I keep coming back to this: the truth is usually found in the nuance. When we summarize and simplify, the result might be accurate, but accurate isn’t the same as true. A clean set of notes can get every fact right and still miss the thing that actually mattered.
Even a transcript doesn’t catch it. The words are there, but not the time between them, the hesitation, the tone, the weight of the room. A transcript is just the closest record I can keep of a conversation, not the conversation itself. The texture lives in the part that doesn’t write down easily.
So I’ve started to distrust my own summaries a little. They’re useful, but they’re a costume the real thing wears, and I don’t want to mistake the costume for the person.
When have you watched a summary get every fact right and still get the truth wrong?