One Year Until 2012

A year from today, something amazing will happen that's never happened before: around the globe, millions of New Age true believers will simultaneously become crestfallen when nothing happens after many years of anticipatory hype. Some will be so disappointed that they will commit suicide; others will respond with spin control, saying, "I felt something, didn't you?" They'll insist that despite continuing war, poverty, and environmental degradation, they have indeed ascended into a new golden age in the 4th dimension, and if you disagree, it must be because you're not as enlightened as they are.

Hey, I want to witness the dawn of a harmonious golden age of peace and justice on December 21, 2012 as much as anybody. And that's part of the problem.

I'm trying to serve our collective need for groundedness. I questioned myself before posting this, wondering if this was just an ego trip on my part. Was my intention to get a cheap boost off of deriding the sincere beliefs of others? I meditated on the decision for a while and it solidly resonated with an inner feeling of integrity, so I decided to go ahead and post it.

Without the willingness to engage in a reality check, fiction can substitute for truth, inaccuracy for accuracy, anyone can deceive you, and you can hurt yourself with self-delusion. I wish I could hold myself above the fray and deny that I have any capacity for self-delusion, but as I heard more about 2012 and read two books on the subject, I found myself starting to believe. Not because I was convinced by the arguments presented. I familiarized myself with the myriad theories bouncing around out there (many that are mutually contradictory and almost entirely from non-Mayan people who are cashing in on the fad) and though I've been entertained and at times intrigued, I have yet to hear a rock-solid argument I can get behind. Nevertheless, I keep finding myself yearning for 2012 and daydreaming about how good it's going to be once we get over that hump. I looked within and questioned why it was getting to me emotionally when logically, I had nothing but reasons to laugh it off. I figured out that it all comes down to one factor: the power of wishful thinking.

The myth works on me and others because it hooks into a deep part of the Western (not Mayan) psyche: the desire for a quick fix. Advertising constantly drums into us, "just buy this and your problems will be over, presto change-o, no fuss, no muss, and you'll live happily ever after." The lottery says, "just pick the winning number, and you'll be fixed for life." Politicians tell us, "just vote for Candidate X, and there will be the dawn of a bright new day in America." Christianity tells us, "just accept that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, and you will instantly be saved and given eternal life in heaven." Western culture badly wants to get something for nothing without having to struggle for it, without ambiguity, and without having to think too much. It's nearly irresistible bait. So it's no wonder that it's fellow Westerners who have got us hooked on 2012 rather than contemporary Mayans living in Guatemala or southern Mexico. Needless to say, history tells a different tale that is full of long, painful, fruitless struggles sometimes followed by transient, ambiguous victories and endless head-scratching.

If a 2012 shift is real, then I can no more deny it than deny that the sun will rise again tomorrow. The sun will come up in the morning no matter what I say, and if a 2012 shift is a fact then no one can stop that as well, so it doesn't matter if I downplay it. But what if the 2012 shift only happens if we believe in it really hard? If I jinxed it for the whole planet by posting this, then it's the kind of thing that only happens if you believe it happens, no different than Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. If that's the case, then it's nothing more than the wholesale abandonment of logic, and I would do well to deride it for the sake of our future survival. As the Spanish painter Goya wrote, "the sleep of reason produces monsters."

Granted, it sure would be neat if UFOs land and the aliens solve all our problems for us. Peak Oil? Overpopulation? Fukushima? Solved instantly with no effort on our part. It would be just peachy-keen if cosmic rays from the center of the galaxy zap our brains and give us better DNA, granting us all the cosmic consciousness necessary to realize the universal brotherhood of humanity we've always dreamed of. It's tempting to witness the East Coast earthquake and the Occupy Movement and map it on to the 2012 myth. A little fishing village in China has an uprising? That's an advance sample of 2012 too, and utopia must be around the corner. Belief is a powerful filter, so if you're on the lookout for random affirmation, you will always find it. But hope denies our own agency in making the world a better place. And waiting takes our attention away from the present moment, the only moment which we have direct access to, the only moment in which we have the power to make any kind of change.

I write this not to shit on believers with my animosity and contempt, but rather to warn others of an immanent crash, a psychological crash that is inevitable if we keep our heads up in the clouds of wishful thinking. I wasn't joking above: I think some unstable, over-invested individuals may kill themselves on December 22, 2012, so I posted this in an attempt to do my part to save lives. The world can become a somewhat better place if we stop waiting and hoping, decide to put our feet on the ground, and actually take some action.