Snapped

Lately there seems to be so many news reports of children. Lost children, injured children.

The one that I can’t get out of my head is the incident of the City high-flyer who has battered his two year old child to the brink of death. She is on life support with her mother at her bedside, he apparently is on suicide watch. The news bulletins say that he and his wife lived in a million pound apartment, that he is reported by his colleagues to be friendly and sociable, that neighbours say that he doted on his little girl. Other colleagues said that he had been under great stress recently. Something snapped.

Over the years as a London temp I worked in international financial organizations where I got to know many men like him. The new Eurocrats, young, multilingual, ambitious, driven. Often, though not always, charming, seemingly nerveless. I envied them sometimes, their lives of seeming confidence and financial ease.

So this hits home. I think of Georges and Pierre from Belgium, Anders from Stockholm. And many others.

We live in a society that worships the outer. It's hard not to be seduced by this false religion and I'm obviously as prone to judge by appearances as anyone else. But we don't know the truth - the vulnerability and the fragility - of other people's lives, we really don't.

We can't pass judgment.