Paranoia

I saw something about the "December 21, 2012" hype on the History channel the other day, and after it freaked me out a little, I talked to Kaley and Roddy and my mom who all basically laughed it off and made me feel better, and then I did some research and wanted to share this with anyone else who may be nervous about it.

Just to add... my mom helped me understand... there's a lot of paranoia and worry with people like I used to be who have a hard time dealing with the unknown. If there's something going on or possibly going on that they can't control, they want to try to figure it out and believe something literally so that it gives them something to rely on, whether it's good, bad, scary or comforting... at least it's something they 'know' as a fact. The truth is, no one really knows. We just have to live every day and hope and live life to the best we can.

From Upington.biz:

But for all the hype, there is little evidence the ancient Maya ever intended for the end of their calendar to be read as a potent for disaster.

"These prophecies of doom really don't have any basis in what we know about the Maya," said Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology at Brown University and a specialist of Maya hieroglyphic writing. "The Maya descriptions barely talk about this event."

Instead, Houston said, the Maya saw their "long count" - the longest of their cyclical calendars - coming to an end in 2012 but also beginning anew on that date, without disastrous consequences.

"Really, it's a conversion of people's anxieties about our times and finding some remote mythological precedent or prediction of it," Houston said about the origins of the current 2012 myths. "People like to believe that ancient wisdom is somehow predicting this time of upheaval."

John Hall, a professor of sociology at the University of California Davis who is writing a book on the history of apocalyptic ideas, agreed. He said movements predicting the end of the world often reflect a much larger nervousness about the state of our society.

"Terrorism, 9/11, ecological disasters, floods and earthquakes," Hall said, "[There is] a sense that modern civilization has had its run. Those kinds of anxieties are much more widely shared than simply among people who believe in the exact date."

To Lehmann though, those very events are warnings of what's to come.

"We had Hurricane Katrina, the recent cyclone in Myanmar," Lehmann said. "We've got major flooding in Iowa. We're always going to have natural disasters. But they are picking up quite frequently now."

Lehmann said he eventually hoped to move away from Cape Girardeau, built on the banks of the Mississippi River, to the higher plains of southwest Mississippi to keep safe from the floods sure to follow the earthquakes of 2012.

Geryl and his Belgian and Dutch followers have similar intentions, though their plan will take them much farther from home. They are looking to buy a plot of land high up in African mountains, where they'll be able to withstand the monstrous tidal waves and wait out the cloud of volcanic dust that they said would block out the sun.

Geryl said the group has recently zeroed in on a location, but won't reveal his find for fear of tipping off rival survival groups in the United States and Canada. On that land, Geryl's group, whose core membership consists of 16 people but whose wait list supposedly lists hundreds, will build concrete dwellings or outfit caves for survival.

After the cloud clears, Geryl said, they will attempt to create a new, better civilization.

"A guiding principle will be to keep the world population as small as possible so as not to get into the same problems we face now," Geryl said, adding that the group is currently looking for sponsors and hopes to move to Africa in 2011. "There is too little oil, too little grain in the world now. Those are the kinds of problems we want to avoid."

One of the group's members, Jan, a 57-year-old carpenter from Amsterdam whose name has been changed because he doesn't want to be identified in the press, recently drove five hours to attend one of Geryl's meetings in Antwerp.

"I thought, if there's a chance that we can start a new civilization, I want to contribute," Jan told ABC News. "Because whether I make it or not, and there's only a small chance I will, that is important."

Jan, who has never been married and has no children, said he has lost friends over 2012.

"All the people I've ever told about this have declared me crazy," he said. "It makes people feel uncomfortable. Now I just keep it to myself."

Geryl said he found comfort in sharing his knowledge with others. Since "discovering" what the future holds, he has written three books on 2012 and maintains a Web site on the subject. http://www.howtosurvive2012.com/

When asked what would happen if December 2012 were to come and go without the earthquakes and tsunamis of his predictions, Geryl fell silent.

"I don't really contemplate that possibility," he said. "[My predictions] are so spectacular, they can't possibly be wrong."