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How To Survive 2012
One particular mystical-magical sect committed mass suicide. This seemed an illogical act to me. The end of the world means we're all going to die anyway, so why pre-empt it? Personally I'm glad I kept my options open and stayed alive.
Aztec calendar, based upon Mayan calendar
- The End Of The World As We Know It: the significance of 2012
You may have heard people talk about 2012. By Steve Andrews & CJ Stone - The Law of Attraction, 2012 and other strange conceits
Some people even say that it is the end of the world as we know it.
End of the world blues
Oh no! It's the end of the world again.
I'm talking about the 21st of December 2012, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, which many people have been citing as a possible end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it type scenario.
Just to be clear: the Mayan calendar is a very precise dating system, evolved by the pre-historic Mayan people of Central America, which marks every solstice, every equinox, every moon cycle and every sun cycle from August 11th, 3114 BC to December 21st, 2012 AD: a range of some 5125 years
This shows the fantastic observational abilities of these stone-age people. Until the advent of modern astronomy, the Mayan calendar represented the most accurate time-keeping system known to man.
I shouldn't worry about it being the end-of-the-world, however. That end date marks the end of the calendar. It does not necessarily mark the end of time.
The Mayans say nothing about what happens next. That still remains in the realms of speculation.
Two More Ends of the World
I myself have observed a number of different ends-of-the-world in my life.
One of them was 1984, the year marked by George Orwell in his book of the same name. That was indeed a very eventful year, in which the National Union of Mineworkers took on the Thatcher government in the UK, and there were running battles in the streets.
But it was not the end-of-the-world, nor anything like the author had predicted. This is not really surprising, since the name of the book was a reference to the year the book was written: 1948. He simply reversed the numbers.
Many of Orwell's predictions have since come true, however. Like the screen in the corner of your room which orders your life and offers entertainment while at the same time keeping a tab on your thoughts. He called it a "telescreen". We call it a computer.
The next end-of-the-world after that was 1994, when the comet Haille Bop broke up and several pieces slammed into the planet Jupiter. One particular mystical-magical sect committed mass suicide. This seemed an illogical act to me. The end of the world means we're all going to die anyway, so why pre-empt it? Personally I'm glad I kept my options open and stayed alive.
Two ends-of-the-world in quick succession
1999 was a very busy year for ends-of-the-world, since there was two in quick succession. The first was in July, when Nostradamus had predicted that a comet would hit the Earth, and the second was in August when there was a solar eclipse, which some people said was the one predicted in The Revelation of St. John in the Bible.
When Nostradamus' comet failed to materialise some of his apologists said that we had all misunderstood him. What Nostradamus was really predicting was the film, Deep Impact, which came out that year, and was about a comet hitting the Earth.
Nostradamus had indeed predicted the future, they said, but only a cinematic one.
Meanwhile the eclipse took place at eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh of August. That‘s 11.11 11/8, which certainly sounds auspicious: until you get to the last number that is. Had it happened in November it might have made more sense.
The problem with looking at things this way is that it is very parochial. The eclipse swept over the planet in a dark wave, but it happened at 11.11 only in one place. That was a small patch of land somewhere in Cornwall. So maybe Cornwall had an end-of-the-world, while the rest of us were let off for the time being.
Also eclipses are fairly common on a planetary scale, so if they really predicted the end-of-the-world we would be having one about every three or four years.
As for the 21st December 2012, shall I tell you what I will be doing?
I will be sitting with some friends raising a few glasses to the future.
After all, if it does turn out to be the real end-of-the-world, I might as well be in good company while it's happening.
At least we won't have to worry about the hangover.
And if we do get a hangover, at least then we won't have to worry about the end of the world.
- Whitstable Views on HubPages
Stories and opinions from the North Kent Coast. An on-line column by Whitstable writer CJ Stone.
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Comments
Yet another great, thought provoking hub, CJ! Personally, I've decided "end of the world" only means end of the world AS WE KNOW IT. Planet Earth isn't going to explode, implode, or otherwise disapear, which is the implication in all of the end of the world predictions. Humans may turn it into one huge wasteland, or the North Pole may shift from the Arctic to the equator, but the planet itself will continue to circle the sun for another gazillion years.
If I died tomorrow, it would be the end of the world for me...and the beginning of the next for me. I'm with you on 2012... eat with friends and people you care about...come what may. I remember Katrina and New Orleans, many people stayed in the French Quarter for days and weeks afterwards, drinking warm beer, eating what they could find that wasn't wet, and life went on. It must have seemed like the end of the world to them as the water rose.
