The Angry Sun

Sum­mer is upon us. Long days, cheap Sav and 56 out­door wed­dings to attend over the next three months. The sun, who has been a bit half-hearted about his duties in the south­ern hemi­sphere, is pre­par­ing to come out in full force, ready to make up for lost time like an estranged fath­er. He’s des­per­ate to win back our fail­ing affec­tions and show he’s not play­ing favour­ites with the oth­er side of the plan­et by bom­bard­ing us with his laser-like rays. Cue the inev­it­ably crispy skin that only holey Anti­podean ozone can provide.

If the sun was my son, I would want to have a few words with him. “Easy does it, sunny boy,” I would say, “no need for the melan­oma.” I would clutch him to my chest and make sooth­ing noises in a bid to find the root cause of his mega­lo­ma­ni­ac tendencies.

The sun has got us in a bit of a choke­hold. We need him to sur­vive. We need him to be able to see dur­ing the day without the aid of the torch applic­a­tion on our phone. My tomato plants need the sun to grow and plan­et Earth needs him to pre­vent anoth­er ice age (as fun as those movies were, I do not want a moody mam­moth as a pet).

Though, as much as we need this star, too much of him and we end up with chunks of flesh chopped out on a good day, or can­cer­ous cells road-trip­ping to our liv­er on a bad one. After a couple of nasty sun­burns and 200 extra freckles, it doesn’t take long for us to be grate­ful that we share access to this fine-in-small-doses mon­ster with the humans on the oth­er side of the plan­et. Thanks to the sun, I have a bru­tish scar on my shoulder that I prefer to attrib­ute to a scrappy brawl with a crack addict.

What do you want from us, sunny boy? How can we appease you? We look hot with a sum­mer tan, but not so when our skin turns to leath­er! Why do you tease us so?

Sun, we spend our lives orbit­ing around you. You are indeed the centre of our uni­verse. We know it. You know it. Do you expect us to return to our pagan­ist­ic past and give you the rampant praise you once received? Do you want saluta­tions? Sac­ri­fices? Orgies? Grow up! We have jobs! And kids! And stuff to do!

What kind of big-ball-of-hydro­gen-and-heli­um-gas are you if you need the pray­ers and rituals of minus­cule beings, mil­lions of kilo­metres away, in order to feel good about your­self? Find self-love; then the adu­la­tion of oth­ers will not be needed in order to make your­self feel whole. Watch Oprah. Read Eat, Pray, Love. Learn to meditate.

Giv­ing someone melan­oma is a big call, mate. Is it neces­sary to do this? Are you in some way mor­ally against the empower­ment of top­less humans? Please do not make me open that can of worms. Because I will go there. And you will get bored. And I will con­tra­dict myself sev­er­al times.

Per­haps the sun just needs some pos­it­ive rein­force­ment. Let’s start prais­ing him for his good work, and ignor­ing the cranky-pants stuff! Let’s add him to our Christ­mas card list for stim­u­lat­ing adequate vit­am­in D pro­duc­tion, but not invite him to our birth­day parties for the crow’s feet and the dodgy moles. Or, if act­ively enga­ging with an inan­im­ate ball of burn­ing gas makes you feel self-con­scious and insane, you could always wear a hat and broad-spec­trum sunscreen.