You know, I like to kid myself that I’m a tuned in sort of guy. I know things. Lots of things. Some would say, way too many things. Somehow, however, I’ve managed to remain ignorant of the prediction that I, and indeed everyone else on this planet has three and a half years left to live, give or take a few days. No more, no less. That’s it. Done and dusted. Over and out. We’re toast. Am I the last person to know about this?
It seems that the Mayan calendar ends on December 21st, 2012. Some bright spark somewhere decided that meant the end of everything. Well, everything here on planet Earth, anyway, and when push comes to shove, do we really give the rat’s proverbial about anything else? Hell, most people, or at least most of the people I end up speaking to couldn’t care less what’s happening outside of their immediate sphere of influence, let alone the rest of the planet, though many will make appropriate noises about caring about the environment if pushed.
So why exactly is the end date of the Mayan calendar so significant to so many people? I mean, my research indicates this idea of the world ending in 2012 has gained traction with people in all walks of life all over the globe. Well, The Mayans were a very advanced civilization for their time. Without going into endless detail, suffice it to say the Mayans were very big on calendars.
The Mayans used lots of different calendars and viewed time as a meshing of spiritual cycles. While these calendars had practical uses, such as agricultural, social, commercial and administrative tasks, there was a very heavy religious, or, if you will, spiritual element. The calendar that ends on December 21st, 2012 is called the Mayan Long Count.
It works like this: The base year for the Mayan Long Count starts at “0.0.0.0.0″. Each zero goes from 0-19 and each represent a tally of Mayan days. So, for example, the first day in the Long Count is denoted as 0.0.0.0.1. On the 19th day we’ll have 0.0.0.0.19, on the 20th day it goes up one level and we’ll have 0.0.0.1.0. This count continues until 0.0.1.0.0 (about one year), 0.1.0.0.0 (about 20 years) and 1.0.0.0.0 (about 400 years).
I have had a good look around, and as near as I can tell, the prediction that the world will end on the afore said day has nothing to do with anything more than the fact that the Long Count ends on that day. That’s it. There is no actual Mayan tradition that says the world will end then. The simple fact is that when calendars end, as indeed the Gregorian, the one we use, does it simply rolls over into a new cycle.
So why have so many people decided the end of the Long Calendar means the end of the world? Well, it seems that Sun spot activity has been increasing year after year, and some scientists think it might reach a critical point in, you guessed it, 2012. Also, the Hadron particle accelerator in Switzerland is due to go online in 2012, and some fear the collisions will cause a major disaster, then there are Christian nut-jobs that insist Revelations sets 2012 as the date of Armageddon, and for the icing on the cake, I’ve seen it claimed that the I Ching predicts the end of the world in 2012.
Now, I can tell you right now, as one who has been a student of the I Ching for more than twenty years that the I Ching doesn’t “predict” one damn thing. That’s a common fallacy. Add to all this some babbling about Hinduism and Yellowstone National Park and other assorted nonsense, and you have yourself one big scare-fest.
I clearly recall the first time I heard that world was going to end. I was working my first full time job, in a bank center in San Francisco. I forget the exact date, but in was in May, and it was 1970. The world was going to end at 2:05 P.M., and I recall quite clearly that everyone, even though they had laughed off the prediction, stopped working and held their breath at the appointed time. We’re still here.
Since then I’ve heard these predictions every few years, and the same thing keeps happening. We’re still here. Guess what? Come December 22, 2012, we’ll still be here. Well, most of us, anyway…
