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| Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video (note the date) |
This ancient calendar runs out of stone, and some surmise that this foretells the end of humanity (non-mayan savvy persons like myself ask naive questions like, "It couldn't just be that they ran out of appropriately shaped stones?" and/or "Are we sure we found the whole calendar?") Rather, to the enlightened (not to be confused with the optimistic or scholarly minded among us...you elitist bastards!) it is much more likely that the Apocalypse is nigh and our time has come. The shit is to hit the fan at the moment of the winter solstice (4:12 am mountain time on December 21st). (Should I set my alarm?) Damn, just when the days were supposed to start getting longer and why the hell did I buy all those Christmas presents?
To be sure, it has me thinking about all of the things I didn't do with my life. My bucket list lies unfinished...meaning unwritten. My house is a mess. I have made no plans to whoop it up during my last few days, in fact I have to work. Unfinished business does not sit well in advance of an apocalypse...I better make sure I put on clean underwear, nothing too sexy, that would be inappropriate!
It seems astonishing that this, ran-out-of-room-to-carve-any-more-numbers prophecy, coincides so well with a bunch of crazy world events and a general pall of suckiness that has descended upon the globe. The list of atrocities we and mother nature have conjured up, is intense and disturbing, and makes one question, were the world not about to explode, where exactly humanity is/would have been heading, given it's current path of shear madness?
Maybe it's a message. Maybe we don't deserve to remain stewards of the earth? The earth is breaking up with us, giving itself a shake and making room for new tenants. How did the Mayans know, so long ago, that we were going to fuck things up so badly in 2012? I can't help but think "space alien", but again, I am no expert.
There is a fringe group out there, who don't believe this near certain, final days, prediction. (Lest I humor them? The ill-informed, positivist naysayers!....um...) These kooks, believe that the end of the Mayan calendar actually signifies a time of spiritual transformation (lord knows we could use a little of that). They propose that it signifies the end of a cycle of bad mojo and culminates with the emergence of a greater collective consciousness. (Try not to laugh at their outlandish proclamations...world not going to end in a rain of asteroids and hell fire, HA! Get a clue!!!)
Loosely translated into modern time parlance, this means: We stop being materialistic, consumption-obsessed, SOBs, who mark our territory on any and all parts and people of the world. (Aren't we entitled to do with the world what we will? Afterall, don't I have the right to buy my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt for $10.00? Sew damn you, SEW!) We are focused solely at looking out for numero-uno and screwing everyone and everything if they get in the way of our frantic quest to keep up with the Jones-es. (How'd they get so popular?) Hey, you! Look at me when I'm texting you!!
These transformation nut-jobs think there is something wrong with how we are living our lives right now. Like there is something wrong with our techno-cultural isolationism? I tweet therefore I am! If I can save a buck, why shouldn't I? It's my buck after all! Call me a job creator/wage oppressor/ 1%'er...if the shoe fits, I'll wear it (preferably alligator or some other endangered trend). Those liberal crack-pots think I should feel bad about poor kids or the oppression of women! Get government out of my bedroom...unless it's yours...and you happen to by gay! My guns?? You want MY guns? Hands off my assault rifle!
Don't get me started on all those rich, old people living off the bank roll of uncle Sam's medicare dole! (Working all their lives, contributing into the system for decades, and then expecting the benefits they were promised...that is the definition of entitlement...right?) It makes me sick to think of the teachers everywhere, living the high life, on their $45,000 a year...while the poor millionaires in this country are under attack. Did you know that they might actually have to pay $3600.00 more a year in taxes! Injustice! Cut the teacher's pay! Throw the old people out! You non-contributing zeros! (stolen from a comedian...prize if you can name him!)
What about all those war veterans, faking head injuries from land mines and missile attacks, so they can leach off government disability payments! Prove that landing on your head from being thrown 20 feet into the air caused your brain trauma you freeloader! (I can only imagine the actuarial table of benefit denial, being worshiped proudly in insurance company accounting departments, everywhere as another company dollar is saved!) And why shouldn't they? Their CEO can't be expected to give up any of his $43 million dollar bonus, you communist/marxist/solialist/Canadian bastards! He is, after all, quite good at what he does and the shareholders are very HAPPY!
It's an easier pill to swallow that the world is going to be obliterated in 48 hours, based upon an ancient, mathematically gifted culture, than to accept the possibility that we should be expected to transform. Obviously that is an outright fallacy. Who said there was anything wrong here? Why should humanity behave any differently? We've got it dialed in...we are on the right track! Too bad some people just can't seize the opportunities right in front of them. If they could just work really hard, become janitors as children for example, they too could join the Jones-es in their well deserved mansions!
Somehow, the end of the world is an easier version of prophetical events to believe than the version that would force us to turn the looking glass upon ourselves. It would force us to honestly assess the way we are living our lives and perhaps admit that we have chosen the twisted path. Much easier, I suppose, to perish. Grab your life jackets you sorry lot....parting will be such sweet sorrow.
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