apocalypse – The Concordian

Pay attention to the world around you.

I abandoned social media a long time ago. I barely use most of the apps installed on my phone. I don’t always have my phone in front of me, although it’s almost always within my proximity. I didn’t realize how much I depend on my phone until I watched Netflix’s Leave the World Behind. This movie is about a family who rents a house outside of New York City for a little getaway. They witness unusual events that start to perturb them. Upon their expected return, the family realizes that they were on the brink of a civil war.

The movie was a wake-up call. To be honest, I didn’t immediately understand the moral of the story—I found myself with more questions than answers by the end. After perusing comments about the film’s trailer video on YouTube, it dawned on me. And I was terrified.

Leave the World Behind is about an apocalypse. I don’t watch thrillers often, but out of all the apocalyptic ones I have seen, this movie is, by far, the most realistic. Like Rosie, the protagonist’s daughter, a lot of us are consumed by our personal needs more than what is happening elsewhere in the world, like war. It is terrifying how preoccupied we are with our own affairs that we neglect what really matters. What I learned from the movie is that I don’t want to be oblivious.

I might not drive, but I still rely on Google Maps when I walk somewhere I’ve never been. Like Clay, the husband, I probably wouldn’t know how to find my way home if I had no access to public transportation. I’d most likely be lost without GPS, and that’s a fear that I didn’t even know I had before watching Leave the World Behind.

In the movie, the satellites are hacked. As far as the viewer knows, everyone within the New York state loses signal so that no one can turn to the internet or the television for news about what’s going on. The characters are confused and scared, as they don’t know the cause of the blackouts. All they know is that something is definitely wrong.

Although some events are extreme and might even be far-fetched, this type of apocalypse could happen to us. We live in a world where hacking is possible. Like in the movie, should our satellites be hacked, the Tesla cars in the world could probably drive and crash on their own. We might not all drive a Tesla, but most of us use a smartphone that can do so many things for us. Should there be a blackout, we’d have to rely on cash when some people prefer to use their debit or credit cards to make transactions. We rely heavily on smart services, but the story begs the question: Is this smart?

Despite how disturbed Leave the World Behind left me, I realized how important it is to pay attention to the world around us, especially the one outside our immediate perception. It is important that we learn to enjoy life outside of technology. It is important for us to have different monetary means in case the systems are down. It is important to have emergency supplies because you never know. And most importantly, it is important for us to be kind to one another, especially in times of crisis. I learned that we shouldn’t leave the world behind because this could very well turn into us being left behind one day. And that would be terrifying, to say the least.

Doomsday: fact or fiction?

Doomsday is a mere month away—if you believe in that sort of thing. Brace yourself.

We can expect the apocalypse to occur on Dec. 21, according to the Mayan calendar that will end and begin a new term, which will begin our winter solstice.

The day is said to be the last day of the 13th baktun, or 144,000-day cycle of the Ancient Mayan calendar. The Ancient Mayans saw the end of the 13th baktun as the end of a full cycle.

Many people took this information and ran with it, saying that since the Mayan Calendar term ends on Dec. 21, 2012, this means that our earth will cease to live.

Wrong. Like any calendar, when a new year comes, we get a new one. Same exact concept here. A Mayan term has ended and a new cycle will now begin. It does not mean that the world as we know it will end due to the beginning of a new cycle.

Some may ask why we link the Mayan calendar to our doomsday. The answer is simple; because “many people who would like to believe in something that science can’t explain look to alternative sources of information on which to base their ideas,” explained Concordia University Professor Lorenzo DiTommaso, who teaches religion and studies global apocalyptism.

DiTommaso supports the idea that nothing will occur that day because “it assumes that the universe works in ways beyond scientific explanation.”

Marcello Canuto, the director of the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University, told LiveScience website that the “13th baktun date was an important calendrical event that would have been celebrated by the ancient Mayans; however, they make no apocalyptic prophecies whatsoever regarding the date.”

Besides, not all believers of the Mayan apocalypse believe the world will turn into ashes.

“If there is change, it will be because we decide it, not because somebody or something has foreordained it,” DiTommaso said.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been the source of many answers to people’s concerns and worries on whether or not the world will end that day.

“Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won’t be the end of the world as we know it. It will, however, be another winter solstice,” states NASA’s website.

Although some people believe the world will end on Dec. 21, others believe that it won’t necessarily end, but that something negative will happen.

The NASA website states that “nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.”

It seems social media truly blew this one out of proportion. This whole issue has made me so enraged with people who don’t know how to simply fact check and will believe anything that they are told. To my knowledge, no one ever paid any attention to the Mayan calendar before, but suddenly it’s the one thing we are going to base our whole existence and future on.

I’m sure everyone remembers the biblical “rapture” that was supposed to take place in May of this year? Well, like that day, I’ll be waiting for Dec. 21 to come and go, just to continue on with my life, nothing having changed.