a different kind of rain

It's finally raining today -- after weeks of dry, burning weather that has made life without aircon almost unbearable. Which, of course, is ironic -- because the more aircon we use, the more environmental damage we create ...
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The rain here has changed over the years. i don't know how to describe the difference, but i know that things are not the same. It sounds different, for one thing; no longer the torrential, all-pervasive storm-noise of the past, but something more contained, more isolatable. (If that word even exists.) In the past, afternoon showers sounded like they would go on forever. Nowadays, we don't get rain like that anymore. It just sounds more temporary, like something that will let up in just one or two hours -- which it usually does.
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It's quite worrying, how things have changed so quickly in just the last 2 or 3 years. It's like we've reached some sort of tipping point. i've been saying for years that life here in Singapore, the way we live, is unsustainable. Not just ecologically, but in general. People are not made to live at such a frenetic pace, with such high levels of competition and anxiety and stress, with so little time for family and friends. i guess the change in the rain is just one consequence of the ecological strain this island has been put under. i'm fairly certain the sociological, psychological strain is going to start showing up more dramatically in the next few years, and sooner, rather than later.
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The Official Story is that we cannot afford to let up, because to do so would be to risk irrelevance -- and where would we be, this Little Red Dot, if we did not make ourselves relevant to the rest of the world? i suspect the Official Story is not wrong. i don't know. Choosing between irrelevance and stress-implosion is really not very much of a choice at all. It's such a conundrum. Maybe the question-evading thing to say is that at least our problems are not as severe as those elsewhere. There is some truth to that. i guess that gives us a basis for working towards something better.
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For the moment, though, the change in the rain is rather getting to me. Already the rain is letting up. Too fast, too soon. In the past, just 10 years ago maybe, such showers would have lasted the entire afternoon.
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