Apocalypse Culture

[Seth Ananda]

Every couple of weeks these days there seems to be another prophecy out about some comet or blue planet, or natural disaster...

 

I personally can not wait for 2012 to come and go, as {in my delusionarilly optimistic world} then all this prophecy hype will die down and we wont have to hear about it till someone fabricates a new disaster/end time scenario.

 

I really wish everyone who makes these claims that 'something' will happen were held accountable when it doesn't happen. At the very least we should be able to line them all up and then get to point at them, shouting "HA HA HA YOU were WRONG!" and then get to ask them questions like, 'well if you were wrong about this, what about all your other New age beliefs?'

 

But on a more serious note, we are living In an apocalypse culture.

These are very uncertain times on many fronts, and many of us more sensitive types, 'feel' that something 'needs' to happen to ensure our survival as a species, and feel that the track we are on can not continue and must change some how. That's valid, and is a real source of anxiety for many many people.

Then when you add that to the sense of powerlessness many of us feel to really make a change to the society we live in, to halt it in its tracks and give it a new direction, then you get even higher existential stress.

 

People need a way to deal with this constant underlying stress. It needs 'release' even if it is only a projected future potential for release, like believing in 2012, return of Christ/aliens/5th dimensional saviours, some global shift into higher consciousness or some disaster that allows us to start again and rebuild in a new way...

Any 'something is going to happen' scenario can serve to release a bit of the pressure.

 

To me this is sad. But hopefully when 2012 has come and gone, we can realise we are in this soup we created, and only our fine selves can get us out of it. Then hopefully we can stop waiting for energy shifts, aliens, mayan dates and so on, that we have been relying on to save us, or to fix things for us.

 

Then maybe we will really start to Act, and hopefully it wont already be too late.

 

Peace to all beings.

Seth.

Edited September 25, 2011 by Seth Ananda

[thelerner]

I predict Change

Sometimes when unhappy

I predict

Disaster..

some where

some time

and I'm always right.

 

 

Sometimes I take news fasts,

no TV, newspaper or radio

I walk in the sun

Watch children play

I'm happier

and think

there's 10,000

good things

going on

I just don't notice.

and the sun goes down again.

[Seth Ananda]

I predict Change

 

Hehe, I think James Randy owes you a Million dollars

[Cat Pillar]

I think you bring up a really important point, Seth.

 

Then hopefully we can stop waiting for energy shifts, aliens, mayan dates and so on, that we have been relying on to save us, or to fix things for us.

 

A lot of people are waiting with bated breath, holding back their energy and not taking action because they're hoping for a deus ex machina. And I think you very accurately pointed out one of the main reasons why:

 

Then when you add that to the sense of powerlessness many of us feel to really make a change to the society we live in, to halt it in its tracks and give it a new direction, then you get even higher existential stress.

 

However, it is what it is. As much as we could speculate on how different things might be if people didn't have this fear, they do. Overcoming that fear can only happen on an individual basis, and the best we can do is serve as examples for those bold enough to try.

 

Personally, I'm refraining from taking any solid stance towards what might or might not happen in 2012. I do hope that nothing cataclysmic happens, mostly because I'm finally starting to make progress towards a point where I'll actually enjoy living...and it'd be a shame to die so soon after finally wanting to live.

[Birch]

I tried to post Prince's 1999 as an illustration but it doesn't work so well mobile.

Yes I've noticed a lot more "end of times" talk (aside from my idea that "end of times" is just equivalent to the mystic experience of ego-death)

I had another idea that recalling death/catastrophe (because we're all going to die in one way or another, sooner or later) might be just the kick in the butt some folks are seeking, to be able to do whatever they want to do. Hey, won't deny a dying person several hundred last wishes huh:-)? I figure if you're going to have an apocalyptic culture, might as well be as hedonistic as possible:-)

Except the "end times" we pick are sort of, er, arbitrary. Many of them happened before (apparently).

[Sloppy Zhang]

People have been invoking "the end of the world", "the end of civilization as we know it", "impending mass chaos and destruction" for as long as civilization has been relatively stable.

 

On the History channel I heard that some Roman historian prefaced his history book with "politicians are corrupt, society is full of poor, crime runs rampant, the young don't listen to their betters, society is collapsing and so I'd rather turn and look to the better days".

 

I heard that the book of Revelations in the Bible had some numerical code that painted the Roman emperor Nero as the anti-Christ.... putting the end of days during the reign of that particular emperor.... which means the end of days has already happened

 

So, basically, the point of all of these anecdotes is that, when put into perspective, it's nothing new. There's always going to be some calender which suddenly stops that we can point to and say "it's the end of the world!" There is always going to be some astronomical alignment which only occurs every hundred million years, and the last time it happened, a huge ass volcano erupted and killed everything on the sub-continent, triggering a massive tidal wave that destroyed a nearby island chain, which caused a mass exodus of living creatures which subsequently killed each other off in a competition for food......

 

People will look for messages even when there aren't any. Sometimes to the point where they'll miss the actual messages the universe is trying to send.... like.... "do something productive with your life!"

[doc benway]

Having lived through 1984, Y2K, atomic panic of the 1960's, and a host of other apocalyptic times, I'm not too concerned about 2012.

My guess is that there are apocalyptic concerns and predictions in every age and every culture.

It's human nature.

Our preoccupying and primary driving motive in all things is security.

The greatest insecurity is the notion of an apocalypse so it will always be with us.

[manitou]

Well, there is one thing we can do about it. We can lose the fear of death and then none of it makes any difference anyway.

