You'd think I would have become more afraid the closer we got to 2012, but that hasn't happened.
In 2004, I read a book called "Fingerprints of the Gods," handed me my first concrete prediction of the end of the world. Until I read that book, I thought end of the world predictions were bullshit; they were vague and hazy at best, predicting any period of time that could be made to fit the clues. And Y2K was still fresh in my mind, when I watched people less intelligent than I am clear store shelves of duct tape, batteries and bottled water. I don't know what that stuff is supposed to prevent from happening, but it's a universal sales item during all potential disasters.
So when my eyes traveled across the date "Dec. 12, 2012," I was scared to the bone. I didn't even sleep that night. I thought to myself, "It must be true. They gave an exact date. And look at all this professional-sounding evidence." It took me a week to move past knowing when the world would end. I didn't know what to do. Should I inform people? Is the government preparing for this?
But over the years, after doing more reading on the subject, it dawned on me: No one knows what the hell is going to happen. One night in the library, I read no less than 25 separate theories on what's supposed to happen on that date. Yeah, we don't have a clue.
And even if we did, what can we actually do about it? Seriously, think about it. It's not like we can send Bill Pullman and a ragtag group of snowboarders on a race against time to save us ("Wicked Heroes!"). And since it's still a Herculean effort to get 10 people to the fucking moon, our chances of evacuating the earth or loading up arks are pretty slim. So if the world IS going to end, there's NOTHING we can do to stop it. If the world IS going to end, then we are all going to die. Violently and painfully.
No more Super Bowls. No more Pixar movies. Jay Leno will FINALLY get off the air. Looking at it like that is actually pretty liberating.
So, really...why even bother discussing it? The people in movies like this ("2012," "Deep Impact") always try to keep this stuff a secret, because they know how ya'll are. Panicking, randomly killing people, mass hysteria, or as Billy Bob Thornton said in "Armageddon," "Basically, the worst parts of the Bible." You people really don't know how to act during times of crisis.
When I was in college in Jackson, MS, one day, the news said that an really bad ice storm would be coming through the area. The entire city of Jackson shut down for three days. And the storm never came. Three days over rumors of fucking ice. Even if the government knew we were all gonna die, they shouldn't tell anyone. Why should the general public be entrusted with news of their own potential extinction? That's exponentially worse news than ICE. You're not going to handle it well.
But nothing's gonna happen. Or maybe it's all 100% true. I really don't know. Why waste time worrying, though?
Think about it: The scale of apocalyptic events predicted is GLOBAL. GLOBAL EARTHQUAKES. GLOBAL FLOODING. POLE REVERSAL. CONTINENTAL SHIFTING. SUPER-VOLCANOES. INVISIBLE PLANETS HITTING THE EARTH. No amount of preparation will be able to save you from that. I don't care how many rolls of duct tape you buy.
And there will no about be people doing stupid shit all year, because they believe there won't be any consequences. The amount of dumb shit that's likely to happen in 2012 could cause a resurgence of the newspaper industry. Every day, there will be a story of a guy who drove his car off of a parking deck or someone lighting themselves on fire in the middle of the street. And we won't even have to go to Iraq to see this. You telling me you want to miss that by hiding out in your Apocalypse-proof bunker? Trust me, you want to be there on Dec 13. 2012, when your buddy tells you he "banged the hot chick with AIDS" because he thought he was going to die. That story's gonna be really funny over a beer.
So just stop it. Stop it and just go have a beer with your friends. BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
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