Why?

A 69-Year Search for the Truth

By John Eagleton

I’ve got a problem.

I’ve had it my entire life.

I’m obsessed with one word.

WHY?

That’s it. Three letters. One syllable.

WHY?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had to know why.

When I was a little kid, somebody would tell me to do something, and I’d ask, “Why?”

And they’d say, “Because I said so.”

Well, that’s not a fucking answer!

That’s an exercise in authority!

And apparently, I wasn’t particularly impressed with authority when I was six years old.

And you know what?

Sixty-three years later, I’m still not!

I’m 69 years old, and I still wake up every morning wanting to understand why things are the way they are.

Why do people do what they do?

Why do we believe what we believe?

Why do we make the decisions we make?

Why does our government operate the way it does?

Why do we treat one another the way we do?

And why, when you ask somebody a perfectly reasonable question, do they sometimes look at you like you’ve just insulted their mother?

I’ve been asking WHY my entire life.

And let me tell you something.

It hasn’t always made my life easy.

In fact, it’s caused me a tremendous amount of pain.

Especially in relationships.

Because here’s what I’ve discovered.

When you ask somebody WHY, they don’t always hear a question.

Sometimes they hear an accusation.

You say, “Why did you do that?”

And they hear, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

But that’s not what I’m asking!

I’m asking because I genuinely want to understand.

And there’s a big difference.

Now, I’m not going to pretend I’ve always handled that perfectly.

I haven’t.

Sometimes my questions have sounded like interrogations.

Sometimes I’ve pushed too hard.

And sometimes I’ve been so determined to find the answer that I forgot there was another human being sitting across from me.

That’s something I’ve had to learn.

But I’ve never stopped asking.

Because understanding WHY is fundamental to how I experience the world.

And here’s something I’ve discovered after 69 years.

A lot of people don’t actually know why.

They’ll give you an explanation.

They’ll give you an opinion.

They’ll tell you what somebody else told them.

They’ll repeat something they heard on television.

And sometimes they’ll just make shit up!

Not necessarily because they’re bad people.

Sometimes they genuinely believe what they’re telling you.

But believing something doesn’t automatically make it true.

And that’s where things get interesting.

Because I’m not particularly interested in what somebody wants me to believe.

I’m interested in what’s actually true.

And those are two very different things.

Now, over the last several months, I’ve been doing something that’s taught me more about human beings than almost anything else I’ve ever done.

I’ve been talking to strangers.

Lots of them.

Young people. Old people. Rich people. Poor people. People from different backgrounds, different neighborhoods, different walks of life.

And I’ve discovered something fascinating.

Human beings are onions.

That’s right.

Onions.

Every single one of us.

We’ve got layers.

And the outermost layer is the person we present to the world.

It’s our public persona.

It’s the version of ourselves we want everybody else to see.

I’m successful.

I’m happy.

I’m confident.

I’ve got everything figured out.

Everything’s wonderful!

Bullshit!

Nobody has everything figured out.

Certainly not me.

But that outer layer serves a purpose.

It protects us.

It helps us navigate society.

It gives us a sense of identity.

And sometimes it’s hiding a whole lot of pain.

So when I meet somebody, I’m interested in what’s underneath.

And I start asking questions.

Not to embarrass them.

Not to prove them wrong.

Not to expose them.

I want to understand who they actually are.

And sometimes, if you’re patient enough, something remarkable happens.

The outer layer starts coming off.

Then another layer.

And another.

And eventually, you get beyond the rehearsed answers.

Beyond the political opinions.

Beyond the social labels.

Beyond the image somebody has spent years constructing.

And suddenly, you’re having a conversation with a human being.

A real human being.

And let me tell you something.

That’s where the magic happens.

Because underneath all those layers, we’re not nearly as different as we think we are.

We all want to be loved.

We all want to feel safe.

We all want to matter.

We all want somebody to understand us.

But there’s something that gets in the way.

Something incredibly powerful.

Judgment.

And I’ve come to believe that separating judgment from reality is one of the hardest things a human being can do.

Think about it.

You meet somebody.

Within seconds, your brain starts making assessments.

How they’re dressed.

How they talk.

What they look like.

How old they are.

What neighborhood they live in.

What political party they belong to.

And before they’ve even finished their first sentence, you’ve already started constructing a story about who they are.

We’ve all done it.

I’ve done it.

And here’s the problem.

Once you judge somebody, you’ve painted them with a brush.

And now everything they say gets filtered through that judgment.

You’re no longer seeing the person standing in front of you.

You’re seeing your interpretation of that person.

And it gets worse.

Because sometimes you take that judgment and carry it into your next encounter.

You meet one person who disappoints you, and suddenly you’re suspicious of the next person who reminds you of them.

One bad experience becomes a generalization.

