Cleanliness is next to godliness, so the proverb goes.
If this be true, what about punctuality? Where does it stand in the basket of virtues that we are expected to daily carry?
It is not a competition of virtues, though it sometimes seems to be so in our frenetic and frazzled lives.
You want to be punctual for work, but your children need you right now. Which do you choose?
You want to be punctual, surely. But then, your body is weary from much housework. Better to be dishonest. Orwell's 'Big Brother' telescreen is not watching you anyway. No, not yet.
So tell your boss you are late because of terrible traffic instead. Not an artful explanation, but at least a philistine would not scoff at it!
In another competition, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli's golden moment that was not — the three-minute catastrophe — puts punctuality front and centre once more.
Now I truly wish we could celebrate a gold medal win with this fine young man. But the Paralympic folks have ruled on this, so we will not dwell on the dismaying event.
Instead, we will consider our own attitudes towards being on time.
In 2019, a Leader in this newspaper said: "In fact, in the widely absorbed Daily Mail, this country suffered the ignominy of a citation that read: 'But in Malaysia saying you will be five minutes late usually means an hour and being late is an accepted norm that does not require an apology'."
Our 'great' reputation precedes us. That DM statement was made before the pandemic. It must refer to the 'tidak apa' attitude, not the battle between "virtues" that I mentioned a moment ago.
Doubtless you have been at the receiving end of this nonchalance countless times. "My car broke down" (for the tenth time). "My head was throbbing" (also for the tenth time). Or the explanation would have been astonishing silence, as if nothing had happened.
But is the 'tidak apa' spirit still alive and haunting us during the pandemic itself?
I could not find any study on this. But my own experience in numerous Zoom/Google Meet sessions suggests that nothing much has changed. Except, maybe the reason (or excuse) that's cited is poor broadband, not the accursed traffic on the road, not having the runs again.
And several teachers I speak to say their students are always late for online classes.
"Many join the lessons late. For Year 4, I have two classes at the same time. Normally I have about 40 to 50 per cent who join and out of that, about 20 to 25 per cent are late," says one. Another chimes in: "Definitely many are late. Especially for the earlier periods."
So not only is school attendance dismal, punctuality has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, too.
But are we still generally a nation of latecomers? No, you say. It's great if that is true.
But if you are habitually unpunctual, should you not find ways to remedy this? Or would you wait a costly three minutes more to do something?
In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, an enraged and jealous Ford thinks he should act fast. He vows to catch his wife betraying him with Falstaff, the fat knight.
"Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute too late." He wants to make sure he extinguishes the extramarital embarrassment promptly.
Notwithstanding the misguided gentleman's seriousness about getting the job done early, the story will make you laugh. But unpunctuality is definitely not funny.
Reasonable people don't need proverbs, whether about purity or hygiene or anything else, to tell them that. But as for the unreasonable sort, what can we do, ah?
The writer is NST production editor
