The end is near! Or at least it will be in a few months.
Once we’re done worrying about the fall semester, there is another “end” that will be on many students’ minds. I’m talking about the end of the Mayan calendar and the theory that the world as we know it will end in some kind of global cataclysm.
In the past couple of years, many other “doomsday” theories have surfaced in popular culture. However, the talk of annihilation isn’t that new. In fact, it’s almost commonplace in today’s culture.
Given the startling popularity of the end times in popular culture, it would appear we’ve become obsessed with our own apocalypse.
The idea of global decimation is nothing new to us. Among other various political and economic disasters, our generation has seen Y2K, the Avian flu, swine flu and let’s not forget the claims made by Harold Campings in 2011, who claimed we’d be raptured in May and annihilated in October.
After these predictions, everyone simply returned to their day-to-day lives and forgot how the whole thing ever happened. It’s not because we’re more conscious of impending doom, but because we simply don’t care that much anymore.
From the seemingly endless analysis by the History Channel, to the gratuitous destruction in movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012,” our thoughts of apocalypse dwell not in the back of our minds, but on the front page of our media choice.
Even the cartoon network show, “Adventure Time,” features a main character who’s a remaining human in a post-apocalyptic world.
We’ve become so obsessed with our own demise that we’ve gone to great lengths to create fictionalized accounts in the hopes of somehow getting our own deaths right.
Personally, I do not believe anything is going to happen. I have confidence that I will be able to wake up that morning in December and go about my daily life. But even so, the thought has a certain sadistic attraction.
The idea itself appeals to our deepest emotions: pain, fear, desperation, death. The end of all humanity has gained so much buzz because it’s risqué.
How many times have you been with a group of friends, or just one friend, or even by yourself and wondered, “What would I do if the zombie apocalypse happened right now?”
Everyone is excited to give his or her two cents on how he or she would survive such a disaster and 2012 is no different. It gives us something to talk about and wearily look forward to. It’s the “what would you do” angle that gives us mixed feelings of excitement and extreme caution, which is quite appealing, even though many of us wouldn’t want to admit it.
So as you make it through the anti-climax of a 2012-themed party where nothing happens except more booze after midnight, think to yourself: If the world really ended, would I be ready? The likely answer is no.
It’s not because we’re stupid or aren’t resourceful. It’s because we still have no idea when our time will come.
So until then, we can only fictionalize our plight, hoping we’ll know what to do when the time comes.
Reach the columnist at schergos@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter at @ShawnChergorsky
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