you sure?

I’ve been thinking a lot about inference, and how deeply it shapes our reality.

I choose the word “inference” intentionally. “assumption” tends to sound careless, and most of us would like to think we’re more thoughtful than asses. inference sounds considered. reasonable. we’ve observed something, connected a few dots, and arrived at a conclusion.

but even thoughtful reasoning can lead us somewhere entirely wrong.

inference is how we make sense of incomplete information. we interpret what we can see through what we already know. it’s useful, often necessary, and something we all do. the danger begins when we forget that the conclusion we’ve reached is still an interpretation.

lately, I’ve watched people I consider mature and thoughtful draw conclusions about situations and about others with remarkable confidence—and remarkably little information. sometimes I find they aren’t simply connecting the dots available to them. they’re inventing the missing dots, then treating the picture as something they’ve discovered. then arrives judgment. then emotion. then a response to a story that may never have happened at all. and the story grows. one inference becomes the foundation for another, until an entire understanding of something or someone rests on something no one ever stopped to substantiate. the emotion is real. the consequences are real. but the premise may be entirely wrong.

I think much of this begins with our desire to make sense of people. when we don’t understand someone, we naturally reach for our own experiences. what would I mean if I said that? why would I behave that way? our own experience gives us a starting point. it cannot give us the whole explanation for someone else. this is where inference becomes tangled up with identity.

our sense of who we are forms partly through what we believe to be true: what our families taught us, what our communities reinforce, what we’ve experienced, and what we’ve deducted from those experiences. together, these pieces form a kind of unique, personal kaleidoscope—a familiar, collective picture through which we understand ourselves and see the world. when someone challenges one of those pieces, it can feel as though they’re somehow threatening the entire picture.

reconsidering a belief or habit might mean questioning something our parents taught us. it might mean revisiting an experience we thought we understood. it might mean admitting that a judgment we felt certain about was unfair. our conditioning is foundational to how we operate and is second nature. to challenge something that’s normal to us feels shocking and unsettling.

if I was wrong about this, what else might I be wrong about? what can I trust? who am I without this belief?

I don’t think we think through those questions consciously. often we become defensive. a question arrives, and we react as though something foundational is under attack. our beliefs provide stability. they help us make decisions, plan for a future, and find people whose values align with ours. they give us guardrails in a world that can otherwise feel scary or overwhelming.

community offers a similar comfort. we are creatures that want to belong. shared interests, values, and ways of living make belonging easier. there’s relief in being understood without having to explain everything. but a community that protects us from uncertainty can also protect our beliefs from examination. when we live in an echo chamber, it’s easy to mistake agreement for evidence. and, the thing actually making us feel safe may also be keeping us from seeing something new that asserts our growth.

so lately, I’ve heard inferential judgments and thought: if you had even one more piece of information, you might see this situation totally differently. enough at least to question the story you’ve built. instead, we group, generalize, and sort. are they like me? do they belong in my group? what does this situation tell me about what kind of person they are? ironically, in our desire to understand people, we can end up reducing them to categories that actually separate us and make understanding feel easier, or even unnecessary.

and the saddest part to me — once we’ve decided who someone is, we often stop being curious about them. another person’s life contains experiences we’ve never had, joys and pressures we cannot see, and meanings we may never have considered. how much can we really know? yet we can so swiftly observe an action, a statement, a decision, or a difficult situation and deduct a quick summary of their character.

we know how much context exists behind our own beliefs and behavior. we want others to recognize that complexity in us. how often do we extend the same consideration? I wonder how much emotional and psychological weight we could release if we allowed ourselves to encounter something we didn’t understand without immediately deciding what it meant. how much more room would there be for compassion? god forbid, connection?

I tend to believe people are fundamentally good. that belief is a starting point I choose, rather than something I can prove. sure, on occasion it backfires, and I take that as more field work. but it encourages me to leave room for explanations I haven’t considered. people are infinitely complex. they can be loving and defensive, generous and scared, well-intentioned and still fully capable of causing harm. sometimes they’re trying to survive using habits they’ve never even stopped to examine. sometimes they don’t understand their own behavior well enough to recognize it or explain it. none of that erases responsibility. it gives us reason to be cautious about certainty.

I also believe many of us want some version of safety, belonging, dignity, and a better life. we disagree — sometimes profoundly — about how to get there and what a better society actually looks like. understanding those differences asks us to listen long enough to discover something our own experience can’t tell us.

many people would say that the older they get, the more they know. I would argue the opposite — the older I get, the more I experience, and so the less I know for certain. I feel less certain that I understand people simply because I’ve encountered someone like them before. experience has given me more possible explanations, and more reasons to question the first one that comes to mind.

maybe maturity includes being able to say: this is how it looks to me, but I might be missing something. I think we need a little more tolerance for that unclear space. a little less opinionating and a little more compassion. a willingness to ask before deciding, and to revise when we learn something new. I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand why my kaleidoscope looks the way it does. I try to remember that when I look at someone else.

and when new information challenges the picture I’ve built, I expect myself to have the courage to let it move something. to reconsider a belief I’ve carried for years. a few pieces can shift without the whole thing falling apart.

a masterpiece takes a lot of steps and revisions. we can change our minds and still recognize ourselves. we could even become someone we’re more proud to be.