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| BROWNOUT A kind of modern-day apocalypse |
2012 IS SUPPOSED TO BE it. The end. According to a Mayan prophecy, or so says Woody
Harrelson, on December 21, 2012, the world, as we know it, would come to a
screeching halt, and that civilization would face a collision course with
nature (of course) unlike anything the world has ever seen. But as I write
this, the world is celebrating “Innocence Day” (Dec. 28), and what better way
to summarize this whole end-of-the-world saga than by proclaiming it with a lot
of hubbub, as if that end was just a by-product of our own fascination with the
unknown.
It
doesn’t have to be a physical ending I believe. The world, since the disappearance
of those cassette tapes, is already on its breaking point. You can readily tell
that by the time you reach maturity, you will have a hard time keeping up with
your age. And this fascination over the end of things seemed to have been
getting a lot of attention lately, as if suffering under the wrath of God is a
cool way to end one’s life. Annihilation to the Witnesses.
I
have been hearing this messianic hoopla since 1993. Yes, the year before Polly
died. Better to burn out than to fade away. And the mantra has been recycled
over the years. The Y2K phenomenon, the attack on the Twin Towers in New York,
and even the marriage of Elton John to his long-time boyfriend were seen as birth
pains to this end of the world hashtag, anything but the building of that
temple in that land of milk and honey. We wanted to end this whole contemporary
scene and replaced it with a much bigger screen enough to view an entire
hologram of nonsensical notorieties. Now, the Mayans had entered into the
scene, but came out short of its prediction somehow, and the world, once again,
is a much better place than it really was a few days ago.
Nobody
knows when the end. Tomorrow maybe, perhaps the next day, or better still,
after the next election primaries have been set up. Nobody. Never mind if you
don’t read the Scriptures (nobody does nowadays), but the thought of knowing
the end in advance would be so preposterous, insensitive and so
counterproductive as far as keeping that faith in God is concerned, since most
of those who spread the news are readers of In His Own Write and A Spaniard in
the Works (no disrespect to John Lennon).
But
2012 probably would be the end of Sony Ericsson in a patent suit against
Samsung, or Juan Ponce Enrile as the Senate President of the country. And now
that we have gone through the scare of that 12-21-12, we certainly hope that
this end-of-the-world buzz would die a natural death, at least, for now. 2013
seemed to be a good year after all, for the simple reason that it’s December
doesn’t have any insignia like that of 2012. There’s probably no talk of ending
the world, except, of course, if the United States decides to battle China over
Jeremy Lin rights.
I
think the world will end in 2040. That’s exactly 27 years from now. If someone
is born at this very minute and die come 2040, he would be included in that infamous
27 Club, alongside Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse. Anybody can come up with
their own predictions, in the same way that there are a lot of endings going on
around us without the slightest reception and acceptance we afforded to that
Mayan prophecy. Mel Gibson was probably the closest in terms of predicting the
outcome of what the Mayans believed then, courtesy of his Apocalypto, that the
end of the world signals the arrival of the old one, the old dispensation of
Europe as represented in the film, but in our case, it is the revival of an
age-hold habit: self-righteousness.
How
dichotomous we have become that as we progressed technologically into the 21st
century, our habits have taken a drastic step backwards toward mediocrity and obsolescence.
We have become too polarized a civilization with just a mere border separating
us in between. People have their queer faces staring at me every time I ask for
a condom on a counter as if I’m an anathema. Our conveniences in life have
given us a lot of options for us to choose from, but the tragedy lies not in
the disposal of our unlimited resources but in our ability to make decisions
based on our modern implements. So when someone says that the end of the world
is nigh, the end lies actually from within, and the circumstances surrounding
it was just a reaction of what was going on inside his heart.
Our
lifestyles speak for themselves. I remember George Carlin, that famous comedian
of the old theatre, when he said that many people devour a lot of fast food
stuff into their system but slow in digesting it. The anticipated Apocalypse,
at some point, was trending on social media; it even caught the attention of
the business sector, especially the opportunistic ones, eventually capitalizing
on its potential money-making venture, regardless if the world will end with a
bang or a whimper. It was all a slipshod photo-op, a chance to be included in
the in-crowd, a form of acceptance. Of course, nobody’s serious enough about
ending the whole dispensation. Are you?
Why
don’t we simply go back to the frying pans? Fry some eggs, or a fish-that-died-a-long
time-ago (Bulad). But, seriously, this curtain call has got to stop, ASAP. The
world is ending anyway even if we don’t mention it. Our primetime shows are a
testament to that. If you’re still at it, go ahead, be my guest. But 2012 was a
bad year for the well-wishers. The Mayans should have made up their minds so I
won’t be wasting my time calculating on an empty formula.
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