2012... The end of an era?

I was sitting around shooting the breeze with one of my best friends the other day and the conversation quickly took a serious tone. I, myself, an a quirky individual and have always tended to surround myself with other quirky people. My friends and I usually sit around and crack jokes like it's going out of style. This was certainly not the case this one evening. While hanging out at my friend Zane's house, a spot affectionately named the Zoo Crew, we started discussing the end of the world. Some random commercial about the dire condition of the earth sparked this conversation and resulting post. Seemingly convinced by several television specials proclaiming that the world would end in 2012, Zane assumed a serious demeanor and the rest is history.

The television specials that sparked this end of the world talk were linked by the fact that they were created in response to the Mayan calendar's assumption that the world would end in 2012. I am not totally sold on this idea; however, my friend seemed convinced. After our conversation, I went home and decided to do a little research on the subject. I was a history major in college and anything about history gets me pretty jazzed. After an hour or so searching the Internet for some evidence that would prove or disprove the Mayans' theory, I came up with little more than speculation on both sides of the debate.

The Mayan civilization was a great society that has become synonymous with Apocalyptic theories due to their calendar's prediction. Many people seem to ignore the fact that the Mayans are credited with being pioneers of a highly sophisticated writing system without any European influences. I do not intend to go on a rant about whether or not the calendar is true or not. I will leave that up to you to decide for yourself. I just found it interesting that such a seemingly forgotten society could still leave an indelible mark on modern society. Who are we, or the Mayans, to try to predict the end of the world? I believe that this new interest into the Mayan calendar's prediction could have catastrophic results if people blindly accept this theory without properly analyzing the subject. We all remember the mass hysteria that resulted from the theory that the world was going end on Jan. 1, 2000... and we're still living today.