Condemnation is not all bad.

Condemnation is not all that bad. It has its redeeming quality too.

We need to condemn not as an act of hypocrisy, but as an act that seeks to remind us to always guard our own conscience from being desensitized to what is inherently evil, or morally incomprehensible. 

For man are fallible, but some are simply incorrigible. 

Take this case for example. 

It happened in HK. A former cop, 61, was jailed for 16 years and 8 months for sexual assaulting his two young daughters.

It all started in 2013. 

It started innocent enough. As a father, he was playing with them. Then, possessed by a depraved compulsion, he tried to rape his elder daughter, then 12. But she resisted. 

So, the father turned his attention to his younger daughter, then only 10. 

It reports that the father recounted in court of "how his daughters were laughing at the time as he did not explain to them what he was doing."

So for three years until 2016, he was emboldened as his victims (his biological own) were vulnerable, and trusted him. 

In one incident amongst many, as reported, his elder daughter "had tried to resist by locking her bedroom door but her father would enter with his key. She tried to twist and turn in bed to avoid him but he pinned her down."

The father confessed that "he liked to watch pornographic movies depicting incest and had been watching them before he raped his daughter."

He was arrested when his elder Daughter suffered from severe stomach pain and was found to be 30-week pregnant. 

At the sentencing, Judge Brian Keith said that the case was "a breach of trust of the very worst kind." 

He added: "Incest is one of our society's great taboo...It strikes at the very fabric of family life, especially when there is, as here, such a disparity of age between you and your daughters."

Taking note of his previous run-in with the law like dangerous driving and overcharging passengers when he quit the force in 1984 and became a cab driver, and his background as a divorcee, remarried (and had the two daughters), and all four of them living on monthly Comprehensive Social Security Assistance of HK$8,000 (S$1,300), the judge sentenced the father to 16 years and 8 months because he had pleaded guilty, thereby sparring his daughters from the repeated trauma of testifying in court. 

This is what he has to say in his mitigation: "I was wrong, I had done something very wrong and made her pregnant."

Lesson? Mm...

Let me return to what I wrote at the start of this post, "condemnation is not all that bad. It has its redeeming quality too." 

Now, don't get me wrong, I too believe in mercy, repentance and forgiveness. But let's not get too fuzzy wazzy over those highfalutin concepts that work in perfect synchronicity in a parallel universe far away from where everyday-living stands, and struggles.

In reality, when you have to lock your door every night to prevent a sex depraved man who watches pornographic videos of incest so he may be given courage, and be properly tutored in ways to destroy your life completely, and he also happens to be your father, whom you cannot help but put your trust, faith and hope upon on those days when his broken conscience appears restraint, the concepts of mercy, repentance and forgiveness remain a big blur for the most understandable reason. 

It reports that "the judge, citing a psychological report, said that the impact on the two daughters was beyond estimation" and while the "younger daughter, now 14, has refused to talk to a clinical psychologist, the elder sister spoke little of what happened." 

FYI, the child is healthy and has been given up for adoption.

In the father's own admission, he said he was wrong and had done something very wrong and made her pregnant. 

My god, that's not even a fraction of what is "very wrong" as he'd admitted. 

To be fair, that may just be an extract of his mitigation plea. But based on those words, that pithy admission, what is "very wrong" has little to do with the pregnancy. 

If anything, the pregnancy is his ensnarement (his long overdue comeuppance) to finally end the impunity he thought he could perpetuate to give him unlimited access to commit his unspeakable transgression. 

What is in fact "very wrong" about his actions has no labels, name or even shame. It is something to be condemned without any thought because it is well captured in the words of the judge, "a breach of trust of the very worst kind." 

And since there is no report of any psychological or psychiatric issues, I would assume the father is able to control his actions. 

His will-power is therefore not impaired in any way. That adds to (or aggravates) what makes it the "very worst kind".

Let me just end (even words seem hard to dispense) by reminding fathers (especially me) that fatherhood is not rapehood. It is not abusehood, and not even ventilation-hood. 

If you have a son, teach him to love his wife, protect his daughter, respect the opposite sex, and sacrifice for what is chivalrous, honourable and noble. Don't just open doors for the love of his life, but guard the door to her heart with his. 

But first, set the example yourself, in your household, as you honor your vows, uphold your marriage, repent in earnest for you are only human, and in all things, as a father, let love discipline, let love correct, let love grow, and let love heal.

And if you happen to have daughters, to be blessed with them for a lifetime, love them with all your heart, soul and mind. 

Assure them every night that not a blade shall touch their body without a thousand first making their way through yours.

And promise them every morning that as long as you, their father, lives and breathes, you will never cease to protect them, celebrate with them, go through the worst with them, suffer with them, and most of all, whisper in their little ears daily that daddy is here, no one will harm you. Cheerz.

Ms Kho, her boy Evan, and the struggle for the mind.

I don't know whether you have read this article, "Help me Mommy. I'm very lonely". It's about depression.

Evan, only eleven, was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as being depressed and was prescribed anti-depressants. 

On top of that, Evan was also suspected to have Asperger's Syndrome, "a neurological disorder on the higher functioning end of the autism spectrum."

