Pandora's Planet

[Mythsaje]

I'm not superstitious. I don't hold the 2012 ending date of the Mayan calendar in any particular awe, nor do I have any faith in Nostradamus's or Edgar Cayce's predictions. I discuss these things on a fairly regular basis with my father.

Hold on. Let me clarify. I think if there IS any merit to the Mayan calendar, it's more to do with what some of the southwest native tribes, the Hopi in particular, consider the cusp of what might be called the "next" world.

I don't believe civilization is on the verge of collapse, all "evidence" to the contrary. I don't believe we're on the verge of driving ourselves into extinction. I don't believe in Armageddon, Ragnarok, or any other "battle at the end of time."

Instead I see a massive change on the horizon, one that will SEEM to be the end of everything as we know it. I cannot foresee what path it might take, but, rest assured, it will be a great upheaval that might well seem like "the End."

Despite the fact that I am not superstitious as most people would understand it, I do believe in what might be called "magick." I believe that our individual and collective will DOES have power beyond the obvious. Belief and words that express that belief have a validity of their own.

Now this might annoy some who lean entirely on the material world for their succor, but that's okay. Some such aggravate me as much as the most fundamentalist Christian might. I am beyond the point I feel I must justify myself to anyone whose narrow view cannot encompass a greater possibility.

I believe that sentience has a purpose. I believe we have the ability to think, perceive, and affect our environment not by accident, but by some kind of design, though I do not pretend to understand the purpose beyond that design. In that direction lies madness, or arrogance beyond tolerance.

Thus I have some measure of faith that we can somehow rise above the folly of our past, and reach a point where we can begin to repair some of the damage we've done. I think it's our destiny to move beyond this planet to seek out and capture resources that are even now lying in wait for us. To those who belittle space exploration and its "waste" of the resources we have now, I can only answer "it may be our only hope."

Some may see this as something akin to a cancer spreading beyond a single world and into the cosmos, but we must keep in mind that Earth is a "living" world and our footsteps have weighed heavily upon her. Out there, among the "dead" planets of our solar system, the asteroids and comets traveling through the heavens, await elements we may use for the benefit of all.

I am sick with hope, some might say. I turn my back on the evils that have escaped the box and, instead, look within to the one thing that remains in its depths.

Perhaps that is true. But the absence of hope is despair, and none of us can afford despair. Not as individuals, and not as a species, nor as the eyes, ears, and hands of "God" in this part of the universe.

I hear the doomsayers, and those who think perhaps the world would be better off without us. I hear them, but I do not deign to listen. There is more to all of this than an accident of chemical interaction, I believe, or the selfish curiosity of a bizarre and incomprehensible deity.

Call me a fool, call me crazy, call me what you will. But in my heart I hold the key to Pandora's Planet, and that's good enough for me.

On the cusp of despair, I hold forth the last remaining contents of that mythical box.

Someone has to.

[shain from kane]

1. Pandora's Planet by Christopher Anvil

http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671318616/0671318616.htm

[SpiralHawk]

2. What the Hopi said at the House of Mica (UN headquarters)

"As the Hopi tell the story, at the beginning of this epoch of history (the Fourth World) they were instructed by Spirit to watch for a time when the world was beset by great troubles -- chaos, or "koyaanisquatsi." At this urgent juncture of history, the Hopi would have a particular responsibility: to make four attempts to address the nations of the world, whose leaders would be gathered at the House of Mica (UN headquarters) to talk about their problems.

"If they were permitted to speak in the House of Mica, the Hopi would then be free to give public voice to the warning they say they have been entrusted with for thousands of years, in the hope that some nations would actively listen. Their essential message -- to return to peace and harmony with the whole circle of life -- would thereby help ease the Earth and its people through the era of purification."

snip...

http://www.8thfire.net/Day_15.html


The House of Mica - the UN headquarters building on Manhattan

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. The Mayans had several interesting calendars.

They had a standard solar year of 365 days, a year of 260 days, and in order get them to jibe, they had a 52 year period, which served for most dating purposes. And then in order for dating things longer than 52 years, they invented the Long Count. It's some 5,000 years long, and since it started around 3000 B.C., it'll naturally finish in 2012. This didn't mean much to the Mayans, since their whole civilization collapsed in the 9th century, A.D. And they didn't think time was going to stop, since Mayan Calendars are a system of cogs, and it'd just start over again, like any other calendar. They even made predictions for things that were going to happen well after 2012.

I wish people who claim to be interested in the Maya actually took a few minutes to learn about them, instead of just taking a few things completely out of context to support their stupid woo woo theories.

Just saying.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. change is coming

and the key is to be grounded and at peace with your own self.

[suffragette]

5. Have you read "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents"

by Octavia Butler?
Asking because your thoughts on space exploration seem akin to what she wrote in these novels.
http://www.amazon.com/Parable-Sower-Octavia-E-Butler/dp/0446675504/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446675784/ref=nosim/sfwa-20/

[Mythsaje]

6. No, I haven't, actually.

I actually came to my point of view on the subject all on my own.

[suffragette]

7. I highly recommend them to you

Here's a taste, from an interview she did with Amy Goodman:

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/11/science_fiction_writer_octavia_butler_on

AMY GOODMAN: Octavia Butler, could you read a little from Parable of the Talents.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: I’m going to read a verse or two. And keep in mind these were written early in the 1990s. But I think they apply forever, actually. This first one, I have a character in the books who is, well, someone who is taking the country fascist and who manages to get elected President and, who oddly enough, comes from Texas. And here is one of the things that my character is inspired to write about, this sort of situation. She says:

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

And there’s one other that I thought I should read, because I see it happening so much. I got the idea for it when I heard someone answer a political question with a political slogan. And he didn’t seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there. And I wrote this verse:

“Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, maybe to say it almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and at last to embrace it because we’ve defended it.”

[Disturbed]

8. Doomsday in 2012?

Doomsday in 2012?: Viewzone

The date, December 21, 2012, is a special day. It represents the maximum possible influences for solar flares that the universe can provide. ...

http://www.viewzone.com/endtime.html