Lourdes and I were kindly invited to stay at the marvellous peruvian beach town of Huanchaco from Dec 26 until Jan 2 by our friends Dan and Donna Factor from Venice Beach California. We generally had a great time but for some reason not entirely clear we all felt bummed out at the big moment of midnight Dec 31 2011 as we watched thousands of Peruvians celebrating the passing of the old year with fireworks and alcohol as pulsing techno-cumbia music filled the night.
Why did I feel so low, I asked myself the next day.
No conclusive answer came, except this: I've had the year 2012 on my personal psychic radar screen since the mid 1980's when I read Jose Arguelles' 'The Mayan Factor' and later tuned in to the ravings of the late philosopher/celtic bard Terrance McKenna. Something indefinable woke in me on the intuitive level 25 years ago that there was something stirring, a ripple in the cosmic fabric of the arc of time. Perhaps humanity had reached a portal, a time-nexus, after which nothing would ever be the same again.
For what had I witnessed in my own brief stay on this planet but some kind of near-culmination of the historical process? An acceleration during my own lifetime of unimaginable proportions in technology and corresponding changes in the collective human psyche. Perhaps a headlong rush towards oblivion. Perhaps not.......
But maybe what I hadn't counted on was the continuation of banality. Maybe my low state at midnight Dec 31 2011 was an unconscious reaction along the lines of, what? more of this crap, can't we get beyond techno-cumbia and beer as a species? Time will tell on that one......
