It’s getting
colder, but you probably already know that, it being October and all. Some of the residents here plan on taking
their kids out for trick or treat next week.
Not everyone wants to, though.
Celebrating holidays can be controversial at times. Halloween, a holiday of gluttony, doesn’t
have a place in some people’s hearts.
And of course, it was a holiday for kids and not a lot of children
survived the fall. So the 31st
can be a rough day for those who suffered that particular loss. And the kids don’t really get it,
either. Some of these kids were too
young to trick or treat before The Fall hit, and now they don’t understand the
point. I remember hearing about the
children of settlers and how they grew up early and were basically adults by
the time they were in their tweens. I
think we’ve returned to that. Kids today
tend to be practical and all business.
Trick or treating is basically a treat for the very young ones and a
comfort to some of the adults who still want a piece of the old world to hold
on to.
And why
not? There’s nothing wrong with
celebrating a holiday, even if it has lost its meaning. Hell, just look at Halloween before The
Fall. Who actually dressed up and
thought, “I’m going out and scare away evil spirits with my kickass Ninja
Turtle costume?” What adults would look
out at the horde of costumed children and think, “Ah, mummers! And just in
time for harvest! I will now bend my
taboos of privacy and safety by handing out treats to random strangers in honor
of Samhain!” No one. No one has thought that in centuries. But we kept celebrating Halloween because it
was fun. And because, regardless of our
beliefs, flaunting taboos is still something that, culturally, we needed to get
out.
Christmas is
another example. Though it held a
religious connotation to many, to others Christmas was just a day of peace and
love. A day when you could be with your
family and celebrate the fact that a morbidly obese time lord just
broke into your house. And now it’s
just the same. Holidays are a means for
us to unwind. There’s not much of an
organized religious belief for the most part. People are disillusioned and they don’t have
time for it.
Although, I
do find it interesting that religion has taken such a hit. Yes, the world we live in today is harsh and
people find it difficult to reconcile a loving god with what has happened. Truth be told, though, that’s a very First
World viewpoint. Entire populations have
been living in a hell worse than this for a very long time. Entire countries have been ravaged by
warlords, cartels, sociopathic dictators, secret police, genocides, cleansings,
corruption, and so on since time began.
Yet religion has thrived even in those cultures. You had people who would hold their religion
even as they were threatened with mutilation and death. Christianity itself grew and thrived even as the Romans attempted to stamp it out and butchered its followers. And yet we in the First World renounce all
faith, holidays, any belief at all, the moment we’ve been robbed of our
Starbucks. This hell we’ve been living
is nothing new. It’s just the scenery
that is new, improved, and bitey.
So I
promised no morose reminiscing and instead I’ve rambled. Hooray?
Look, I don’t know what point I’m trying to make. I don’t know what I believe anymore. All I know is that I’ll be handing out candy
to whatever kids come by next week. I
don’t think, just because the world has changed, that we need to let go of
everything we ever had. Some change is
necessary in order to live. But some
change just alters us too much. We’re
still human. We need something to
celebrate. Something to convince us that
there is more to life than what we have now.
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