farmdoc's blog post number 57

In my 1 June 2008 blog post I wrote of my Sherlockian heritage, my quasi-forensic work, and my fascination by the continuum from pure truth through embroidered truth across to the factitious and then the frankly fraudulent. My work requires me to place people along this continuum. I start by assuming that each person is at the pure truth end, and then I accumulate evidence which may leave the person there, or it may signify a position a variable distance along the continuum. One thing is sure: actions speak louder than words. Indeed they shout. I have read many a medical report claiming that so-and-so was very motivated to work. In my experience, subjective assessment of motivation is notoriously unreliable. Last Saturday I watched the film A History of Violence whose hero is a man with a concealed past identity. He doesn’t voluntarily disclose it, indeed he denies it, but every link in a chain of circumstances incrementally increases its likelihood, until the point of irrefutable certainty is reached, and then further denial is pointless. To know as much as we can about someone else, we are better watching what is done rather than listening to what is said. Even then, no one person totally knows another. Each one of us has a secret side. Such is the charm – or menace – of the human condition.