Last Year of the Long Calendar

The Mayan long calendar ends a year from today. Well, it doesn’t end, it clicks over to the next–b’ak’tun, it’s called. The 14th b’ak’tun. There’s no more prophetic doom associated with the end of the long calendar than the millennium, and possibly less: lifting from Wiki, we have the commentary that “for the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle.”

Me, while I’m in no hurry for the world to end, I’d love to see some kind of stunning world-changing events materialize in the final year of the b’ak’tun. You know, the overthrow of our corporate overlords and a sudden planet-wide desire to halt climate change in its tracks. Something like that. And I have to say the events of this past year certainly seem promising in some ways toward the former, though, man, I was trying to imagine throwing off my corporate overlords entirely for even a month, and (even excepting things like electricity, which I don’t propose to do without) it’d be a hell of a job to avoid supporting corporations with my cash euros. I mean, from whom would I get milk?

Anyway, large-scale protests of that sort aside, I’m feeling a bit like the last year in the long calendar deserves some special attention. It’s like Y2K in that I’ve been aware for most of my life that it’ll be part of my life, and I didn’t do a particularly good job celebrating Y2K, so it’d be nice to do something with the Long Calendar. Also, it wraps up on the solstice, which I happen to find appealing.

I would, of course, like to say I’ll go forth and make the world a better place in 2012, but really it doesn’t seem all that likely. I’d like to get and keep in better contact with friends, which is probably a more feasible goal. I’d like to actually get in shape, which is probably feasible if I go at it methodically (one reason for a whiteboard or the moral equivalent thereof). I’d like to do something beautiful or artistic outside of my usual work, but I don’t know that my time management skills are up to it. But, you know, just do something splendid.

Just in case it’s the last year of the world. :)