People (myself included) have a fascination with the end of the world. Maybe it's based on fear. We grew up during the Cold War (some of us). Always there has been war, or the threat of war, hanging over us. School teachers bring it up in current events. Newspapers print about the latest fighting news. It's all around us. No wonder we can't get it out of our minds. No wonder we are curious about what will happen afterwards, to the people left here. What will happen to our planet, our civilization, our governments and our businesses? Will our empire Earth still be around once everything really does hit the fan?

I'd like to know. Of course, I don't expect to live long enough to see it. So, I like to see what other people think about it and see as possibilities. Often the possibilities are on the grim side. But, there is a fascination with death, destruction and violence.

Overcome Fear of Doomsday Predictions

This year the Mayans are the predictors of doom. On December 21st, this year, the Mayans predicted a major catastrophe, an end of the world if not the planet itself. No one knows exactly what to expect. People are afraid, even those who are reluctantly afraid or skeptical.

How do you avoid the fear of this doomsday prediction or the next prediction of doom?

Keep in mind this is not the first time doom, apocalypse, Armageddon the end of the world, has been predicted. Every time the century changes, since people started using a calendar, there have been big upsets over the changing of the date. Predictions are usually about the date, the sequence of numbers or something to do with how the planets are moving in the universe around our own planet.

Look up past doomsday predictions Read and learn about them and see how much they have in common with current and future doomsday predictions. It's easy to be afraid of change - that doesn't mean the world will end.

If you are concerned about a particular prediction, do your own research about it. Don't rely on second opinions, gossip and rumours. Find out yourself and decide what you do or don't believe.

Be skeptical. Don't believe in a prediction just because it made the news, got talked about in school, at work, on the bus ride home, etc. Being popular and talked about, doesn't make it true.

Watch out for people who see patterns and believe in doomsday predictions. You can work on any idea long enough and find some kind of pattern. Try it yourself. Or work backwards and disprove the current pattern or conspiracy theory leading to the end of the world and civilization as we know it.

Stop listening. Stop reading the websites, stop listening to theories or reading about patterns and predictions.

Be optimistic. Don't waste too much time upset about something that hasn't happened and may never happen. Even if we are doomed you can only do so much to be prepared. The rest of the time you could be enjoying your life. Don't waste your time being negative about something that's only a prediction after all.

Curiousity and Urban Exploration

I like to see how the world might look in the future. I like to see buildings, those which crumble, but mostly those that survive and remain standing. I like to see how our roads, and all of our great man-made achievements weather and get taken over by nature and time.

This is the same curiousity which drives me to be an urban explorer. Whether I'm in a city, a town or in the middle of nowhere something like a rusty nail, weathered bricks, or a unidentified object possibly used in pioneer days will lure me over for a better look and a photograph.

Originally posted to HubPages. Laura has been photographing historical, abandoned, and rural ruins in Ontario since getting her first digital camera in 2006.

The world is just fine, as a planet. The people who were on the planet are gone. All gone, or are they...?

One reason this movie may never have become one of the well known classics is because some of us (like myself) don't think being alone in the world would be such a terrible thing. Could you handle being the last person on the planet, alone in every way, all day and night?

Harry Belafonte stars in this movie as a miner who is trapped deep in the mine. The world outside undergoes a war and when he finally manages to rescue himself from the mine he discovers everyone he has ever known is now gone. The reason he was never rescued from the mine was the absence of man power.

What would it be like to really be the last people on Earth?

My favourite part of the movie is watching Ralph (Harry Belafonte) make his own world in the dead world he finds himself so alone in. Ralph doesn't like being alone. He makes a place for himself where he brings in store mannequins to seem like company. He talks to them and interacts with them. But, one day, one of the plastic smiles of a mannequin gets on his nerves so he throws him off the balcony.

Down below a woman screams. This is where the story takes on another aspect, the issue of the last man and the last woman standing and, more importantly, the issue of black and white - race.

This movie comes out in the early 1960's. Racism was a big issue, or not, depending on how you look at it. When being racist is socially acceptable and expected is racism an issue at all? When the last two people on the planet are a black man and a white woman is race something of an issue? It is for Ralph, the lead character. He does not feel he can be anything beyond friends with this young, white woman. Yet she thinks there is nothing stopping them, until she finds herself talking about being young, female and white. The movie does make a great statement about race and how the issue is felt beyond the obvious.

Of course, everything is all upset again when a third person comes into their small society, a white man.

The movie ends in a unique way, a solution which seems too modern and is not likely to work out in the reality. It does give the movie a tidier and happier ending. Although... I have always wondered how things will work out as more people are found or manage to find this small group and begin to meld in. Is it possible some of this original group will wander off to be alone again?

I don't look back at my life and think "what if". The past is done and I don't mind to leave it there. But, I'm not so psychologically sane that I don't think "what if" in another direction.

What if there are alternative universes where each of us exists in a different existence. What are all the other me women doing? I bet some have kids, some never lasted this long, some are amassing great fortunes, some are creating extraordinary works of art and some are just sitting home tonight reading a good book.