William Golding’s 1945 novel “Lord of the Flies” has haunted me since I was 15.
If you've never heard of the story, it's about a group of preteen boys who get stranded on a hot island, and when they try to assert their own form of civilisation onto the wilderness, they descend into savagery instead.
An illusive beast haunts their nights, a pig gets decapitated, and the friends murder one of their own in a ritual.
You know, just your average commentary on human nature and morality.
Beyond tragic storylines and hard-hitting themes, though, I've come to observe a more literal message at play here:
Beware the heat.
As the narrative progresses, the "oppressive heat" bears down on the castaways.
It becomes a catalyst for violence as blood thirst builds and malice festers.
Gif from “Lord of the Flies” (1990 film)
Heat, in this case, is a form of "pathetic fallacy": a term coined in the 19th century by cultural critic John Ruskin, who used it to explain how one's feelings might alter their perceptions of the things around them.
Like how raindrops on a bad day somehow means that the sky is weeping for you.
But besides proving that writers generally can’t process feelings on their own and might need therapy more than they care to admit, pathetic fallacy points to a longstanding tradition of people trying to articulate the human psyche's baffling afflictions, by simply letting nature speak for us instead.
Which is what I’m about to do now.
I try to blame my personal flaws on the weather
Singaporeans have our strong suits, but our Achilles' Heel shows when it comes to taming our tempers.
Case in point:
I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no saint. Sometimes I come across things that make me irrationally annoyed, more than I have any right to be.
Another case in point:
A text I sent to the family chat on Jul. 22
Okay, our native brand of angst runs deeper than just bad weather.
But surely some of it can be traced back to us being roughly one degree north of the equator?
I'd like to think that I'm not the only one who'd be less pissy in general without sweat coming out of everywhere but my eyeballs.
Before you're quick to dismiss this as the ramblings of a mollycoddled Gen Z, hold on.
I've come equipped with science.
Science
Singaporeans, I've always thought, are lucky in the sense that we don't have to worry about seasonal affective disorder — depression associated with gloomy weather.
"The sun might be a pain, but at least it's making us happy," I thought.
Turns out, this silver lining is darker than it looks.
Research, done by people more qualified than me, shows a correlation between high tempers and high temperatures.
Violent crimes and cruel interactions are much more likely to occur when temperatures creep upwards, according to studies in the U.S.
If this is so, then I think our sunny island is in trouble.
@mothershipsg hotter than s.coups #tiktoksg #sgnews #sgweather #scoups #hot @SEVENTEEN ♬ HOT - SEVENTEEN
As if a maximum daily temperature of 31-33℃ doesn't irk us enough, we have our humidity to fan the flames.
With one of the highest humidity levels in the world, Singapore’s mean annual relative humidity is 83.9 per cent, sometimes even reaching 100 per cent during prolonged periods of rainfall.
Which is about as pleasant as it sounds.
The more water vapour there is clogging up the air, the harder it is for sweat to evaporate, and the harder it is for the body to cool down.
U.S. psychologist Joseph Taliercio theorises that in an effort to keep cool, the body draws energy away from the pre-frontal cortex — the part of the brain delegated to self-regulation.
Unfortunately, some of us need all the self-regulation we can get.
For without our pre-frontal cortex jacking up the filter levels, we're left at the mercy of our aggressive impulses.
But how then have we survived thus far?
How is our island still standing, still thriving, and not reduced to an apocalyptic wasteland littered with the aftermath of riots and wars?
Gif via Imgur
See, I've come to realise that we often underestimate the brain's ability to take a deeply uncomfortable situation and turn it into a new norm.
Stay in Singapore long enough and most learn to live life like this, to be kind in a warm city that breeds cold hearts.
But as for the short-fused heathens among us — myself included — are we doomed to sear forever in this special brand of hell?
Will we never cease the involuntary reflex to look back and check for butt sweat on our MRT seats?
Are we fated to hold our peace each time someone suggests outdoor dining? To bite our tongues and implode?
I try to chill out
I thought about it long and hard in my air-conditioned room, and I think there's something simple we can do to beat the heat.
Here's my proposal:
Be more forgiving, and in turn forgiven, during harmless moments of petty ire.
Like when the coffee shop auntie snaps at you for taking too long to count your change for Milo kosong.
Don't retaliate. Just tell yourself: "[insert offender's name] is just hot."
It could help.
Particularly since, if we're buying this whole “bad weather equals bad mood” theory, there’s really no way of tackling the root cause.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this kind of unwitting advice might be onto something:
Reply to a text I sent on Jul. 6
Let the hate flow. But let it flow through.
Feel the bouts of fleeting, unfounded pettiness, acknowledge them, and then let them go.
Perhaps this is how I will survive these unending dog days.
Especially here, on an island not unlike that of "Lord of the Flies", where savagery lurks just beneath the surface and sanity hangs by a thread, as “always, almost visible”, stays the heat.
Top images via Unsplash and VSGIF