Well, December 21st has pretty much come and gone without catastrophe for most of us.  I don’t know what it all means either, except that now I’m gonna have to clean my house after all.  Life goes on.  But the end of the Maya Long Calendar isn’t necessarily the end of the story.  Many Maya experts–and indeed, Mayans–didn’t believe that the 21st of December would be the end of the world–just the end of the world as we know it.  The end of an epoch, you might say.  Hence, the beginning of a new epoch.

I don’t suppose that is something that would happen overnight, so although the so-called apocalypse on the 21st was a terrific excuse for a party (Who needs an excuse for a party, anyway? I hear you ask.  A theme, maybe…), it is really an opportunity for the networks to do their “Year in Review” programs on a much grander scale.  I realize they are probably still working on their 2012 in Review stuff at the moment, but I’m betting after New Year, we can expect a plethora of programs on What Has Just Ended, and What Does It Mean for the Future.  It could take them a little while to put together–they wouldn’t have wanted to do too much in advance,  just in case…  And, of course, they won’t have footage for the early centuries.

It will be interesting to see what the balance is, of good vs bad–a ledger listing all the known wars, famines, plagues,  cultures wiped out, scientific discoveries, environmental impact, technology, etc., and it would be especially interesting to look down that ledger of good and bad and identify–on both sides of it–where religion (of all flavors) figured prominently, and then perhaps apply the same test with science.  Perhaps that would give us some clues about the next epoch.

That’s enough philosophizing for me for one day.  I’m off to do the vacuuming.      MM