Mayan Apocalypse

So… this could be my last column.

If the Mayans are right, there will be no tomorrow. (I am writing this Thursday evening, going on 11 o’clock; posted at 1145 pm.)

I am reminded of a song by alternative rock band R.E.M. The lyrics cite rapid-fire pop culture references that are suggestive of apocalyptic predictions. The chorus repeats the line — which happens to be the title — “It’s the end of the world as we know it,” three times, tagging the final line with “and I feel fine.”

It sums up how I feel about this whole December 21st end-of-the-world nonsense.

Some posters on Facebook have pointed out that it’s been “tomorrow” for several hours, already, in the Fiji-New Zealand-Australia region. But, since the Mayan empire was in Mexico, and it won’t be midnight there for another couple of hours, the world may still end.

Of course, if all the doom-sayers are wrong, and the Mayan calendar ended not because they believed the world would end, but simply because they didn’t make a calendar that went any further, then we’ll all wake up tomorrow and nothing will have changed.

It’s funny (funny – odd, not funny – ha-ha) that we, as a society, put such credence into the passing of a particular point of time. And it’s not just western culture, but most world cultures that have this fixation with the passing of time.

What’s truly funny (leaning toward the ha-ha) is that there isn’t a darn thing we can do about it. No one can stop time, or even slow it.

Yes, there are times (English is such a confusing language, isn’t it?) when time seems to pass more slowly, or more quickly, than we would want. But there’s nothing we can do to affect that change — it’s all a matter of perception.

Yes, there are certain points in time that hold significance for us. We count the passing of time in our daily lives: time to get up, eat, go to work, go home, etc.

We look to larger subdivisions of time to further mark our lives: Monday, Friday, the Weekend, months, years, decades, etc.

We have celebrations of certain points in time: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, seasons, etc.

Of course, there are those who celebrate birthdays, but are somewhat inaccurate regarding the actual count. They want the celebration without the reminder of how much time has passed.

I guess these subdivisions of time and the occasional celebrations help break-up what would otherwise be a monotonous existence. Imagine, day-in and day-out, doing the same thing over and over and over.

The thing is, other than the sun rising and setting each day, and the cycles of seasons, our perception of the passing of time is an arbitrary creation of humankind.

The calendar we are currently following is not absolute. In fact, it has been altered countless times over the millennia.

At one point in our history, there were actually pauses in the calendar; festivals to celebrate the planting, the harvest, or just because, all of which we really designed to allow the calendar to re-align with the solar and lunar years.

Ever thing about the names of the months? September, October, December… where have you seen those prefixes before? Sept = seven, Octo = eight, Dec = ten.

Those were, at one time, the seventh, eighth, and tenth months. But earlier re-adjustments, the addition of days to make the calendar align with the solar year, caused a bit of a shift.

Another funny (odd and ha-ha) aspect are the people who get excited over numerically significant dates. Most recently, many couples were married on december 12th, because 12-12-12 is supposedly a very lucky date.

The problem is that the numbering system, as mentioned, has been altered frequently. Even the count of the years is suspect. The re-setting of the calendar to BC/AD was a retroactive action, and the exact date of Christ’s birth is not precisely known.

Many cultures, in fact, do not follow our Gregorian calendar — named for Pope Gregory.

For instance, as I write this, after sunset on the 20th of December, 2012, our Hebrew friends know this as the 8th day of Tevet, in the year 5773.

Still, our culture does consider the calendar to have some semblance of permanence, and it is how we mark the passing of time.

If we survive the “Mayan Apocalypse,” we will celebrate Christmas in three days’ time. A week later, we will celebrate the New Year (which in an earlier era was celebrated in April).

Time passes, however we mark it. We cannot turn back the hands of time, nor hurry them along. What would be the point, really?

So, as this year draws to an end, as we prepare to celebrate Christmas — either as a religious festival for the Faithful, or an extravaganza of consumerism for those who worship at a different altar — and as the New Year approaches, I will be reflecting on the year gone by.

I imagine many of you will share in this time of reflection. I note that the talking heads on TV have already started to enumerate their “best and worst of” lists for 2012.

There have been both good and bad things happen; joy and sorrow, excitement and disappointment, celebration and tragedy.

In my next column — if, indeed, there is one — I will offer my reflection of the year just past.

Until then, I wish everyone a Joyous holiday season, a very Merry Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year.

- David