Apocalypse

'2012', 'The Road', 'The Book of Eli'...all apocalypse movies that are coming out within a few months of each other, and they're money makers as well. Why are we wanting the world to end so much? Is it all the end of days literature that the Christian right has been putting out for awhile now? Is it the bad economy and people are wanting something to happen that will put an end to it? Are our lives so bankrupt and seem so worthless in general that we want a societal suicide? It's hard to say if it's any of these or none of them. Beck the Asshole keeps talking about meltdown for our country (how patriotic is that?) and he has a lot of followers but it's not all teabaggers and religious nuts going to these movies. What's even more interesting when you look at the economic collapse reasoning, when the Great Depression happened, an economic slump that still makes this one look like nothing, the popular movies were escapist musicals and what not, not end of the world tomes. And of course with the whole 2012 scare, this is just the latest in a long line of end of the world 'scares' or scenarios dating back to at least the end of the first millennium before the year 1000 AD. Also economics isn't the only answer when looking at end of the world scares. Look at the Y2K scare at the end of the 90's. The economy was totally booming at the time. This one seemed to have more to do with the change to a new millennium and nothing more. Change is inevitable and always occurs no matter how afraid people in general are of it. They like what they know and change means different circumstances no matter if it means to a better life. You'll even hear people complain about winning the lottery and the changes it has brought their life, or someone that becomes a celebrity, yet so many strive to win the lottery or become famous. Change even happens when it illogically shouldn't. Look at 2000. The economy once again was booming, we had a surplus for the first time in decades, things seemed to really be going the right direction, yet Bush STILL 'won' (it shouldn't even have been that close by this philosophy) and the country took a different path. My final question on this subject is why does it have to be destructive change that's predicted? The Mayans said when their calendar ended it would be the start of a new age but they didn't say it would be a change to complete annihilation or a time of despair and destruction, yet that's how it's been interpreted by Hollywood and many books on the market today. Destruction is more exciting and people pay attention to it instead of to a new Age of Aquarius where people get along and all the divisions going on today are forgotten. Once again, people like what they know, and if they've known division, racism, cynicism, they want to keep knowing it. I mean shit, if you look at how divided we've become over the past 20 years, maybe the apocalypse is already here and the real change would be for us to get past this period in our history. Maybe that's the promise 2012 brings. I know that I will be hoping for that.