I think predictions are very interesting and I found this another hub that made me think. You are really working my brain. =) My brain thanks you.
It needs the exercise. I now go to vegetate in front of the TV for the nightly misinforming news. Be well, for tomorow it may all be over but the shoutin'.
Friday when I got the news that my estranged younger sister had had a stroke and was hospitalized, I realized for the second time in as many weeks that the world (at least as I know it) can indeed end at any moment. It really got my attention (again) and made all the other prophecy end-of-the-worlds seem pretty rame and friendly. I've had one of those foxhole healthy-lving conversions, but it probably won't last.
Nothing like the sudden possibility of imminent Death to wake a person up a bit though!
Great hub, thank you for another wonderful read. I confess I have one OCD-ish numerological habit---I compulsively reduce addresses and dates of birth to their singe numerological meaning.
I'm a 7 writing this on a 5 day from a 9 location. All the best.
I actually interpreted that Nostradamus quatrain as foretelling a nuclear holocaust in July of 1999. I even went so far as to pen song lyrics for a rock band I had founded in, I think, 1980. A Party for Nostradamus, performed by Cold War Babies. Ah! Those were the days! Really!
The “end of the world”, in any literal sense, is a silly concept on its face. Barring a collision with another object of nearly equal size, or some other unforeseeable, massively cataclysmic event, the Earth will trundle along until the expanding red giant our sun will become in about seven and one half billion years consumes it.
The end of the human race is an altogether different proposition however. There have been a number of extinction events in the prehistory of our planet. I we know of five to date. It would seem very likely that number six is currently under way.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldre...
Will remnants of humanity survive? Your guess is as good as is mine.
Thanks for another excellent Hub. Well written and enjoyable.
CJ, top-notch stuff, as always.
A friend of mine was raised Jahovah's Witness and they believed the world was going to end in the year 2000. When his mother visited from Kona (where he was raised), late in 1999, she cried like a baby when she left. She feared it was the last time she would ever see him, or so said her religion. I didn't buy that she really believed it, though: If one truly believed everything was going to end in a few months, would you LEAVE a son or daughter?
I'd be camped-out in the yard, if necessary, if I really believed that would be my last months with a loved one.
Great hub, Chris!
Just wanted to add that Michael Tsarion says that the planet of Tiamat was destroyed and if he is right then it shows that worlds can be ended - see for more info:
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Hi everyone, my personal take on the end of the world is that it's a vain fantasy the human race has that we can destroy the world. The only thing we can destroy is ourselves. But, as several of you pointed out, the world ends for you when you end, so we all have an great big "end of the world" in the end. Meanwhile I intend to enjoy myself with as much energy as I can for as long as i can to make what time I've got left as memorable as i can, even if I'm not around to remember it in the end.
Good point CJ, we have a responsibility as people on the planet to do no harm, and enjoy. Joy is relevant of course, but I intend to find as much of it as I can, while at the same time, striving to do no harm. NOT an easy task, no? But, it is the journey we are on.
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Hi marisue, there's a Buddhist sect in Glastonbury in Somerset whose slogan is "Be harmless". They walk around in those maroon robes with it stiched onto their back. I always liked that. The Jains tried so hard to harm as little as possible that they walked around with masks on their faces just incase they inhaled an insect and killed it. Personally I think that's going a little too far.
That's a cool hub. I really like your logical way of looking at it; now I have a good response when people tell me that the Mayan calender predicts the end of all things.
"It was a calender. A very sophisticated one; but a calender. Does the world end every time you close your calender at the end of December?"
Thanks!
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that one girl: Yes, and that's a cool summary of what this hub is about.
CJ - you're right, moderation in all things tends to make us a nice comfort zone. You know, I think it's good to understand and strive for understanding, as long as we live a little along the way of the investigation. Looks like you've got a firm handle on life. I like the way you think!! =)
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Thankyou marisue. Actually I am a sceptic first and foremost. Not that I disbelieve in things, but I like to keep an open mind, to reserve judgement, to allow for possibilities, but not to get sucked into any particular world-view. I find that it makes for more interesting conversations.
Absolutely! possibilities are endless...I like to anchored in the ocean of life. somewhat, but not so still as to seem "dead in the water." LOL
Well, if we hurry up and get off of this planet and plant some human roots elsewhere, humanity doesn't have to die out even if this planet does wipe out (which it one day will).
