Every map leaves things out. Someone decided what mattered. The same goes for every story you’re told.

Leaving things out is not a flaw in a map, it is what makes a map usable. But somebody decided which roads counted and which alleys were not worth ink, and that decision is invisible once it is printed. Every account of an event works the same way, including the ones told by people with no intention to mislead.

Get into the habit of asking two questions about any story. Who is telling it, and what would be in the version told by somebody standing somewhere else? That is not suspicion; it is remembering that the paper has edges and somebody chose where to put them.