2012

2012 is fast approaching. Already I'm noticing a marked increase in the references to this date and the Mayan "prophesies" on Internet . Typing 2012 into Google today produces this response: About 1,440,000,000 results. It will be interesting to see how this grows over the next few months.

Part of this growth is the mass hysteria/conspiracy push the subject is receiving from those who have just not bothered to check out exactly what the ending of the fifth Sun Cycle meant for the Mayans. These misinformed people immediately start yelling "End of the World" and talking Apocalypse. My novel "2012", originally written six years ago, was meant as a "wake-up and take notice" call to these people. If you have read the novel you will see the catastrophic events that befall humanity are NOT brought about by some supra-human intervention, rather by man's hand. Even the finale can be explained by basic physics, without contradicting anything previously explained in the tale.

Myself, I think the 2012 issue will turn out to be a global "awakening" not occurring through some mystical process, but almost as a self-fulfilling prophesy - The hype the subject will enjoy during the coming months will cause many (hopefully a majority) to reflect on the way we treat each other and our home, this planet. Again hopefully, this could lead to a movement towards becoming more "human". Compassion seems to have deserted our emotional make-up in the last decade or so, and my thinking is that the social pressure of the moment, increasing as the 21st December date nears, will be the Event that could reshape our future.

Then again, as we have seen repeatedly with the protest movements throughout the world during 2011, unless these changes have a clearly-defined objective they will just peter out into nothingness. Look at the Indignados (Indignant) protests that occupied over 70 cities in Spain, and 951 worldwide, earlier this year calling for change - today, six months later, nothing has happened, nothing. Why? In Spain's case it was because certain political factions initially tried to make these public protests their own. When that failed, the protesters involved just couldn't agree on anything with the result that no concrete proposals for change could be defined.

Could this happen again - you bet! If it's one thing we humans have in abundance it's apathy.

What do you think? Can a global change happen? Could our evolution as a species take a step toward caring for each other instead of treating life as a race where anything goes as long as you win?

Then again, what do I know? For all the research I did prior to writing 2012, I do not have any greater insight than YOU at this moment.

All I have is HOPE.

Eric at www.ericjgates.com