Makes you think, doesn't it?

After having a stroke, everything he had was taken.

- Hein Kaiser

There was a banking advertisement many years ago that ended off with the line: "Makes you think, doesn't it?" I can't even recall the name of the institution, but it was the question that stuck, because it's sticky and it can be added as an afterthought to so many experiences that we often write off as irrelevant or, not our rodeo, and we do it way too often.

Sometimes it's a lesson, other times a call to action, literally or via metaphor.

I recently visited a home set up for social grant recipients on the South Coast, a place where seniors are forgotten, the closet that kids put mama and papa in while they get on with their lives. It was heartbreaking.

One of the inmates – because they are prisoners – was a former high court judge. When I met him, he was sitting on his bed staring at the ceiling.

An hour later, he was staring at his phone as if he was expecting a message that never came, because 60 minutes after that, he was still doing the same thing.