I just read Cormac McCarthy's book The Road. That's an interesting look at the world after it ends. And, I should say for a fun look at the end of the world, read Doug Adams' Restaurant at the End of the universe. Great story about a, well, restaurant at the end of the universe. Guests can enjoy their meals and watch the universe come apart... I won't tell you more in case anyone feels so inclined.
Another good read, Cj. Thanks.
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Personally I don't think we'll ever get further than the Moon. Everywhere else is too far and too damned desolate and dangerous. I'm just writing s story about the Moon landings. My view is that we should go back there. I like Douglas Adams too. Best of all was the BBC radio series on which the books were based. They must have come out in the early 1980s I think and were very funny. There's something about listening to science fiction on the radio. It's like you've got the whole universe inside your head.
Doug Adams was the bomb.
And here I am again posting a comment at the exact time you are.
That is so totally weird.
The Wiccan slogan is: "Do as you will, but do no harm," or something to that effect.
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Er, pardon pgrundy? What does that mean?
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Tell you what else is weird, your counting thing. I do it too, though yours is more sophisticated. I wrote a whole thing about counting a few years back. It's what the name of my blog is based on: Ten Thousand Days. That's a countdown till death. But I've been counting things obsessively since I was a child.
I juat meant it's so weird when I'm posting a comment to this exactly at the same time you are--maybe it's not really all THAT weird. I AM easily amazed. I know this about myself.
That IS weird. I think its an OCD thing--I think I'm mildly that way but only with the counting, I'm not tidy or anything. I just have this fascination with the meanings of numbers--maybe I will do a hub on it--I hope you live longer than ten thousand days--that doesn't seem like a long enough time.
I do have the whole universe inside my head. You guys are alive at my whim so long as I chose to continue to think you into being. You better hope I don't drink too much some night and forget you right out of existence. I'm thinking about charging for the service, frankly.
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Constant Walker, I think the line is "Do as you will but harm none." Same really. It's a good philosophy.
pgrundy, I think it's just a sign that neither of us has got a life that's all. :)
oh yeah, no life---i think you might be on to something there...
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Ten thousand days is about 27 years I think. It takes me way into my eighties. That is unless shadesbreath decides to think me out of existence.
No life, end of life, and Shadesbreath claiming we exist at his pleasure. Minus the requisite bit of Maui Wowie and a bottle of wine, this thread reads like a scene out of the Sixties when we'd sit around late at night pondering (deeply and oh so seriously) "What is LIFE, man?".
=)
Why is it that man / woman is all so fascinated by the end when we can' remember the beginning nor seem to handle the middle? mindboggling as it is, dare we assume we'll screw up the end too?
Nice, Mari-Sunshine. ;)
Well, frankly, Marisue, I'm glad I don't remember the beginning. If you think of all the icky fluids and squeezing of our tender little bodies through apertures that, while designed for them to pass through, didn't really feel like they were designed to be passed through, you should be thankfull you don't remember. Frankly, given that we're all here, I think all of us did marvelously starting off. I am with you on it unraveling as we go, however. Perhaps Jama will sychnronize our mood rings and give us a reading or something to tell us what it means once she stops coughing and passes to someone else.
Okay! Pulling up my sleeves...we've got some planning to do. 31/2 years left. What kind of mischief can we get into?
Party at my house starting Dec16 (my birthday) till the end Dec21...You're all invited.
Note to myself...do not buy Christmas gifts for 2012...save the money for the afterlife...No matter what you say I'm taking my, by then, US$87.32 of adsense money with me.
CJ super hub regards Zsuzsy
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Zsuzsy Bee I'm going to take you up on that offer.
As for the rest, "what's life man?" Pass the wine.
Unique Hub. I appreciate.
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Thank you guidebaba.
a correction... the Comet Hale-Bopp did NOT break up and crash into Jupiter. (that was comet Shoemaker-Levy 9). Hale-Bopp had its closest approach to Earth on March 22, 1997. It did not hit any planet. The cult "heavens gate" committed suicide because they believed that the "mother ship" was following the comet and would take them... somewhere... when they died or something strange like that.
the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up into 20+ fragments and crashed into Jupiter in 3 years earlier (1994 over the course of July 16-22).
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Hi Glenn, I bow to your superior knowledge on this. And here was me making out I actually knew something. Good to be corrected. This is not wikipedia.
Interesting reading, CJStone. Orwell made a mistake. His should have named his book, 2008, because George W. has just about made all his predictions come true. I suggest we call upon all the hubbers here to celebrate the end of the world with a huge party and go down in flames.
