2012: The Rapture or What?

Since I've been freelance writing, I've seen a lot of interesting job postings and have gotten to wondering about a few things.

(1) There are a LOT of people writing their own eBooks these days, and apparently some people are making some good coin off of it. I need to start putting my eBook ideas on paper.

(2) There are far more blogs out there than I ever imagined. A lot of the content is total junk, leading me to wonder if blog landfills be our next major problem on this planet, JK. On the other hand, you have the "Julie and Julia" success story to motivate all these would-be Bestselling Authors to keep trying.

(3) There are people blogging and building websites about some really WEIRD topics. One of the job postings requested someone knowledgeable about – I kid you not – "the prophecy of the end of the world on December 2012, bilderbergs, illuminatis, planet X, paranormal, spiritualism, etc." My first reaction was, "people love diasters and conspiracies, could be some big money in this 2012 thing." On the other hand, I'm looking for things with long-term growth potential, and there's a big risk that knowledge will be obsolete in, let's see, 3 years and 3 months.

But I have to admit, I was curious. I had heard something about the Mayan calendar ending in 2012, but it was only a vague impression. I considered that I could just wait for the "2012" doomsday movie to come out in November, but being the curious and helpful person that I am, I decided to investigate and share my findings with you.

Turns out, there are several websites devoted to this 2012 malarkey. And that's what it is, a big bologna sandwich. The Mayan calendar cycles, it doesn't end. 2012 may be the end of a big cycle of some sort, but not the end of life on Earth as we know it.

What about the galactic alignment that is supposed to occur in 2012? Apparently, galactic alignment happens once every 26,000 years. The "alignment" is between Earth's sun and the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Supposedly, the energy of the black hole could affect solar activity and create disastrous weather on earth. However, experts point out that because stars move through space pretty slowly, the galactic alignment doesn't occur in one day or even one year, it occurs over a 20 year period. So really, we should be thinking about 2012 as the year when we will allegedly enter into a period of great change. But nobody has any idea what KIND of change: meteorological, political, spiritual, etc.

Here's my take on the whole 2012 business. Nobody predicted 9/11 and all the domestic and international events that stemmed from that. Why worry about stuff we can't control? I'd say the same thing we've been told for the last 2000 years, from Jesus's time to the Virgin Mary's messages to the world given through the shepherd children at Fatima in 1917: get right with God today, because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.