2012 Thoughts

I did want to get in a comment or two about the "Mayan Apocalypse" looming swift over our heads.

I've been through two major "predicted" end-of-the-world dates, the first being Y2K and the second of course Mr. Harold Camping. These things are so silly that people literally count down the minutes and seconds towards the "end time," giving a rolling series of "whews!" across the globe as the world as they know it is miraculously still there.

The media has a lot to do with the hysteria over such predictions, though certainly our entertainment does a great job "seeding" the fear into us with dystopic visions for the entire family, from "Hunger Games" to "The Walking Dead." We are, in a way, "primed" to fear the worst. The result? A sense of helplessness and fatalism. An "enjoy life now" sort of mantra played over and over again in our subconscious, giving us "permission" to do any number of stupid things that will ultimately add up to our physical, mental, financial, and spiritual ruin.

The catchphrase of the moment is "YOLO" -- you only live once. It might as well be the catchphrase for this 2012 thing, a trademarked catchphrase for a largely marketed-out-of-whole cloth scenario. While I respect the opinions of some, like Terrence McKenna's "singularity" 2012 date and so on, it is clear to me that others have calculatingly used 2012 as a gimmick that launched a thousand ships.

This is not to say that I think it is possible that the world might end at some other date, though even the phrase "end of the world" is vague and unhelpful. Truth is, Earth has been literally overdue for some sort of massive wipe-out natural cataclysm for some time now -- in fact, it is a head-scratcher for some scientists why it hasn't happened yet.

Honestly, the fact that The End -- or rather, some sort of event that wipes out the world as we know it -- hasn't happened yet is very suspicious to me, as is our sudden rapid development in technology and (at least, for some) spiritual evolution since the turn of the century. In short, I believe that the reason things haven't "ended" yet is because we all (more or less) are literally keeping this solid reality around as a subconscious group effort. It is consensual reality practiced on a global scale -- with ever-increasing bits and pieces of us "popping off the grid" as we rise in consciousness.

And this "popping off the grid" is the true "Rapture." As more of us wake up to the true nature of existence, the consensual reality takes more and more of a "hit" -- weakening. And this scares the living hell out of people who have a "Nothing's Going To Change My World" attitude. That is their true "End of the World."

And so I see our current consensual reality as being "under attack" by this rising tide of new consciousness. Rather, people on the "losing" side of the evolutionary track (a track that up until recently has most been only about the physical/biological, but has now shifted to the spiritual) see this as an attack, as a herald of Doom. This fear is nakedly on display on Drudge Report on any given day.

And it is possible that 2012 marks the "tipping point," if you will. I can buy that.

What we really have to watch for are not these predicted doom dates, but the push-back from those who refuse to let go of the consensual reality they have known for so long. This push-back is everywhere, often using the poor, people of color, unions, women, and homosexuals as scapegoats.

But we have to defuse the push-back by not pushing back in return. We have to convert this negative energy into positive energy. That is literally our fucking mission at this point, and we each do it according to our special skills -- writing, blogging, social work, social activism, art, protests, journalism, movie-making, and a thousand little gestures and words sprinkled throughout our days.

Books of Revelations and tales of Mayan End-Times can have some interesting -- and even, to those who understand, valuable -- insights. But they are too easily used as electric prodding sticks to corral the masses.

Consume Content Consciously!