Well for those freaking out, “the end” is tomorrow. The Mayans predicted it in their all-so-wise calendar. WordPress bloggers and readers; know this, the world (for China as I’m writing this) ended already and still nothing.
Whatever conspiracy theories you subscribe to, we have in recent history have suffered through a lot and we will always get through it despite the constant paranoia. For the sake of time and carpel tunnel, I’ll make it clear. Rogue planets are unlikely, gravity and tides would indicate a large planetary mass would be close. Asteroids, we had a lot of near misses in the last decade of about 1 or 2 and counting comets help us size up the next one. Lucky guesses, the Nostradamus predictions and any guess work made by some dude from some civilization passed is fairly coincidental; if I said someone will die in the next 30 seconds, that would be prophet but nope, that’s statistics. As a kid, I use to be angry and hade a few conspiracy theories of my own. I understand where the fear comes from, it’s fear of the unknown and uncontrollable that causes panic. In large in my honest opinion, in many ways the world should burn and start anew. However, I do see a lot of good in the world and with goodness, much hope for something better.
Regardless, science would let us know if there was something going on. Gravity, tidal waves, or environmental anomalies like old inactive volcanoes blowing it’s heated load sooner than we think (…cough…); we would know and science would be the best indication of something going wrong. With that, lets give a closer examination of the Mayan calendar. Okay, maybe not so detailed but at least the rudimentary operation of a calendar.
So for the sake of ignorance, our (western) calendar. It’s a system that keeps track of time using an arbitrary consistent marker like the sun, the moon or in the Gregorian calendar (aka our calendar), the succession of of the sun and seasons. About 365 sunrises to make a year, a quarter makes a solstice or an equinox which marks the transition between seasons. For mathematical reasons, we add an extra day every four years to account for the time we didn’t count because the orbit of the freaking Earth operates on nature’s terms. By that, I mean nothing is really perfect or on the dot (probably a life lesson in that statement, but I’m getting ahead of myself). So what happens after the usual 365 days? Easy answer is a new year and we start from day 1. It’s a cycle of the same numbers and semantics regardless of the language or religion.
Back to the Mayans, the calendar is the same exact deal. Rather keeping just one year at a time, they thought it out long term. It’s a smart move, it saves paper (…errr, stone). I would like a calendar I would buy once every 4 years, just to simplify the matter. There are a few things we do know from this calendar. It was built to last so they were really counting on numerating time. To be a bit humorous, it was the end of a civilization and so the guy wasn’t hoarding old calendars.
Many ways, it’s a joyous occasions. For those party drinkers, that an extra day to party since it’s a Mayan new year. Aside from Christmas and our New Years, that’s one more night of drinking and one more day of living with a hangover. The second thing I can really think of is the Mayans would technically have survived this long to affect Western society which is monumentally awesome. Western society took a lot of small native societies and I think it’s the first time one of those small native societies to psyche out the Western world. Not hating, but good work Mayans; you got the gullible pretty good.
Though the world won’t end, the best way we can really enjoy every final moment is to live each moment as the very last since every moment would never be the same. Talk to you next week.
nawkcire 