2012: Where Will You Be?



(above: one of probably a line of upcoming movies on this theme)

Remember 2000? Even though I held a wonderfully fun Millennium party, my cabinets were filled to the brim with supplies including powdered milk and canned goods. I wasn’t particularly fearful about the turn of the century so much as I lacked confidence in our computer preparedness. I hardly expected a shade to be drawn and a curtain to be pulled on the human race. I simply realized how vulnerable we are to being plugged in to, well, everything.

Talk has been centered around the year 2012, especially the solstice of December 21, 2012. Ancient Mayans predicted this date as the end of the world, as it was the cut off point for their well-laid out calendar. On December 21, 2012, our planet and the Sun will be exactly aligned with the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The question people are asking is if it will cause magnetic disturbances, creating eruptions and earthquakes, and such. Scientists are not sure, yet they think this could cause magnetic turbulence. It’s amazing to me that in this day and time we’re afraid of an alignment as much as ancient man was about eclipses. It also seems illogical to put any weight on a prediction made by a culture of people who went extinct.

Apparently, Tibetan monks seem to think in 2012, we will have reached a spiritual deficit in which events will lead us more to the spiritual and away from science, and we can thank aliens for that. Illogical, once again, in that aliens wouldn't teach us that spirituality beats technology--however did they reach us?

The buzz circulating on the Internet about the end-of-world in 2012 includes such scenarios as the Second Coming, disease, comet impact, alien invasion, massive war, natural disasters, and just about any combination of the above.

What is our fascination with end-of-world scenarios? Sometimes, it appears that man simply wants to know what becomes of this world and to be able to witness its end seems a rather gifted position. Upon our passing, there will be nothing to miss occurring to future generations. Others might find it a relief to pass along with their loved ones and not alone, moving onto whatever awaits us together. Gloom-and-doomers are excited at the prospect that everything they’d believed about humanity not lasting is being proven. Hopeful righteous citizens look forward to the escort to heaven as the chosen few who did…well, whatever was the “right" combination of deeds and beliefs to gain entrance. Hopefully, the rest of us enjoy the speculation and the rising anticipation surrounding a date in which everyone on the Earth should be spending their Yule day together…just in case.

If 2012 brings us anything, it certainly unites our desire to continue this crazy unpredictable (key word—unpredictable) ride called “life.”

Comments

  1. I think the media coverage of 2012 spends to much time emphasizing the Mayan aspect. The Mayan's just made a calendar showing the end of a cycle. But the predictions for catastrophe or spiritual awakening come from cultures all over the world...some of them long before the Mayan's created their calendar. Some of the predictions may not always point to the year 2012 specifically, but they are usually predicted for a time period encompassing the year 2012.

    As for the alien aspect, I don't think we should assume that aliens are all about technology and science. Much of what we think we know about aliens comes from movies and TV. Civilizations rise and fall and many things have been forgotten in history, but the Darwinist mindset we are taught in schools tells us that if we wait long enough, science will eventually figure everything out. Personally, I don't think this is the case. Regardless of how aliens travel to and fro, I think we'd find that aliens are also very spiritually advanced (at least some of them). If you are to believe the stories of abductees, they almost always say the aliens spoke to them telepathically. Sometimes I think our technologies make us spiritually lazy.

    But speaking of science, I have a news clip posted on my blog of a scientist saying that bad solar storms are expected in 2012. I also have a National Geographic article that says solar storms will be peaking in 2012. So it seems its not just ancient prophets talking about this date. Allegedly, these storms will be bad enough to knock out satellites and communication systems.

    I'm still not sure what I believe about 2012 yet...I used to think it was silly, but I'm not so sure anymore. I love the topic though and have written about it a few times on my blog. The end of the world has been predicted many times before, but typically the predictions are from isolated communities or cults, or in the case Y2K, it was a modern phenomena that hit the media in the years just prior to the year 2000...it wasn't an ancient prophecy.

    Wolf has been called many times, but we must bear in mind that eventually the wolf does come.

