It was with a sad face that I realized last week I will not be able to graduate from Emporia State. I looked for solace in my fellow collegians, but they, too, had accepted that their dreams of graduation are no longer in reach. It is not that anything is wrong with ESU, but, rather, very soon meteorites will crash onto our planet. The end is nigh.

But then I thought for exactly one minute on the scenario.

The entire concept of the end of the world hinging upon an ancient Mayan calendar is completely ridiculous. Additionally, this almighty calendar did not seem to prophesize the creators’ own fate of almost entire annihilation. We now have a figurative pot of gold at the end of a rainbow – this hyperbolic death sentence only has worth inside of the mind.

I keep hearing talk of this “dreadful event” around campus, in shopping centers, at the high school and various other locations where I either work or meander when I have dead-time between classes. I understand that some of the comments are in jest, but the way that others express their opinions on the matter make it seem far more serious and honest concerning the end of the world. They speak of stockpiling foodstuffs – Twinkies of all things – and gallons of water, forgetting the thousands of other “true apocalypses” that were supposed to have ravaged and destroyed the world in the past. I believe there was one in 2000. Reading this is nothing short of a miracle.

I understand that people are scared. People desire dread somehow. But feeding this asinine vision of “the end of days” does nothing but perpetuate the hysteria and allows for some other crackpot with a soapbox to proclaim that their knowledge is the true knowledge.

Ultimately, it is far better for us to focus on our final exams as opposed to a fictional cataclysm that will allegedly take place Dec. 21. And if it is true, hell, I won’t feel a thing.