A friend takes longer than usual to respond to a message. A colleague leaves a meeting without saying much. Someone makes an unfamiliar expression during a conversation, and hours later you’re still wondering what it meant. With very little information available, the mind begins assembling a remarkably detailed explanation. By the time anything is clarified, an entire version of events may already exist.
What’s fascinating is how readily an explanation can acquire the feeling of an observation. We remember the expression, but also the meaning we assigned to it. We recall the silence, along with the motive we imagined behind it. Once these elements become intertwined, new information is often interpreted through the original assumption rather than examined independently. An explanation created to fill a gap can eventually make the gap itself almost impossible to recognize.
Inquiry
What do you think you know about a situation that you actually supplied yourself when the information was missing?
