Planning for 2012

Have you heard the news? Apparently, the world is going to end in 2012. I know humanity has already survived many of these predictions, but this time it's the Mayans doing the predicting. That seems to carry a little more weight.

The Source of the Problem

Back on August 11, 3114 BC, the Mayans launched their calendar called the Long Count which runs from day 0.0.0.0.0 to day 13.0.0.0.0 which, as it turns out, is December 21, 2012. That adds up to 1,872,000 days or 5,125 years.

According to All About 2012, the date falls on the Winter Solstice and an extremely close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun and the "crossing point of the Galactic Equator (Equator of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the Sun)." And all of that coincides with extensive sunspot activity. And, the poles may be shifting.

The Bad News

That certainly sounds like a heap of bad news. Sure enough, the internet is buzzing with predictions of imminent Armageddon. Each of those bad signs brings with it a host of bad effects including predictions of pandemic diseases, collapses of business and government, and a shift of the poles which would wipe out humanity and just about everything else except probably roaches. They can survive anything.

The Good News

If you are thinking of quitting your job and cashing in your IRA (and who cares about taxes and penalties) to take that trip of a life time before everything falls apart, you should know that others are making very different predictions.

Just as many folks are proclaiming a new period of enlightenment. This would include many kinds of spiritual or physical enhancements. Some believe a sudden surge in spiritual growth will be led by indigenous peoples. Some believe we will experience some surge in our DNA that will result in some great leap forward in intelligence and other physical attributes.

Worst Case

But here is the worst of it. The calendar that has started the whole thing may function like the odometer on your car. It may simply roll over so that December 22, 2012, would be day one of the next Long Count. In that case, everything would go on more or less the same with no big catastrophes and no big enlightenment.

Even if some big changes are underway, it could take as much as 36 years for earth to pass through the galactic equator so the changes are not likely to happen over night. Apparently, bad things or good things could happen anywhere on the journey or not at all. One astronomer even claims that the end of the current Long Count is still an amazing 41,341,049,999,999,999,999,999,994,879 years in the future (See 2012 Doomsday predictions for some interesting details.)

A Prudent Plan

My plan is to leave the IRA where it is for now. I wouldn't mind a little enlightenment to look forward to and if the poles shift, not much will matter anyway. But I have lived through these "end of the world" and even "end of the world as we know it" predictions. As each predicted date passed, I still had to go to work the next day, pay my bills, and think about what to have for dinner.

All things considered, I can live with that.