Two massive, heavy-laden Conestoga wagons rumble slowly across the vast desolate prairie. "How much further", asks the young officer. "Can't say for sure, maybe fifty, sixty miles . . . Say, what's that up ahead"? The surly old teamster interrupts his answer to point out a blackened wreck of something or other a mile or so, ahead.
The wreck turns out to be the disappearing remains of a settlers wagon. There's barely anything left. The young officer wanders away to a skeleton laying face-up in the grass pinned in position by an Indian arrow. The young officer picks up the arrow, pensively imagining this tragedy, unrecorded and unmourned.
His revery is broken by the raucous cackling of the churlish waggoneer. "What the hell you laughing about?", demands the incredulous young officer.
"I wus just thinkin' 'bout his folks back home wonderin', "Why don't he write"?
An unauthorized screen photograph from the 1990 Keven Costner movie: Dances with Wolves.
I've paraphrased the scene from memory. I may have some details wrong, but the main point is intact.
We all make assumptions without knowing what's really going on. Did the folks back home imagine the man who is now only a skeleton was having such a good time that he forgot all about them? Did they resent his thoughtlessness?
The gentler souls among them may have considered there was a problem that kept him from writing. Many more would have thought he was just being selfish.
It's easy to imagine what someone else is thinking. It's nearly impossible to get it right. Presumption is so natural we often don't notice we're presuming. Every person has private situations and notions the rest of the world doesn't know about.
You do - I do - and so does everyone else.
Usually it doesn't matter.
The skeleton pinned to the earth by an arrow rebukes any blame of presumptive misunderstanding. The rest of us don't have such a good excuse - but we have our reasons. Maybe those reasons will be revealed. Maybe they won't.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
Every day people needlessly agitate themselves
by imputing fanciful motives to someone else. Presumption is pointless. Motives, whither wicked or well-intended matter less than results.
Why don't he write?
Imagining why, isn't useful.