The Year 2012: The End of the World as We Know It?

Listen to enough AM radio UFO type radio programs, and you'll start wondering if 2012 really is going to be the end of the world as we know it. The Mayans certainly thought it would be, or at least that's when their calendar - for all intents and purposes - ends. But really, what is it exactly that twenty twelvers are afraid is going to happen? Did the Mayans see something that we cannot, because we are somehow inferior to a race of mysterious people that have up and completely disappeared? Is the fact that we cannot seem to put a finger on what we're afraid of frightening in and of itself? The only thing we can really do is - instead of looking at the puzzle pieces and becoming frightened because there are a finite number of them - examine the pieces carefully enough to at least have a good go at finishing the puzzle and glancing at the big picture. I know it sounds more difficult than panicking and running away proclaiming doom and destruction, but really, it makes more sense. I promise.

After exploring the Internet in what was initially a very serious search for "2012 facts," I can only conclude that life on this planet, while sometimes prone to terribly childish maneuvers, is not going to end any time soon, unless we blow ourselves up. The "facts" that came up in my search for the truth about 2012 were based on numerological "certainties" (not science), coincidences (also not science), conjecture about planetary cycles (close, but nope, not science), bible code (not only not science, but not religion either), psychic predictions (oh my gosh, totally not science), and last but not least, some kind of unnameable fear that because the Mayan calendar ends between the twenty-first and twenty-third of December in the year of our Lord, 2012, that the world must end then as well. This last bit confuses me a little, because the calendar on my wall ends on December thirty-first of 2007. Should I be setting up a website proclaiming that the world will end when my calendar does? Does the World Wildlife Fund (the producers of my wall calendar) know something that I do not? Holy tamales, have we been focusing on the wrong calendar all along?

Enough kidding. There were actually a few items that I found that I thought might be of interest. One was the prediction (and I use that word loosely, because I know nothing about predicting planetary alignments, I could be reporting on a lot of nonsense) that there will be a planetary alignment of sorts on that day (and the winter solstice sun will apparently be viewed as being right smack dab in the middle of the milky way). All eight planets (I say eight with a note a sadness in my voice, because whether it still bears the label of one or not, Pluto bears more of an existence than this silly conjecture does. We'll leave that rant for another article, however). Anyway, all eight planets will be in rough alignment with one another. Does that sound dangerous or scary to you in some way? It interests me that there seems to be a billiard table mentality about this kind of thing. Like if all the planets are lined up, then some kind of God is going to notice and start puttering around with his pool cue and knock one of us into the sun by accident? Or maybe by purpose, eh? Or maybe it's more complicated than that. Maybe the fear is that the Universe will be sent some kind of re-boot message and the weather will turn cold cold cold and we'll all die like the dinosaurs? Hmmm. Not buying it, huh? Despite the horrible, Earth shattering phenomena that happen every time we witness a solar eclipse (or lunar eclipse or any other eclipse for that matter), I'm not buying it either.

So I implied that there was more than one interesting tidbit that I found in my search for the truth about 2012. And actually, it had nothing at all to do with 2012. It seems that the search engine I used has more sense than some of us do. It noticed that I was looking for a particularly conspiratorial subject and it started giving me Y2K results, which had me laughing out loud. Remember that scare? Yes, that is exactly how ridiculous this 2012 thing is. So go prepare all you want. In fact, that's the most sound information that I've run across all day. Preparation for disaster really and truly is a good idea. Creating a disaster in your own head is not such a good idea.

Now go outside and play and for goodness sakes, Stop Panicking.

Sources:

John Major Jennings, "Why 2012?" Levity URL: (http://www.levity.com/eschaton/Why2012.html)

Brian Leonard, "December 21^st 2012" Holy Conspiracy URL: (http://www.holyconspiracy.com/dec21st2012.htm)

David Thi, "The Year 2012: 2012 Facts and Events" Blogspot URL: (http://theyear2012.blogspot.com/2005/04/2012-facts-and-events.html)