[doc benway]

Well, there is one thing we can do about it. We can lose the fear of death and then none of it makes any difference anyway.

Exactly - the greatest security we can achieve is the acceptance that security itself is an illusion.

[Birch]

The wha...?

[billb]

Having lived through 1984, Y2K, atomic panic of the 1960's, and a host of other apocalyptic times, I'm not too concerned about 2012.

My guess is that there are apocalyptic concerns and predictions in every age and every culture.

It's human nature.

Our preoccupying and primary driving motive in all things is security.

The greatest insecurity is the notion of an apocalypse so it will always be with us.

 

1984? I don't remember anything apocalyptic about that year. What exactly made this year apocalyptic?

[hagar]

1984? I don't remember anything apocalyptic about that year. What exactly made this year apocalyptic?

 

The 80s were an acopalypse in and of itself.

 

My impression of this focus on apocalypse is that the inherent unsustainability of our ego-based culture.

 

What astounds me is that the essence of life is that of endings; on a national level we experienced a mini-armageddon here in Oslo this July. I witnessed it. 2 days ago my dad suffered his second coronary. He may throw in the towel any day. Bad things happen, suffering is a part of life, and trauma follows life, from birth to the grave. Birth itself is a trauma.

 

I sense that most of what we now are talking about as the "end of times" is our collective rejection of the way technology is changing our world and our lives. Also, people are collectively more and more focused on the fear of death. And I mean the ego death. Because the ego is more and more derived from being in an actual virtual reality. Pull the plug, stop watching TV, and listen. See what will happen if we stop accepting all information that is not percieved in the present experience. The whole world changes if we let go of all artifice.

 

Unfortunately, nobody speaks of all this space and silence that far surpasses any turmoil we are now witnessing.

 

h

[三江源]

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Edited March 22, 2015 by 三江源

[Enishi]

Baring the possibility of some coastal flooding due to Global Warming, I think most of the "Earth Changes" stuff is nonsense.

 

However, it's quite apparent that the world is entering a several decades period of upheaval as the old economic and political order shifts. Perhaps in the new world there will be a better knowledge of the holistic interconnected nature of things.

[Owledge]

There could be a great irony in the whole 2012 talk. People say that a great shift in consciousness will happen. That some people will be able to handle it and grow, while others will cling to the old ways and not make it, but suffer greatly or even perish.

 

What if exactly the people having strong 2012-expectations will be proven right, but will also be the ones who have to suffer and perish? What if the great opportunity for a shift in consciousness is created by the people themselves, and when 2012 ends, they have to either recognize how reality is shaped by ourselves or suffer greatly due to an extreme degree of denial ensuing?

[三江源]

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Edited March 22, 2015 by 三江源

[doc benway]

I sense that most of what we now are talking about as the "end of times" is our collective rejection of the way technology is changing our world and our lives. Also, people are collectively more and more focused on the fear of death. And I mean the ego death. Because the ego is more and more derived from being in an actual virtual reality. Pull the plug, stop watching TV, and listen. See what will happen if we stop accepting all information that is not percieved in the present experience. The whole world changes if we let go of all artifice.

 

Unfortunately, nobody speaks of all this space and silence that far surpasses any turmoil we are now witnessing.

 

h

Beautiful post...

 

I occasionally watch TV and movies for entertainment but I abandoned following news and current events several years ago. I feel like I benefit more from dedicating that time to doing things other than following the news (meditation, music, interacting with people...).

 

Re: 1984, hagar's post describes it. There was a sense of technologically related impending doom and the title of George Orwell's book was taken by some as an apocalyptic prediction or premonition

[Owledge]

Upheaval and shifts in economical and political order are happening all the time. Maybe twisted conventional history prevents that from being seen, or maybe a lack of effort in examining society.

 

This reminds me of a statement I recently saw in another forum. Someone said that there are clearly more people with insight and enlightenment today than there were in 1400 or 1200. I wonder where the statistics backing that are.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Hardyg

[Enishi]

Really? Have you looked into the Earth Changes at all?

 

I've read about it in various sources over the years. Most of it is channeled/New Age material. I found the ZetaTalk website quite informative, but assuming for the moment that the Zetas are real, they seem to be a very manipulative and dishonest bunch. It interested me for awhile, but now it doesn't impress me much.

 

Some astral spirits mention it as well, but the question to ask in that case is whether their awareness is focusing on a specific area of the collective consciousness of humanity that WANTS such an occurrence to happen.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Enishi

[三江源]

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Edited March 22, 2015 by 三江源

[iamtheare]

If anything does actually happen, I think it's going to be a shift in consciousness and world view. All that other crap is just...exactly that, crap.

 

It's just change and we're moving into a new era so there's gonna be quite a lot of fear and chaos.

Edited September 26, 2011 by iamtheare

[三江源]

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Edited March 22, 2015 by 三江源

[Owledge]

Crap, from the taoist point of view, isnt neccesarily just crap. There isnt really any such thing as 'just crap' in a depth viewpoint.

Exactly. Maybe we're entering a new era ... the era of crap.

[Enishi]

Have you looked at NASA stuff about solar flare increase?

 

What do you think of Greg Braden's research about the earth changes?

 

The Solar Flare increase did make me wonder, but there have already been several reports of such, along with warnings of electronic communications being knocked out, and such hasn't happened yet.

 

I haven't seen Greg Braden's research yet. I will look it up soon.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Enishi

[三江源]

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Edited March 22, 2015 by 三江源