B’ak’tun the Drawing Board

Dear Mister Eccentric,

Where’s the kaboom? The Mayans promised an Earth shattering kaboom!

Marvin T. Marshall
Mars, PA.

Ah those crazy Mayans. It still astounds me how accurate their calendar was…and how inaccurate everyone’s interpretation of it is.

For those of you not in the know, or if today is your first day on the internet ever (welcome, btw), December 21st 2012 marked the end of the 13th Mayan B’ak’tun… and subsequently, the world. Or so Facebook would have you believe.

But, it was never a doomsday thing. Quite the contrary actually. Ever the optimists, the Mayans had intended this to be a period of great change and renewal!

It may surprise you to learn that the Maya were a civilization comprised to the greatest motivational speakers ever known to man. How else could you convince someone to give up their still beating heart for the greater good?

So, back in the 8th b’ak’tun or so (about 1900 years ago) a bunch of their pitchmen got together with an idea for the mother of all self help marketing ploys: Start spreading vague rumors about the end of the 13th b’ak’tun. and when it comes, hit the public with the punchline – B’ak’tun the Future, the ultimate in Mayan self help trends.

A recent dig in Belize even found one of their proposed ads: “B’ak’tun the Future – if the calendar can start over from scratch, so can you! Each month you’ll receive a new clay tablet outlying your action plan to a new you…”

Sadly, the Mayans never predicted what disasters a 2000 year buzz campaign could result in. Or the Spanish for that matter. In fact, the only thing the Mayans may have predicted was the coming of Scrabble – why else make a language with so many X’s and Qs?

So that’s it, there’s no apocalypse now. But that doesn’t mean the Mayan’s plan has to die with the myth. The calendar has reset, so should you. You survived the end of the world, you lived… now go live! It’s what the Mayans intended all along!