His mom (Ms Kho), a successful entrepreneur, assured her son this:-

"We made a promise to take our medication together (she was also diagnosed with depression due to stress of business). I told him we would get well together."

Then, that fateful day happened. 

Evan told a lie quite unconvincingly that there was no school, and his mother reprimanded him softly for it. Evan explained that he was stressed at school. 

Evan then told the family helper that he "would wait for Ms Kho at the foot of the condoninium so that she could take him to school".

And that was where he took his own life at elevan. He plunged eleven stories down. 

Wong Kim Hoh who wrote the article penned this:-

"Her memory of picking up Evan's lifeless body is something Ms Kho can never erase. She is also tormented by the thought that she didn't do enough for him as a mother."

Lesson? Just one, and I start with this quote.

A heartbroken Ms Kho said:-

"It's difficult to say he's in a better place. Not when he often told me how much he loved me and how his best place was with me, and nowhere else...I don't want him to died in vain. I want to justify his life, it was too short. I want people to be aware of depression, which is a stigma. I want them to know it is nothing to be ashamed of because depression is as much an illness as cancer...I hope by talking about Evan's death, more people can be saved."

Recently, I read a book by Johann Hari, entitled Lost Connections, who himself battled with depression for decades, and I believe is still battling it - to some extent. 

He wrote that for the past 18 years of his life he was told that depression is all in his head. It was an imagined disorder. 

And then, the next 13 years, he was told that depression is a malfunctioning brain, that is, the lack of serotonin in the brain. It was a chemical imbalance. 

Now, he got a breakthrough in thought about depression and it is in his latest book.

It is all about connections, he wrote. 

It is not an imagined disorder. Neither is it some malfunctioning brain, although there are cases that show it is more pathological than about losing connections, and a visit to IMH will clarify somewhat. 

But for the majority of us, Johann is of the view that our lost connections with work, people, meaningful values, respect, nature and secure future are the driving causes for our depression.

To be honest, there is really nothing new here (but you will have to read the book for yourself because I run the risk of oversimplying it. And it was a relishing read for me). 

My point is that I see three classes of people here.

Firstly, the depressed because of a serious brain injury. 

Second, the depressed even when they have most of the connections Johann talks about. 

And third, the depressed because, in their economic and social station in life, they will find it quite insurmountable to find the connections they so sincerely sought after. 

Most will die, sadly, unconnected.

Giving due credit to Johann for a good read, Everyday reality cannot be so neatly captured in 321 pages, even if proven researches and interviews with successful people seem to point to the direction that connections are the missing link. 

There is also no one-size-fits-all type of depression because to some people, they are introverts and they rather be alone; and to others, they are social dynamites and explode with confetti colours when they are socially connected and engaged. 

And then, there are the circumstances perks and pains. 

We may find an interim reprieve for depression when we make the connection only to find that at the end of that rainbow over time is not a pot of gold, but a pot of grief, disappointments, or betrayal. 

What I am trying to say is that life can be really unpredictable, and one end of the stick is about relief from feeling down and at the other end is the pain of a lost connection because of circumstances beyond one's control. 

Some people can take it and bounce back remarkably. And others plunge down even further and take to their grave the pain they never recover. 

Alas, life throws you lemon and lemonade, curve balls and easy catches, a bouquet and rotten eggs at every turn, and in my view, connections definitely help to a large extent, but not for all. 

But I guess what Johann is trying to say is that these connections fortify your perspectives, deepening them. 

They also strengthen your resolve, and more importantly, they don't protect you from being broken, instead, and most meaningfully, they break you to pieces, even repeatedly for a season, so that that which doesn't kill you will make you stronger, wiser, more grateful, hopeful, more giving, and more faithful.

As humans, we are not asked to be invulnerable, but fragile (as we are) yet resilient. 

And at one point of his book, Johann wrote that depression is not necessarily a bad thing. It can keep you alive to certain things that are not stamped with a materialist value. It goes beyond titles, money and estates. 

More relevantly, it turns your attention to family, friends and faith. 

For this reason, depression to some extent forms a protective shield over you to keep you from delusionally pursuing happiness in a way that is understood by this world only to find that all that running around, for what seems like ages, leads you back to where you first started, that is, in the midst of loved ones who had never asked to be happy, but just your presence and attention.

Let me end with Ms Kho's own words, which I think holds the key:-

"What I took for granted, I don't anymore. I was with Evan that morning, and just like that, he was gone. Now, every hour, every minute with my children counts."

That reflection led me to think this morning about my eventual and inevitable mortality.

When I die, I only crave for one thing, that my loved ones miss me, and miss me enough to never take those still with them for granted. The dead don't need comfort, its the living that needs it. 

And I pray by then, they will come to know that my legacy is not about a certain material inheritance, but a love (although imperfect in many ways), but is at least consistent throughout to demonstrate just one thing: I have been faithful. 

For like what the late neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi wrote in When Breath Becomes Air:-

"We can never reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving." 

And to ceaselessly strive for that, for a love that is overcoming regardless of circumstances, is what makes for the best life conceivable in this world. Cheerz.