2012: Are we there yet?

In the last three weeks we’ve seen typhoon Ondoy submerge the National Capital Region, typhoon Pepeng drown our northern provinces and trigger landslides in the Cordillera (which by the way is already plural so don’t say “Cordilleras”), a massive earthquake kill thousands in Sumatra, and a tsunami overwhelm American Samoa. And that’s just in this part of the world.

Idiot theory insists that these catastrophes are divine punishment for the wicked. This does not explain why so many blameless babies and small children were among the casualties of the disasters, or why so many foul beings continue to thrive in the world. As for those who claim that they used supernatural powers to divert typhoon Pepeng’s course so it would not hit Metro Manila, they should be held liable for the hundreds of deaths in the areas that bore the brunt of the typhoon.

In these fearful times, people are wondering out loud whether the end of the world is approaching. This is not surprising, though it is annoying to those of us who are always watching for the apocalypse (You bandwagon-hoppers). It does not help that Hollywood keeps selling end-of-the-world scenarios ranging from zombie outbreaks to takeovers by machines.

Some months ago, astrophysicist Nicolas Cage raced to decipher a mysterious series of numbers that predicted the apocalypse. The numbers turned out to be dates and GPS coordinates. This is an insult to apocalypse watchers; we like to think that the interpretation of signs requires more esoteric knowledge.

The trailer for a big-budget disaster movie called 2012 is now showing in theaters and all over the Internet. One teaser shows a Tibetan monk ringing the alarm bell moments before giant waves drown the Himalayas.

I predict that the movie will be awful, and it will be a blockbuster.

What is it with the year 2012? Who said that it would be the end of the world? The Mayans did. According to the book Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi, Maya civilization was born in the Yucatan around 2,000 B.C. At its peak in about 250 A.D. there were hundreds of Mayan cities and towns in what is now Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Why should we believe them? Teresi quotes historian Alfred W. Crosby’s claim that two centers of technology transformed history. The two birthplaces of technology were Mesopotamia (the Middle East), and Mesoamerica (Central Mexico).

How advanced were the Mayans? They built magnificent pyramids, temples, observatories, causeways and raised earthen roads. The citizens’ dwellings were built atop rectangular mounds of stone to avoid floods. They built huge ball-courts for their favorite sport, a precursor of soccer. . .to the death. Today’s sporting heroes have nothing on the Mayans, who won or died trying. Their ball-courts had such sophisticated acoustics, someone standing on the end zone could clearly hear a whisper from the other end of the court. Imagine the penalties their referees could impose.

This fact convinces me that the Maya were brilliant: they drank chocolate, used the cacao bean as currency, and had royal chocolatiers. When did they say the world would end?

December 23, 2012, according to the Mayan priests. The date marks the end of the “long count”, “a linear record of days beginning with the Maya fourth creation (in which the gods successfully create the human race after three failed tries) in 3114 B.C.” They figured that the universe has a life-span of about 5,000 years.

Tell that to the fossil record. If they were so smart, how come all their cities are now buried in the rainforest? Long story.

I suspect that the world is not going to end. It will continue long after the human race is gone. Think of the planet as a vast organism overwhelmed by an annoying species that destroys its ecological balance, drains its resources, pollutes its environment, and kills its other inhabitants. That species would be us. In order to survive the organism has to defend itself, the same way our bodies combat disease-causing microorganisms by producing antibodies. It’s nothing personal: the earth just has to live.