Shadesbreath, the answer is: LIFE IS WHAT WE MAKE IT. At least the middle part and whichever part we're in now. Very few are lucky enough to have advance warning that today or tomorrow or next week will be IT. Those who went off to jobs in the Twin Towers as usual on that fateful morning had no idea the end of their world was only minutes away.
But like CJ, I'd like to think I'll be in the company of friends on The Day, so as we're zipping toward the Brilliant Light (or whatever), I won't be the only one asking "What the F**K??...". =)
One of the most prominent theorys of the 2012 end of the world is the supposed every 3657 year pole shift, where maybe the North Pole shifts over to Russia. For instance a theory goes that Atlantis was in warm climes, and by pole shift ended up in the Anartic. Of the supposed pole shift in 2012, some think it will be extreme and change the world as we know it, and others think it will be mild almost unnoticed as was the supposed last one. Lots of other theories on the polse shift as well like 'Planet X'.
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hello knolyourself, i'd just say let's wait and see on all of this. it's not like we can doa nything about it anyway.
Nice piece, CJ! Here are some links to some skeptical articles about 2012 you may or may not have seen already:
Oh man, I totally laughed out loud at that Deep Impact joke!
And I've been getting really REALLY interested in researching all this 2012 stuff lately. I heard about it while watching the 2004 UFO Convention with Jaime Mausan (youtube) he talks a lot about the mayan calendar and related material. He talks about crop circles of the mayan calendar and all kinds of interesting stuff like that. It's really worth checking out, though it is like 10 videos of 10 minutes each, it'll take a while. The good stuff is at the end.
I'm really into the idea that there are lifeforms that used to be in contact with the ancient world (mayans, egyptians, etc) and that's where they figured out their calendar so accurately etc, but at some point they must have stopped contacting us and just started studying us instead. I think in 2012 we might get contact reestablished with them.
Oh and I was thinking, perhaps the 'significant change' proposed by the mayan calendar has to do with the temperature of the sun? Like how we're experiencing all this global warming right now, probably caused mostly by our own emissions, but also perhaps influenced by natural variations in the sun's temperature, which possibly are taking place right now and culminating around 2012, which perhaps is why the ancients took such care to be aware of this date, as life as we know it would change drastically if the sun varied too far from it's normal temperature. Again though, this would require much higher intellect coming from some other beings than the people here on earth, as they would (seemingly, who knows really) have no way to measure such things.
Inspiring hub, I love this stuff.
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Glad you liked the joke Jonno.Norton. You're the first to have commented on it. My attitude to 2012 is the same as to everything. I'm a sceptic which just means Ill wait and see...
Pray that you see it and not in it!
I believe our future is dependent on the quality of our present. The future is not written in stone. World War III did not happen, because we went down a different time line (check out Dolores Cannon). As David Byrne stated, "We are making it up as we go along." We are powerful creators. Our thoughts affect matter. I don't think 2012 is all doom and gloom. However,there are powers that be that want to keep people in a state of constant fear. Look at the news and you will know that this is true. They also want to paint E.T.s in a negative light. If they were so evil, they would have taken us out a long time ago. As far as 2012 goes, I encourage people to do research. Check out David Wilcock, Gregg Braden, Carl Calleman, Jay Wiedner, Jose Arguelles,John Major Jenkins, Robert Cox, Peter Russell, Daniel Pinchbeck, Geoff Stray,James Redfield, Dannion Brinkley, Grahan Hancock, Richard C. Hoaland, Druvalo Melchizedek, Terence McKenna, Barbara Hand Clow, Dolores Cannon, Ian Lungold, and Sharon Rose. These individuals do not paint 2012 in a negative light like the Big Hollywood 2012 Doom and Gloom film does. It is clear that fear sells. However, the conscious loving people are tired of it. It is time to wake up.
Isn't that funny. I wasn't even aware of 2012 end-of-the-world theory. Could be I just don't pay attention, although I was quite aware of the 5/21/11 prediction. It was all over the news in the US. Forget the guy's name, but he was quite disappointed. You'd think he'd be happy to still be alive. It just really surprises me that some people really do take this stuff seriously.
Now the 2008 housing crash? That was the end of the world as we knew it.
This was a fun hub to read and the videos were great. Thanks!
Personally, I'm just tired of being disappointed over and over and over again. I'm a huge fan of disaster flicks btw...
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