Before the study of mental illnesses and “brain-wired dispositions” became the analysing logic of strange behaviour practices, all behavioral expressions that differed from the common system of accepted social customs were categorised as being possessed by devils, spirits, or gods, depending on where you were born.

Now, we understand that some of us, a few humans, are born without the ability to feel guilt, to be sincere, to observe obligations, and to be loyal to any indicated facial expression. They can present assurances with a smile and mean the opposite, and that particular few were not subject, as we commonly believe, to some traumatic childhood experience. Their brains are just wired differently, and it’s in our interest to understand that they exist, even at high social levels.

However, based on an interesting conversation I had with a friend not so long ago that prompted this column, we complimented ourselves on adjusted customs concerning those close to us; that we never took for granted the habit of having our offspring in the custom of spending time with relatives without a supervising parental presence.

We had both learned from others we have been close to that unprecedented damage to the mind and spirit (value systems) cannot be casually undone. These injuries to the innocent do constitute the shaping of self-preserving methods that exist in a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ personality even before adulthood.

Our culture was not astute in dealing with damaged minds, though we are going there slowly. The society maintained a pretentious distance, which can only be considered a social-humane disconnect, even with the onslaught of drug addition. That social disconnect prevails to a greater extent around us. This compels blunt moving on without regard to vulnerable juvenile victims of betrayed trust, whose shredded worldview would protect itself by morphing into something excessive to overcome a brutal personal world of innocence lost. In that vein, we discussed some brethren that have passed our way. These are men whose lost childhood with their shadows and real demons had released on society their possessed characters, ignored by much-needed interceptions from organisations that should have existed with deeper scrutiny, analysing towards salvaging, before cracks became chasms.

Two passed street-wise characters came up for discussion. Both had known traumatic childhoods. Both were from conditions where a big sister had become a surrogate mother; the other, a grandmother filled the space. Both of these characters had ‘street creed’ whispers of disrespected flaws, but they transcended the whispers with aggression and violence in their conflict with society at large and the streets. They were, and there are others like them; male and female.

Because our society currently has somewhat retrogressed into a ‘value system of aggressive conspicuous consumption’, for some, there are not too many alternatives toward earning a livelihood. Modernisation has erased the economic soil of necessary low-expertise employment. In this age of ‘Systems Thinking ’, our local systems are not evolving quickly enough to meet the worlds we are being dragged into with respect to our latent expertise. The perspective cannot be lost to the consideration that we are also competing with the most unpredictable assessment platform in dealing with minds.

‘The Brain’ is still baffling humanity’s best neuroscientists to predict its receptiveness and how it interprets and transcends any order of concepts it is faced with; further localising the reality of how the two referenced street characters (names withheld) dealt with their circumstances, with what we knew, and how they evolved a created creed of survival against all else.

I conclude that what is planted will grow, and the options of the social soil will configure and be receptive to either honesty or trickery on its terms. The semi-literate, the authority, and the intellectual are all functioning in the same garden. They both face impending survival options and will conspire towards their own rational or corrupted vision of existence and entitlement. Certain sections of society have used fallen souls, paying them to burn houses and commit murders. To that end, they were terminated.

Regardless of what we believe in, life is a garden and what we plant will grow. Rules of usage govern each plant. Some will nourish, some poison, and others cleanse the body and home. We are also products of this earth. It’s better to manage our grooming, leaving no fungus-covered stone unturned or misunderstood.