2012 Doomsday? I don’t think so.
The world is full of loonies.
A few years ago, it was Y2K. All kinds of folks were warning us to stockpile bottled water and buy a portable generator to keep our electric appliances running when the world shut down at the turn of the century because of a vicious computer glitch. Transportation was going to fall into shambles, disease would be rampant, and to keep warm, we’d have to all start wearing blankets and burn furniture. And we wouldn’t get any mail, either.
Bummer, I know. The highlight of my year is getting those Mrs. See’s candy catalogs in my mailbox.
Anyway, it didn’t happen. The new century dawned and life went on as planned.
Duh.
Now the loonies-at-large are saying the world will end on December 21, 2012 because that’s the last date on the Mayan calendar.
Of course it’s the last date on the Mayan calendar. Some poor Mayan began writing the calendar back in 3114 B.C.E, and after he got all the way to 2012 C.E., he thought, “What the heck am I doing this for? I’m not gonna be around in another five thousand years, so what do I care what day of the week Valentine’s Day will be on in 2013? I am so done with this project.” Then he threw out his paints (or whatever he was using to make the calendar) and went to watch a ball game and ritual sacrifice instead.
Forward some 5120 years later. Somebody sees this calendar, notices that it ends on December 21, 2012, and panics. That person tells someone else who is equally easily panicked, and before you know it, we’ve got loonies coming out of the walls predicting the end of the world, not to mention a major motion picture set to open in theaters everywhere next month. I checked out the movie trailer online, and it looks like one extended disaster special effects shindig – roads caving in, buildings falling over, tidal waves ripping into cities, ice caps melting, cars exploding, lousy dialogue.
I can hardly wait.
You should know, however, that not everyone says the Mayan calendar is calling for an apocalypse. I read an article by an astro-alchemist who had attended a lecture by a former jewelry designer who, while designing jewelry inspired by Mayan cultural patterns, found himself in the throes of illumination about the Mayan calendar, and now travels about, sharing his complex understanding of that same calendar. (Oh, yeah, this sounds credible – I know lots of astro-alchemists and oracular jewelry designers, don’t you?) Mr. Designer says the world is not going to end, but that a new age of enlightenment will dawn on December 21, 2012. I sort of got lost in the article at that point, but it goes on to talk about the flow of evolution, tools of consciousness, galactic quarantine, the mistake of investing in the stock market, and knowing where your food and water come from. (Let me take a stab at that one – the grocery store and the kitchen faucet?) The part I really liked, though, was the 360 days of bliss we’re supposed to experience in 2010. I don’t know about you, but I could really go for 360 days of frozen custard while someone else does all my cooking, laundry and housecleaning, not to mention no alarm clocks and all sunny days. Bliss? Bring it on, Mayan calendar!
Unfortunately, by the end of the article, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t put too much credence in what the guy had to say, especially since he claimed that by 2009, we’d overcome technology and our minds would merge with computers to produce personal teleportation, time travel and age reversal.
Unless that’s happening in the next two months, I think he might be a teensy-weensy bit off of that prediction. Which means it’s probably a ‘no go’ for the 360 days of bliss next year, too.
Bummer.
So much for his insight into the Mayan calendar.
Loonie.
The folks who are suffering the most from all this 2012 hysteria, however, are the descendents of the Mayans. According to an interview earlier this month with Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun, the whole idea of a final world-ending apocalypse is a Western concept, and most Mayans believe that time is cyclic. “The world won’t end in 2012, so stop asking us about it,” Chile Pixtun told a reporter. “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.” Although the year 2012 does mark the end of a specific time period for the ancient culture, it doesn’t foretell a doomsday, but instead, notes several rare astronomical alignments. Nowhere does the calendar say anything about cars exploding, buildings falling over, and bad dialogue.
So I guess I don’t need to start stockpiling water, along with logs for my fireplace. From now on, I’m refusing to listen to any of that doomsday hype, and instead, I’ll predict my future based on my own calendar. Let’s see – this week there’s a trip to the dentist for me and one to the orthodontist for my daughter.
Yes, I can foresee that there will truly be a wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Hey, maybe I should hit the lecture circuit….
Tags: trust me
