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 Anxiety among the easily frazzled will likely increase over the next 36 months. |
When humanity's end arrives, Clif High plans to take to his plywood ark to survive.
As for the rest of us?
"I don't give a s---, my boat won't sink," says the modern Doomsday prophet.
"Every person's karma (is dealt with) alone. They're all dead."
Or at least 98% of us, reasons the Washington state 'Time Monk', who's become a celebrity among those searching for the next great Armageddon.
Dec. 21, 2009, marks a three-year countdown to mankind's next predicted end -- Dec 21, 2012. It's then that the 5,125-year cycle of the Mayan calendar ends.
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Some believe it can only mean the ancient culture pinpointed 2012 as Doomsday, brought on by a rare galactic alignment of the earth, the sun and the center of the galaxy.
But Maya scholar John Major, and other experts, say attaching Doomsday to the end of the calendar is wrong. And astronomy professors point out the end of the cycle of the calendar simply means it turns around and starts over.
However, anxiety among the easily frazzled will likely increase over the next 36 months.
So much so, NASA has been getting emails from teenagers who are worried the world is doomed.
"I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck, that is ethically wrong," NASA official David Morrison recently told West Virginia's Charleston Gazette.
But Clif High makes no apologies, saying he's not making any money by spreading fear.
He developed the Web Bot Project -- a software program the 57-year-old programmer says scans chat forums, looking for keywords with emotional ties. He sees them as telltale slips most of us don't even know we're making, as our intuition sends out signals we're not even aware of.
High says by charting these algorithms, and tapping into society's collective unconscious, his halfpasthuman.com site can predict major events -- including a sunspot disaster in December 2012.
"All humans are psychic to some degree," he explains from his home near Olympia, Wash.
He's so sure that, on a limited budget, he's building a 26-foot boat where he and a few friends can ride out the cosmic storm. Towed behind will be another vessel, carrying supplies.
"I accept the fear. I eat it," he points out.
The wealthy have already invested money in buying caves, High says, without divulging names.
But perhaps what they're really hiding from is the 'anti-Santa'.
Little Rock, Ar., author and radio broadcaster Corey Deitz, in his 2012 Guide Book or How To Make the End of the World Fun (2012guidebook.com) suggests doomsday may be delivered from an evil Saint Nick, who will emerge on December 21, 2012.
"To be honest, the man is two bricks shy of a chimney," says Deitz of the real Santa's ability to fight back and save humanity. "It wouldn't take much to push him over the edge."
Besides other possibilities -- including black holes, viruses and earthquakes -- humorist Deitz says mankind can't overlook other possibilities, including deadly penguins or exploding celebrities.
Expect the list of fears to only grow from there over the next three years.