Picture courtesy Sarah Shanfield.Sarah communes with the globe

While there are good reasons to be skeptical about the Mayan calendar prediction that the world will end today, The Local decided to ask journalist, savant, thought-leader, and Local contributor Sarah Shanfield for words of advice and comfort.

Sarah, the end of the world seems to be predicted with frightening regularity these days. How have you felt in the past when it turned out to be a false alarm?

No one was more upset at the failure of the rapture than me. I had not even started my taxes and was going to wait until the last fiery demon rode away in a chariot made of rabid wolves to see if I’d be alive enough to have to actually sit down and file them. Boy, was I wrong! I have learned not to put too much belief in these human predictions. Still, I won’t do any Christmas shopping until acid-filled pigs stop falling from the sky on Friday and then, only then, will I venture to the Union Square holiday market.

Coming from California as you do, we know you’re an earthquake expert. Do you expect the end of the world to involve earthquakes, as well as other disastrous phenomena, or not necessarily?

Humans – and living organisms in general – are very smart. We defy the laws of nature time and time again (like you said, I’m from California. Nature, gravity and logic are all defied by the faces of my mother’s friends). Especially after Sandy, I don’t question the power of a humankind to be able to survive whatever the earth or the forces that be will throw at him or her. Read more…