I am much more focused then I was yesterday. The nicest thing, about the part I was talking about yesterday about looking forward to something, is in not putting any expectations on it, in just allowing myself to experiencing being excited – I also got nervous and then had to work against trying to pull something out of a bag of tricks to make myself feel calmer (but that is a whole other post, but sort of relates to this one) is that things became more than they would have if I had been approaching it with a definite plan and idea of what was going to happen.
So cryptic. But sometimes, there are no words to really describe something and to do so would put it into pictures and images that limit the experience and your understanding of it.
I came back and had a comment asking me about 2012, which I talked about way long ago last year as far as the specifics of the Mayan calendars and explaining that in no way shape or form did the Mayans perceive the world as ending. It is simply that one (of hundreds) of their calendars are drawing to a close and another is beginning. In the ancient world view, one cycle ends and another begins and you can so to figure out the time frames for this.
The Gregorian calendar, which the majority of the modern world follows, was invented in the late 1500s and then adopted by the Pope as gospel in 1582. This calendar is the epitome of man’s imposition of order (as defined by their species experience) by negating everything but a simple mathematical formula that is endlessly perpetuating and unchanging.
Now, I think that part of the reason that end of the world scenarios grasp the imagination so much is that deep down, we know that nothing is eternal and unchanging when it comes to our lives. Just our own mortal clocks would be a constant reminder that this is not how it goes, when we hear a suggestion of that as being so, we gravitate to it – mostly not understanding the draw because so many function in denial of their mortality.
Ingrained, specifically in the American culture, is the lack of being able to imagine the world without our individual presence. The concept of “life goes on” after we die is something most people find very depressing to think about – which is yet another blog post. The majority of the Christianity here has even transformed the idea of Heaven as an eternal place where our lives are recreated and when we get there, everything we have lost is returned to us. Or maybe we become a part of a great glowing thing that has just been waiting for us to arrive.
So it is funny/strange that the idea of the “end of times” holds such appeal to so many people.
But it is more than that. In all our back and forths about the nature of love and relationships we have pretty much agreed that the one thing that threatens the growth of both is the desire to “know what is going to happen.” For assurances of what will be before we embark on the process of being a part of it.
We like to “fall in love” at first sight, against are will, inadvertently because it frees us from the responsibility of learning about the choices involved in love and choosing to be in love.
We like our guarantees.
It is, shall we say, a hang over from being a child. A child, who knows nothing, has limited experience and is essentially ignorant; finds the world a vastly frightening place because it is so unsure. One of the role of parents is to set expectations, rules and boundaries that help define the world for their child and keep them safe as they are taught how to handle the known and unknown (blog topic #3, why we don’t teach our children how to handle the past). If the family cannot provide this kind of definition, the child will begin to look for definition by finding some kind of group to attach themselves that offers a clearcut set of expectations and definitions of the world. They gravitate to social groups, sports, gangs, cliques and trends. All in the effort to have a sense of themselves as they are placed in a world defined. A world that can be understood and that they can feel confident (falsely) in their expectations of it.
Now, adults who are struggling to grow beyond this need for assurance and promise (as we all do and it is a back and forth thing) are ripe for anything that promises a direct result. The self-help book that promises a new you in 30 days, the sure fire diet, the list of rules for success, the religion that promises unconditional love and a free pass to heaven, the person to whom they must only say “I love you “ once and the relationship is forever and unchanging in its emotional stability.
Every so often, an end of the world scenario comes to the fore, or if not that, then a very specific date (or span of dates) in which “things are going to change.” People are drawn to it because it offers the security of knowing.
Now, that said. Do I believe that there are cosmic times of change? Yes, hands down. I even think it goes beyond that in ways we do not understand because this is, afterall, the universe and we are put a really small part of it and not the central focus of it.
Do I think that Man has the capacity to accurately predict the times in which it would occur? Not specifically.
If you back off the 2012 end-of-the-world scenarios and look at its predictions of global change and are preparing for that in that year then I can say with all honesty that you have missed the boat. What people are talking about happening in 2012 has already started now, and if you are waiting for the doors to the party to open, then you are missing being a part of hanging the decorations and selecting what music will be played. By the time 2012 comes around, people celebrating it as an year of shifting will be looked at as dilettantes by those who realized that the world, the universe has begun a collective shift now.
People who presume that events happen at the point at which they gather are making one of the most fundamental errors in all human perception – that something only exists when we notice it. And the error of modern times, that we can schedule major events in life. Just look at the nonesense with the recession – it will be over in 3 months, no, 4 months and 2 days. Life does not work like that. Even countries that have announced they are out of the recession acknowledge that it is only by the numbers but that real life is still in it.
If you think the world is gathering for a cosmic change in 2012 then get off your duff and be an active part of the change. You can’t know what it will be, you can guess – but what you can do is try to be a part of the change you imagine is coming. For what we dream becomes poetry, what becomes poetry becomes science. All the Mayan dreams became the Mayan tales of the world, became their science of understanding the universe and allowed them to create calendars that gave them a frame of reference to gauge living.
As far as the world ending, it has just as much chance as ending two seconds after I post this as it does on December 21, 2012. In my eyes it has even a greater chance because I can understand and point to the things in the world that could cause its destruction in an instant now…5 years from now, I can but imagine what will be and we have a tremendous potential for change (and are changing in some fundamental ways that may remove one apocalyptic bugaboo – world war III).
As far as the Mayan calendar goes…here is the link again to that fabulous site that looks at all these
theories, from Atlantis to Planet X to 2012.
exitmundiThey have done an excellent job of tracing the source of all these theories.
Now…the last thing I will leave you with is a question. In all the 2012 brouhaha, look around you and ask yourself, who gains from my fear of it? Who profits from my believing this is going to be a devastating or dramatic time of change?
Look at the people promoting this, it is a high emotion thing they are tapping into and ask yourself why, if someone professes to care about me, they would be seeking only to play upon my fears or irrational desires for everything to get magically better?
What does that say about them?
And what…does that say about you and where you are right now?
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