Tuesday, December 20, 2011

2012: The Year of Predicting Dangerously

2012 either will be the most momentous event in human history or it will be remembered as history’s biggest dud. In 2012, according to some Rosicrucians, California will fall into the sea. Well, if California falls into the sea, Steely Dan will surely have to return to their old school. See?  There is always an upside to doom.

According to the Mayans, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan Calendar and if the Mayans don’t have any more calendar that lack of such a timepiece surely means the end of the world is at hand.  Don’t panic. It’s just the end of the world. Of course, the end of the Mayan calendar could mean that it’s just time to rewind and go back to the first calendar and start all over again

The end of the world comes every year and in every century. Country fried preachers have been baying like old bloodhounds for an eternity at the “sinners in the hands of an angry God”. 

Orson Welles even had his own brand of the apocalypse:  HG Wells’ “War of the Worlds”. One radio show sends an entire nation into panic over the Martian invasion at Grover’s Mills.  It was only entertainment, of course, but this Mercury Radio theatrical presentation was truly a moment when one realizes just how powerful the media could be.

Truth be told, if for a week in December of the coming year, all the television sets and radios and newspapers and Internet were just shut down for one week, the world would probably skip the demise of the human race.  Life would go on and human beings would discover that being human is not about what they are told but about what they tell themselves. 

Its easy, in a warped sort of way, to amble along on the words of others be it religious leaders, government and even celebrities.  Listening and obeying is easy because the listener does not have to be responsible for how the world will turn out.  It’s hard to take the lead.  The monsters are coming because the little kid with the comic book read about it once.  Let’s all follow him!

Let’s lock the monsters back in the comic books. Let’s tell the preachers that praying silently is golden.  Let’s all just relax, have a piece of cornbread and some lemonade. Come the year 2012, just sit back, kick your shoes off and when 2013 lazily rolls around, y’all come back now. 

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