This may be my last entry.

No, I’m not quitting The Argus. It’s just that the world might be ending later this month.

There has been a lot of talk about the Mayans and their prophecies these days. For those of you who are wondering where all of these doomsday predictions came from, I am here to provide some answers.

It all started about 2,000 years ago in a quaint little civilization located deep in Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization is known for a lot of things, but nothing has gotten more attention than their complex system of calendars. The Maya had a pretty impressive grasp on mathematics and astronomy; they also had an arrangement of three astonishingly accurate calendars, each of which served a different purpose. First was the Haab, a civil calendar that was based on 18 periods of 20 days with five days added at the end to synchronize with the solar year. The second was the Tzolkin calendar, based on 20 periods of 13 days, which was used for ceremonial purposes. The third calendar, the culprit of all the controversy, was The Long Count. This one had the longest period and could be used to define any date, past or present. This is the one that is calculated to “reset to zero” on Dec. 21, 2012. Day zero: Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.E. The significance of this date is still a mystery, as most of the recorded history of the Mayans occurred thousands of years later, between 435 and 830 C.E.

The Mayan calendrical system was lost with the rest of the Mayan civilization, mysteriously, around the year 822. Whatever remained of it was destroyed by the Spanish during their conquest a few centuries later. It wasn’t until the 1990s that we uncovered most of what we now know about the mystifying Mayans. We performed all sorts of tests, carbon dating all of their artifacts, mathematically equating their dates to ours using every bit of astronomical knowledge we’ve ever acquired, and suddenly the apocalypse was upon us.

They couldn’t even give us a fair warning.

So now we know that the world is ending, but just what will the end of the world look like? Some people predict that changes in the sun’s magnetic field will cause our favorite star to turn on us, virtually blowtorching our little planet. Others believe that we will be sucked up by the Milky Way’s black hole, or, worse, a “cloud of negative energy!” All of these theories, however, have been proven impossible or just completely ridiculous by scientists. NASA even made a makeshift public service announcement in December 2011 to refute any theories that a star will be exploding into us any time soon. Still, all the scientists in the world couldn’t keep a certain group of believers, called “Doomsday Preppers,” from stocking up on materials to protect them from any of the millions of “possibilities.” Preppers, rest assured knowing that every method of water-preservation and bomb-shelter-building can be found online. Apocalypse preparation is a pretty booming business these days. If we still exist on Dec. 22, at least our economy might not look too shabby. I personally think it is all pretty ridiculous. But hey, whatever helps you fall asleep at night.

If you asked me how the world would meet its end, I’d tell you that it will probably be caused by our unfounded mass hysteria. We might just simply destroy each other. Maybe this hysteria won’t be sparked by a comet colliding into us, as Nostradamus predicted; maybe we’ll simply bring it upon ourselves. If a society allows its rules and morals to dissolve in a fit of frenzied fright, there is no limit to the damage it can do. Luckily, we’ve seen so many false alarms in the past few years that prophesizing the end of the world feels a little like crying wolf. We were supposed to end at the dawn of the year 2000. We are still here. We were supposed to end on May 21, 2011, and again on Oct. 21 of the same year, according to Christian radio host Harold Camping. We are still here. Will we still be here on Dec. 22? Looking at our odds, I think there is a good chance we will.

As a species, we humans are constantly looking for answers, trying to explain the inexplicable. The truth is that we will never be completely sure of the Mayans’ intentions, and there is now evidence that says that our calculations between our calendar and theirs are at least 60 days off target. Perhaps we want to know the day of our demise; the existence of a forever is a much more frightening concept. Death is just one nonsensical thing that we are constantly trying to make sense of. The Mayans have just given us another shaky lead in our quest for answers.

Then again, perhaps the biggest question on everyone’s mind is: Do we still have to buy holiday gifts this year?