

Governments, media, and institutions do not create stories from nothing.

They select from what is already circulating.

They amplify what stabilizes function and drop what destabilizes it.

This is curation, not authorship.

Often delayed.
Often inconsistent.
Often incoherent.

Which is why stories change.

There is no central storyteller.

Pattern replaces intention.

Pressure replaces design.

Stories are adaptive tools.

They reduce anxiety.
They preserve participation.
They keep systems moving.

Even false stories can function if they restore coherence.

Even paranoid stories can stabilize if they explain confusion.

This does not make stories malicious.

It makes them regulatory.

Understanding this does not require disbelief.

It only removes fascination.

Stories no longer need to be fought or replaced.

They can be seen for what they are.

Temporary structures that arise when pressure exceeds tolerance.

When pressure drops, stories loosen.

Some dissolve.

Others are replaced.

Nothing essential is lost.

Experience continues without needing to be explained.