{
  "id": "narrative.self-story",
  "term": "narrative",
  "sense": "self-story",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 18,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "A story a self model tells about its own past and future, which sets which actions read as its own.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "story.narrative",
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "tell.communication",
      "past.temporal",
      "future.temporal",
      "set.fix",
      "action.deed",
      "read.information"
    ],
    "interaction": "The self model cannot hold every past event, so it holds a story; the story then acts as a wall on what the self will do next, because acts that do not fit it read as not its own.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a past that sets future walls",
      "acts filtered by whether they fit the story"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "identity.self",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "identity is the self model staying within its window; narrative is the account of how it got there and where it goes"
    },
    {
      "id": "rationalization.backfill",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "rationalization edits one event to fit; narrative is the whole the event is edited to fit"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "american-dream.upward-reach",
    "asian-century.claimed-future",
    "country-in-decline.downward",
    "crisis-of-faith.narrative",
    "founding-fathers.origin",
    "golden-age.past-peak",
    "greatest-generation.past-cohort",
    "lessons-of-history.past-model",
    "lost-decade.stalled",
    "miracle-economy.outran-model",
    "nation-of-immigrants.arrival",
    "never-again.past-wall",
    "new-chapter.rupture",
    "punching-above-our-weight.outsized",
    "restore-dignity.status",
    "right-side-of-history.destined",
    "sense-of-grievance.collective",
    "this-is-who-we-are.identity-claim",
    "tradition.kept",
    "we-built-this.maker-claim",
    "winter-of-discontent.strikes"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "narrative",
    "narratives",
    "self narrative"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-narrative.self-story"
}