The Nightmare of Ourselves

Its Halloween, and do you know what I just did? I watched the shining for the first time in my life. Bad idea. Although now I understand why people like to walk around wagging their pointer finger saying "redrum" in a creepy voice, regardless, I was scared shitless. Let me rephrase... I AM scared shitless. And now I can't sleep.

Why is it that people love Halloween so much? I have always wondered why it was that this holiday holds a certain intrigue for most people, one that I cannot say I have ever shared. Sure its fun to pretend, to dress up as something you're not that you have always wished to be, and pretend that you don't really want to be an Avatar, or a stripper cop, but that its Halloween and so its okay that you are.

But the real reason in my mind is the concept of fear. It's a thrill for people to scare themselves so badly that they can't leave the covers, but why?

Its because fear is physical. Its not a feeling you just have in your gut, or an emotion that makes you cry. You feel it in your very soul, it rips at your insides and pounds at your heart. People seek fear because, maybe, they just want to feel alive. If just for that one moment, you can actually feel your heart beating, its almost like you know that you're still there, that you still matter. That you can still feel something and your heart is racing and your hands are sweaty and all of a sudden you're aware of your breathing.

There are few emotions that can give you this feeling. Maybe its because we're always searching for answers about life, that we forget sometimes to live in the moment, and it is only then that we truly live. We look at our schedules and follow our clocks so often, that when something creeps up from behind to scare us, it jolts us awake, reminding us that we're not robots.

I think maybe thats why I seek fear. Why I have been waiting for something to show me that I'm not a walking statue. Sometimes I think I lose myself along the way, I forget the importance of love and compassion, and just a sense of where I belong. Sometimes I go so long without that physical feeling of emotion, the one that tears at your heart with a searing pain that cannot be described, that I wonder for a moment if I will ever be able to feel it again. That maybe, these thoughts in my head are merely automatic, devoid of emotion, and bordering on the mechanical. But then something comes along to jolt me awake, hit my heart, and make me feel it.

Its the physical emotion that keeps people guessing, keeps people searching. And when you have the fortunate moment where you discover it, hold onto it a little while, listen to your heartbeat, and remember for a second who you are and try to live up to that. Maybe Halloween isn't such a bad holiday. We all need a little scare now and then.

Anyways, Happy Halloween.