Halloween: that particularly spooky time of year in which costumes and Jack-O-Lanterns rule the world, and tooth-rot becomes the new TV. Such fun.
Halloween was a way of life for us when we were kids. There was this sense of motivation in the air and we never worked harder in our lives for candy. The costumes, the get-togethers, the traditional 30-person candy-swap that took place after every Trick-Or-Treating Session.
There's a fair amount of nostalgia and whimsy that comes with this time of year, and we learned historically from last night why. I never used to think about why we used to do the things we did, we just sort of went with it: dressed up and knocked on doors like normal, healthy humans. It wasn't until we got older and started taking a look around that Halloween lost a bit of its sheen. Dressing up was kind of a chore, and trick-or-treating was just for little kids.Why had we always put in so much effort?
I think it's just one of those weird factoids of life that most people go through a phase of "coolness" before they come to their senses. It's just a shame that it would have to be in roughly middle school or high school. Because, when you think about it, that's when you could be out there having the most fun if you really wanted to. You could really embrace the spirit of Halloween: not as the holiday we love to not think about, or as that "cult-night" we all hear about, but as well-formed and well-informed people who understand the benefits of acknowledging the spiritual at all. Let's face it: in today's day and age, you're not going to get a lot of that, and certainly not from a healthy viewpoint when you do. How much more helpful would it be to have a group of teenagers who not only know what Halloween is all about, but who keep that sense of wonder and liveliness around for the younger generations, so that they can learn about it too when the time comes? How against the grain would that be? How unnatural and almost weird?
But hey, it's Halloween. The perfect time for all things weird and crazy.
Pass it on.
