Somebody asked me recently what I thought of numerology.
“It’s just a bunch of numbers,” is what I told them.
I feel the same way about 2012: just a bunch of numbers. I actually prefer 2112, the Rush album from 1976, truth be told. 2012, 2112, 1976, 2007 - all of those are just numbers. Numbers which we have attributed some kind of value to for whatever reason.
The more beauty is unveiled to me within the natural world and within the hearts and smiles of other people, the less interest I find myself having in mystical, supernatural and paranormal explanations for things. I’m not yet ready to necessarily admit that those things were a crutch for me or jettison them altogether. But I see what is and I see that it is good and it is enough. And I find the need to stitch together illusions in which to clothe my perceptions gradually dying.
Is 2012 an “illusion”? Hard to say, but the hype around it certainly is. Why should I spend my time getting excited about a number? Especially a number that tells me I have to wait. That’s the thing I really dislike about the whole 2012 race: that I am supposed to wait five years for a non-specific salvific event to occur, and that it is going to be so huge that it’s just going to sweep us all away simply by virtue of us talking about it and being somehow mysteriously “tuned in.”
I find that to be bullshit. Mainly because, I have seen something else: we don’t have to wait. We don’t have to sit on our thumbs and prepare for something which nobody can quite pinpoint to save us. We can in fact, save ourselves right here and right now by mastering our selves. To pin it to a calendar, whether foreign or exotic, is to misunderstand the nature of the work that must be done on oneself.
There will be no salvation in time. When has time ever been anything but the symbol of the oppressor? Do you wake up to an alarm clock because you like the sound and are thrilled to go to work every day? Time is the tool the Empire invented to keep track of its wars and taxes and to keep you chained to their mechanical rhythms. In what forms do you worship this god? Do you carry his mark upon your wrist or in your pocket? What gift does he give in exchange for your soul: freedom from death, freedom from suffering? Ha ha ha. If you’re not willing or ready to answer that question right now, why not wait another five years and then tell me? Surely, you’ll get what you’re after if you just continue trusting in the vagaries of calendrical systems to save you!
Even if the Mayans did have some kind of fancy-pants calendar bullshit going on, are you Mayan? If you’re not Mayan and you adopt the arbitrary significance of this one timestamped moment, why stop there? Why not abandon the Reason of the Roman Empire and its cultural heirs in favor altogether of the mystically-soaked blood-baths of the Mayans? Few 2012-fluffers mention that this once-mighty people fed their calendar directly with human souls; if we’re really going to do honor to whatever shift these people lived and died for, how come noone is lining up for the sacrificial altar?
Maybe that’s because 2012 is just a bunch of numbers and people don’t really believe in it after all; they are just glomming onto it since Y2K failed us the first time. If it didn’t work then though, why should we expect it to work again? Prophecies never come true unless you make them come true by fulfilling them in your own life first. And if you do, then maybe you’ll see: that there is no salvation in time. Time is the weapon of the oppressor: how many times have you consulted a clock today? What good has it gained you? It’s just a bunch of numbers. Live by the rhythms of life and not according to their measurement. And if you’re looking for peace and fulfillment, you don’t have to wait - but you do have to get started.
- END -
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6 Comments
Yeah, these are good points. Its tough for me with the spiritual stuff, because I feel like there is this false dichotomy: You can either walk around with a sour look on your face condemning everything but science and call yourself an “atheist”, or you can live fully, embrace the wonders of life, and swallow a load of bullshit and call yourself “spiritual/religious”. But I like what you said, “I see that it is good and it is enough” because that’s kind of what it comes down to. But if I say I’m not spiritual, its like I’m denying that all the love, the wonder, the magic can actually BE at all, let alone be here now. But if I say I’m spiritual it has to be wrapped in all this bullshit and conjecture about what’s NOT here.
And yes, with 2012, ALL end times prophecy’s are a part of the church of paranoia, meaning they’re all about inevitable things which are “out of our hands” and therefore free us of having to take responsibility. Of course, big changes are coming but big changes have always been coming, its the story of history. Its also the story of history that they move pretty slowly and life goes on in the mean time, and ALL of the great changes have been driven by people who MAKE them happen. So why wait? Sure, lets aim for a big release in 2012, but lets MAKE it happen!!!
EXACTLY!
Better yet, why aren’t any of these Mayan Calendar entheogen buffs taking their hallucinogens the way the Mayans did, i.e. up the back door with a blowgun?
All the founders of modern science prior to the industrial age were deeply religious, and many are even now revered as ‘adepts’ by various esoteric groups. This science vs. religion thing is a very recent dichotomy. No one told Aristotle he was pissing off the gods. That’s not to ignore folks like Galileo or Bruno, martyrs for science, but they were pursuing their internal imperative towards TRUTH.
Truth/reality/God were considered to be one and the same not so long ago, even in imperial England.
There’s a quote I can’t quite recall, “most atheists are truer Christians than Christians”, meaning that they are unwilling to violate their innate sense of Reason, while lots of modern xtians are perfectly happy to throw out their Reason so they can continue to pretend they “believe in” a 6000-year-old earth and no dinosaurs.
This is idolatry, to venerate an earthly authority’s “facts’ in preference to your own god-given reason.
I really like the point you’re making Svenson, about how you can’t be “spiritual” nowadays without associating yourself with a bunch of unprovable and often useless bullshit.
It’s that time again, I’m feeling!
Awesome! I am leaning more and more in this direction all the time: Truth = Reason = Love = God = Beauty. None of them can be separated or violated for the sake of the others.
Miracle of Birth