You can't see inside

Yesterday you named the half-heard thing. Today, look at the biggest thing you don't actually know: what's going on inside another person.

The rumor always comes with a motive attached. She skipped your section because she's freezing you out. He gave that account to someone else to send a message. The short reply means he's done with you. The behavior you can sometimes see. The reason behind it you never can — and yet the story hands you the reason like it's part of the report.

Marcus, who spent his life reading people who flattered him to his face, kept the standard honest: "Enter into every man's ruling faculty; and also let every other man enter into thine" (Meditations 8.61, Long). It's an invitation and a limit at once. Try to understand the person, yes. But notice that their ruling faculty — the place where the actual reason lives — is closed to you the same way yours is closed to them. The barista, the foreman, the dispatcher, the in-law: each one is running on reasons you can't read off the surface.

So hold the rumor loosely. You may have the action right and the reason completely wrong, and the reason is the part the story made up.