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  2. Jeff;
    Very thoughtful insights. Admittedly, if we were to be officially visited by aliens, their technology is the only thing about them that would be of interest to man in this world today. How did they do it? How do they survive in our atmosphere? What kind of weapons do they have? Anything of a spiritual nature would be lost on us. It's pretty amazing when you think how much troubles conservatives and liberals have living on the same planet, and you wonder how would they feel about aliens? How would religions feel about this interlopers? We barely have enough resources for ourselves and here comes someone who shows potential to take what we have. I never see alien-greeting scenarios in a good light, not because of aliens, but because of man. In most respects, between religion and war and crime, we're still cavemen. I saw the solar flare prediction. It's interesting, but we've had some doosies in the past, so I'm not so concerned about that. I think, however, that it could potentially cause weird phenomenon on earth that would be unsettling for folks, but I don't see an end-of-times scenario. My mother said when she was a kid during the depression, she recalled all the end-of-world scenarios that psychics had spewed and people prepared to witness the second coming and such. It seems to be an inherent trait in man to look for that final chapter. It's probably more frightening as a mortal to consider that life will go on without out and generations will play out, advancements made, great-great-great grandchildren becoming president...Sort of sad to leave the party early. I absolutely have not one doubt we won't witness end-of-times, but I also believe that end-of-times will more likely be a peetering out of humanity from disease, crowding, and lack of resources, creating wars.

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  3. As far as movie themes go...I miss the Russians and the cold war...everybody is still there and in place...it just seems fashonable to pretend they are invisable...and sadly, no more movies.

    2000...yeah, I had 35, 55 gal drums of water...and our plant didn't shut down but did have a few glitches. With the 2000 "thing" I viewed it as the problems that would be faced because of our individual living conditions..so .. I saw it as an individual solution.

    I haven't given much thought to the 2012 "idea". Unlike the 2000 problem, if there is anything to it, then there really isn't much to do.

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  4. Do you ever have end of the world dreams? For quite a few years now, well over 10, but perhaps even longer than that, I sometimes have these horrible end of the world dreams. When I heard about the 2012thing I kind of freaked out. Mainly because sometimes my dreams come true. Except they take a while sometimes...Like 9/11. I dreamt of it 5 years before it happened. I worked in downtown Phx (in one of the bldgs at the Arizona Center). The 2 tall bldgs there aren't "twins" but I dreamt a hijacked plane flew into the one, then as we were learning about it and trying to evacuate, I watched as another came straight at my bldg and the floor I was on.

    I also sort of dreamt about the Va Tech shooting and shooter and Casey Anthony case before they happened. and others, but the point is they all have a certain quality that I've come to recognize and call "those" dreams. I expect reality to follow.

    The end of the world dreams I had have that quality, so while I'm not sure it'll be a literal end of the world as we know, I do expect a huge shift in the world as we know it.

    I guess we'll find out come 2012!!!!

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  5. Personally, while I find humanity's apparently-genetic fascination with "End Times" fascinating, I put very little stock in it.

    If one take's into account the unfathomably long time the Earth has been existence before the first stirrings of life, let alone human life, the sudden and humbling realization dawns on us that life and the planet will be here far longer than any shred of evidence of our worries of its demise.

    I also have to agree with Jeff about the media's over-emphasis of 2012, especially in the Mayan calendar. Too many people use the Mayan-2012 connection as evidence of End Times, but what they fail to realize (and what the media fails to mention) is that the Mayans also have calendars that go as far into the human future as the 41st century. As Jeff said, the importance of 2012 for the Mayans was that it was the end of a cycle, a great cause for celebration; it was like the ultimate New Year's party.

    And, as for aliens, well, as much as the human race can some times be something to be proud of, I figure that compared to space-faring aliens, we're the backwater hillbillies of the galaxy.

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  6. Bennu;
    Nice observations. Yeah, we would be the squirrel-eating mountainfolk in terms of the universe should a race of others find their way here when we still jump in glee that man stepped on our own moon.

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