[robfitz]

I don't have a proper answer (because it's a good and difficult question), but I sort of think of it as a context-dependant thing.

E.g., During a customer interview where I'm trying to understand what they've done (and predict what they'll do), I have vanishingly low confidence in their self-predicted behavior. So I prefer to try to look at what they've actually done in the past, talk to them to understand why they did it that way instead of some other way, tease out the invisible data (like what they tried or researched but didn't continue with), and then come to my own conclusion about how that's all likely to extrapolate.

But in terms of understanding and ascribing purpose to my experiences? Or understanding and empathizing with a friend or stranger? Or sending a message out into the world in a way that can stick and spread? In that case, it's kind of a subjective thing to start with, and it's all about the stories. (To clarify: not intentionally fanciful or fictional stories. Just "stories" in the sense of how we tie all these things that happen into something coherent and ordered.)

That was kind of a non-answer, and I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. I only understand a very, very small number of things. (Three, I think, although I'm working hard on understanding the fourth.) Apart from those few narrow domains, I'm just fumbling through it like everybody else.