Six Sacred Questions · 01
Who?
Identify the people, roles, sources, witnesses, decision-makers, and perspectives involved before assigning meaning to what they did.
Who? sounds simple until stress turns everyone into a role: enemy, rescuer, authority, liar, victim, expert, threat. The question slows that compression down.
Ask who was actually present. Who said the thing directly? Who heard it secondhand? Who has decision-making authority? Who is affected by the outcome? Who can verify the fact independently? Who is offering interpretation rather than direct observation?
A person can be important to the story without automatically being a reliable source for every part of it.
What Who? is not: a shortcut to character judgment. Identifying a person does not prove motive, honesty, loyalty, competence, or intent. A title does not make someone infallible. A relationship does not make someone neutral. Familiarity does not equal verification.
Where it gets distorted: when identity becomes evidence. “They are my friend, therefore they must be right.” “They are an authority, therefore they cannot be wrong.” “They hurt me once, therefore everything they say is false.” Those are conclusions, not identities.
Use it under pressure: write the names or roles in separate columns: direct witness, secondhand source, decision-maker, affected person, support person, subject-matter expert. Then ask what each person actually knows firsthand.
Guardian practice
Build a source map.
Choose one confusing situation. List every person or role involved. Beside each one, write: What do they know directly? What are they assuming? What can they verify? What do I still need from another source?