“The
Pop Culture Addict's Advent Calendar” continues
with yet another Thursday diary entry. Unfortunately for me, some
people have it in their heads that this blog entry could very well be
my last one if the Mayans have their way. What do I think?
Well...just read on.
December
20, 2012
Welcome
to what could very well be the last full day in the world as we know
it!
Did
you know that tomorrow (December 21, 2012) is slated to be the end of
the world? According to the Mayans, this is very much the truth.
Sometime tomorrow, the world as we know it will completely collapse
upon itself and civilizations will crumble.
But
hey, at least we won't have to worry about what the weather is going
to be like this week.
(Well,
on one hand, I always wanted to see something falling from the sky
just before Christmas...wasn't counting on it being magma, fire, and
boulders, but hey, you take what you can get.)
In
case you can't tell already, I am being overly sarcastic here. I
don't believe for a second that the world is going to end tomorrow.
The only world that I know that ever ended was the soap opera “As
The World Turns”, and it ended two years ago. And, guess what? We
all survived it!
Just
as we're going to survive tomorrow!
You
know, this isn't the first time that people have panicked about the
end of the world. In my lifetime, the world has been slated to end
at least four different times. During the peak of the Cold War and
the disaster that occurred in Chernobyl in 1986, many people believed
that the world was destined to become a radioactive meatball.
Twenty-six years later, that still hasn't happened.
There
were also the many predictions made by Harold Camping. He initially
predicted that the end of the world was going to take place on May
21, 2011 at 6:00. The problem is that the world sees 6:00
forty-eight times each day (taking into account the twenty-four time
zones and the am/pm thing), so it seemed a little bit too
generalized. I always stated that if I turned on the news and there
are reports of Australia and New Zealand sinking underwater, then
would be the time to panic.
It
didn't really matter. May 21 came and went, and the world is still
here. But, Harold Camping, in an obvious attempt to save face,
recanted his earlier prediction, stating that he miscalculated the
end of the world the first time, and that the real end of the world
would be October 21, 2011.
(Geez...May
21, October 21, December 21...why is the 21st
supposedly such an unlucky day? At least if these “oracles”
suggested that the world would end on Friday the 13th,
it might be slightly more believable!)
Once
again, Camping predicted the end of the world, and once again, the
world refused to die. Funnily enough, Camping decided to retire from
predicting the end of the world shortly after his second attempt.
Can't imagine why he'd do such a thing...can you?
And,
then there was the prediction that the beginning of the new
millennium would bring forth a catastrophic disaster that would
destroy the world as we know it. And, once again, I lived through
it.
We're
going to go back in time almost thirteen years to December 31, 1999
for this story.
There
was a lot of talk about the year 2000 being a big year. I know that
for me personally, 2000 was a year of change, as it was the year that
I graduated high school, headed off to my ill-fated university life,
and turned legal drinking age.
(Well,
legal at least in Canada...most provinces have 19 as the age of
legality.)
I
still remember turning on the television that day, and seeing
television stations like ABC broadcasting the entire day to show how
other countries all over the world rung in 2000. It was really cool
to see all the different cultures celebrating the arrival of 2000 in
their own distinct methods.
But
some others were convinced that the year 2000 would be the very year
in which everything would end.
You
see, a couple of years prior to the celebrations of 2000 were reports
that every computer system in the world was in danger of failing due
to something called the “Y2K problem”. Due to some computer
systems being unable to read the year 2000 in code, when the calendar
changed from 1999 to 2000, the display read 1900 instead. There were
plans involved to reprogram some of the older computers in the world
to make them Y2K ready, though as far as I was concerned at the time,
even if the computer listed the date as 1900, the problems would have
been minor, at most.
Of
course, some people seemed to believe that this would cause major,
major problems. Planes would fall out of the sky. Credit cards and
debit cards would cease working. Massive blackouts would plague the
world.
(Wow...come
to think of it, that kind of sounds like the pilot episode for the
television series “Revolution”.)
On
December 31, 1999, we all stayed up late to watch the ball drop on
Times Square, wondering if there really was something to worry about
in regards to Y2K. But when the ball ended its descent and the
number 2000 glowed in brightly coloured lights, I remember being a
little annoyed that nothing actually happened! No lights went out,
we didn't enter another Great Depression, and no planes ended up
falling in our backyard.
That's
not to say that there weren't any problems. Those problems were all
minor though, and certainly didn't end up destroying the world.
Among some of the more entertaining ones...
- Bus ticket validation machines failed to operate in Australia
- Slot machines at a Delaware casino quit working
- The United States Naval Observatory gave the date on its official website as January 1, 19100!
- An alarm sounded at a Japanese nuclear power plant two minutes after midnight, although there was no risk to the public
- Some Japanese cell phones didn't quite work correctly after January 1, 2000
You
see? Minor things. Nothing to worry about. Certainly not enough to
actually build an underground bunker out of old school buses, or
stockpile enough food to fill an entire supermarket. And yet, so
many people did.
And
so many people are designing their own survival plans to ring in
December 21, 2012. They're almost convinced that they will survive
the disaster if they plan ahead.
But
that's the million dollar question, isn't it? What disaster?
All
that we know is that the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to an end
tomorrow. It doesn't exactly specify how the world will end. Will a
gigantic earthquake split the world in two? Will a comet smash into
the Earth's crust, wiping us all out like the dinosaurs were 65
million years ago? Will aliens from another planet swoop down over
our major cities and blow us up a la “Independence Day”?
NO!
I don't believe it will.
Frankly,
the real problem of December 21, 2012 is not the impending end of the
world. It's the general pessimistic attitude that many people seem
to have towards life.
I
wouldn't put it past some people who secretly are hoping that the
world DOES end tomorrow just because they're frustrated with life in
general. And, just the fact that so many people expect the worst to
happen regardless of the scientific proof that states otherwise
drives me absolutely insane in the membrane.
Seriously,
get a grip.
If
the world does happen to end tomorrow...so be it. But, why worry
about it in the meantime? If it's meant to happen, there's nothing
that we can do to stop it.
So,
why not just sit back and enjoy whatever time we have left instead of
worrying about what could happen? Christmas is coming up soon, and I
for one expect to celebrate it this year. I also have lots of things
to experience in my life, and I'm not going to let a silly little
thing like the end of the world stop me from dreaming big. I always
say that if things are meant to happen, they will.
So,
you know what? I'm going to look at every day I have as a gift.
And, you know what? I don't believe that the world is going to end
tomorrow, and I will just see it as being just another day.
Of
course, if it does, this blog post will be the sweetest of
irony...and what a way to go out!
So,
I guess my point is...STOP WORRYING!!
Coming
up tomorrow on Day #21 (and yes, there will be a Day #21), you know
those holiday commercials? We take a look at some of our favourites!
I love this blog and the pictures included. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I actually wrote an article about the major end of the world theories that have faild so far and one's to come. http://learninginlife.hubpages.com/hub/Doomsday-End-of-The-World-Theories
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