Posting this here from my article. I set a post to be made at 11:12 AM GTM tomorrow if the world is still here. I hope we make it! This article was included in an award-winning issue of my college paper.
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Starting this New Year, perhaps the last thing we want to think about is that this is our final year to live. At risk of bringing a sad mood to this paper, the following must be included.
Dec. 21nd, 2012 is to be the last day for Earth. It has been a good run; in the last fraction of the planet’s history, the human race had made quite a few amazing accomplishments. We have harnessed electricity and we can communicate with each other from anywhere on the globe. Travel that once would have been impossible now takes a few hours by plane or by rail. It is as if we have managed to all come together under one flag, that of Earth, just in time for it to be destroyed.
Yet, this cannot last, for during human kind’s history, a group known as the Mayans accomplished something of their own: they learned that the Earth would end on December 21nd, 2012.
Now, let us not forget the other grand achievements of the Mayan people. They played amazing sacrificial ball games, where either the winning or losing participants died, and it may have been an honor. Today, tourists still flock to the outstandingly detailed pyramids and ziggurats that they constructed. They had substantial knowledge of the cosmos, and integrated that knowledge into works including their pyramids and, more notably, their calendars.
The calendar developed is still one of the most accurate calendars to date, but it ends mysteriously at the date that we all know is our last day, Dec. 21st 2012. Pop culture tells of insurmountable catastrophes which will wipe out all that is Earth in flood, storm and destruction this December. The sun will flare, the planets will align, our planet’s poles will flip and distant space quarks will come hurdling towards Earth.
2012, a movie showing what will happen on Dec. 21st, 2012 when the world ends grossed more than $750 million. If money talks, that money shouts loud and clear that people have been informed already of what is going to happen; some just do not wish to believe it.
In this time of crisis, life continues as usual. Some deny that such a thing could occur, sighting scientific evidence or questioning the Mayan’s assertion.
“I don’t think the world will end in 2012 and science says I am right,” said Sally Sue, a fictional character created by City College News staff writer Zachary Storch.
“If the poles flipped all that would happen is our compasses would be out of whack, planetary charts say no planets are going to align in December and Nibiru is a sham and not going to collide with Earth. Besides, the solar storm NASA is predicting for 2013 is what is going to end the world, and that’s grounded in science, not myth. We have another year, easy,” said Sue.
Could the Mayans really be wrong in their predictions? Out of fear, it is natural that people will try to deny it. However, we must all come to grips with the fact that our last day will be Dec. 21st 2012.
This is not the first time that the world has been set to end but it will be the last. Last year we had a cult saying an earthquake was to ripple across the planet and tear the world asunder. At the dawn of the millennium, we had widespread panic that resulted in little more than small bugs on certain computers. I thought the world was going to end. Where is my apocalypse?
I can tell you where that apocalypse is. That apocalypse is now set right for the end of this year. There have been countless doomsayers and seers before to say that the world would end, but the Mayans have it right.
Humans love a good apocalypse. They are in all of our favorite stories. From the biblical flood to alien invasion stories like “War of the Worlds,” people devour any word of destruction they hear. Are people actually afraid? Do we like hearing that all life as we know it is to come to an end?
When first broadcast, radio drama “War of the Worlds” resulted in suicides and mass panic around the nation; people believed it. “War of the Worlds” was broadcast and said to be a real-time feed of events, walking listeners through the alien invasion taking place at that very moment. Now, while it seems odd that people would believe such a broadcast and not think it was a joke, it is also intriguing. People will believe apocalypse warnings. We like them, we revel in them, and we pay to hear about them.
Consider it lucky that we know the world is ending Dec. 21st 2012. We have time to prepare, to spread the word. If the Mayans are not wrong, and you would have to be crazy to think that they are, this is the last apocalypse we get. Don’t be sad the world is ending. We should enjoy it!