A generalization becomes a stereotype.

And a stereotype becomes prejudice.

All because we stopped asking WHY.

And started assuming we already knew.

That’s dangerous.

It’s dangerous in relationships.

It’s dangerous in communities.

And it’s incredibly dangerous in politics.

Because once you’ve decided that an entire group of people is good or bad, right or wrong, intelligent or stupid, you’ve stopped seeing individuals.

You’ve stopped looking for truth.

You’ve replaced reality with judgment.

And that’s something I’m trying very hard not to do.

Now, I want to be clear about something.

I’m not suggesting we should abandon our ability to make judgments.

We have to make decisions.

We have to recognize harmful behavior.

We have to distinguish facts from fiction.

But there’s a difference between evaluating what somebody does and deciding who somebody is.

You can disagree with somebody without dismissing their humanity.

You can challenge an idea without condemning the person who believes it.

And you can ask WHY without assuming you already know the answer.

That’s the discipline I’m trying to develop.

And it isn’t easy.

Because I’ve got 69 years of experiences stored in this brain of mine.

Sixty-nine years of memories.

Sixty-nine years of assumptions.

Sixty-nine years of people telling me how the world works.

And sometimes I have to catch myself and say:

“Wait a minute, John.”

“Are you looking at what’s actually happening?”

“Or are you looking at what you expected to happen?”

That’s a very important question.

Because I don’t want my past experiences to prevent me from understanding the person standing in front of me today.

And that brings me to something else.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about our community here in Greensboro, North Carolina.

I’ve lived here for decades.

And I’ve come to believe that one of the greatest resources any city has is the collective experience of the people who live there.

Not just the politicians.

Not just the business leaders.

Not just the wealthy.

Everybody.

The person working behind the counter.

The college student trying to figure out their future.

The single mother trying to pay the rent.

The retired couple watching their neighborhood change.

The person sleeping on the street.

Every one of them has a story.

Every one of them has experienced something.

And every one of them has something worth understanding.

That’s why I’ve set out to interview a thousand Greensboro residents.

I’m asking four simple questions.

What do you like about Greensboro?

What don’t you like?

What would you change?

And what would you like Greensboro to become?

Four questions.

That’s it.

But what I’m really doing is listening.

And when somebody tells me something interesting, I ask another question.

WHY?

And sometimes that one little word opens up an entirely different conversation.

Because the first answer isn’t always the real answer.

Sometimes it’s just the beginning.

And what I’m discovering is extraordinary.

People want to talk.

They want to be heard.

They want somebody to take a genuine interest in what they think.

Not somebody waiting for their turn to speak.

Not somebody trying to sell them something.

Not somebody trying to win an argument.

Just somebody who wants to understand.

And here’s what I find so fascinating.

We live in an age where we have more information available to us than at any point in human history.

We’ve got smartphones.

We’ve got the internet.

We’ve got artificial intelligence.

We can ask a machine almost anything and get an answer in seconds.

But having access to answers doesn’t mean we understand anything.

And it certainly doesn’t mean those answers are correct.

We’ve become incredibly good at collecting information.

I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at questioning it.

And maybe that’s why I’m still so obsessed with WHY.

Because I’m not looking for a convenient explanation.

I’m not looking for somebody to confirm what I already believe.

I’m looking for the truth.

And sometimes the truth is uncomfortable.

Sometimes it challenges something I’ve believed my entire life.

Sometimes it forces me to admit I was wrong.

And you know what?

That’s okay!

I’d rather discover that I’ve been wrong for 40 years than spend another 20 defending something that isn’t true.

Because being wrong isn’t the end of the world.

Refusing to reconsider when the evidence changes is the real problem.

So here I am.

Sixty-nine years old.

Still asking questions.

Still challenging assumptions.

Still trying to understand the people around me.

And still occasionally driving everybody absolutely fucking crazy!

But I’ve come to understand something about myself.

I’m probably never going to stop.

Because for me, WHY isn’t just a question.

It’s a way of living.

It’s how I connect with people.

It’s how I make sense of the world.

It’s how I challenge my own beliefs.

And it’s how I try to separate what is real from what somebody wants me to believe.

And after 69 years, I think I’ve learned one very important lesson.

The moment you decide you already know everything about somebody is the moment you stop understanding them.

So the next time you meet a stranger, try something.

Put your assumptions aside.

Put your judgments aside.

Ask a question.

And then actually listen to the answer.

You might discover something about that person.

You might discover something about yourself.

And you might discover that the world is a whole lot more interesting than you thought.

As for me?

I’ve still got questions.

Lots of them.

And tomorrow morning, when I wake up, I guarantee you the first thing my brain is going to do is start looking for another answer.

Because after 69 years, there’s one thing I know for certain.

I’m not finished asking WHY.

And I hope I never am.