Halloween

There is a whole range of Halloween addicts. When I ask my four year old cousin if he is excited for Halloween his immediate response is “Yeah! Im going to get so much candy! I can’t wait.” And then my 11 year old brother on the other hand is like: “All my friends are coming over tomorrow! There is gonna be Steve from Minecraft, the Scream, a ninja, a cotton candy monster and angry bird and so many more!”And then there is another category on the opposite side of the spectrum, who could care less for the occasion, simply feeling forced to hand out candy.

At first my reaction to this was: where has all the spirit gone? But then I realized, maybe it’s a good thing our “spirit” isn’t the same as it always was.

Our friendly, 21th century definition of Halloween includes pumpkins, dressing up and eating candy; but Halloween never actually started out that way. In AD 601 the Roman Catholic Church saw Halloween as a day when the Lord of Death releases evil spirits– like ghosts, witches, and demons– into the night to haunt and trick the civilians. There were such beliefs as human sacrifice and death. As a result, ugly faces would be carved on a pumpkin to scare away evil– the candle inside being the sacrifice for the spirits.

It’s kind of creepy to think how these same jack-o-lanterns are the decorative crafts that we nowadays are so excited to make. And how the demons that people were once afraid of, are the demons we now dress up as. It puts things into more perspective about how maybe a lack of enthusiasm is such a negligible change in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, here is my share of Halloween spirit. Hope you like it :) 

Writing a Difficult Conversation

Writing a difficult conversation should have been easy. I practically spend my whole life pinpointing how difficult and complicated humans try to make things.  For say, smart phones. “We simplify your life” they say, “You can have the wondrous world-wide- web at the tip of your fingers” they say.   Instead, all they really do is pack all the stress of your life–both professional and personal– and throw it at the tip of your fingers.  Every minute you get a Facebook message to respond to or an email notification with a new assignment to do. And because, you have a smart phone, there is no getting around or distancing yourself from society.  Instead you are on duty 24/7–Always working.

And then of course there is this assignment.  “Don’t worry, don’t feel restricted to limiting yourself” the teacher says. “Just write something difficult, anything, dialogues, experiences,, fantasies, whatever you want!”

 Uhh great, now I need to find out what I want. And it is not like I can just google “a difficult conversation” on a smart phone for some inspiration. So instead I’m faced with the troublesome issue of planning and organizing something to write. So I went to ask my brother, what he thought. “Ohh that’s easy he said. You know what’s difficult? You!” he sniggered.  And to that I scrunched my eyebrows and left.  Well he surely was difficult.

And then I realized a difficult conversation that everyone faces persistently:  The constant battle of thoughts within your conscience. What to write this essay about, what choices to make… who to talk to, when to talk, what to say, whether to follow intuition or judgment, whether what you say makes sense. All these questions, thoughts, ideas, critiques, judgments, opinions, all flutter through your head and then just splatter on to the page. Just rambling on and on and on, the mind just never stops pondering and digressing from one subject to the next– and every day we are faced with that difficult conversation. Never do we get a chance to freeze time or to freeze that inner voice in your head that just never stops talking.

Our mind itself is an intricate topic of its own. There are plenty of people who can dismantle a phone and examine its functionality– but unfortunately that solution won’t work on the brain.

Maybe you have the key to explaining why our minds are so difficult and crammed, because I surely don’t.  Maybe my brother was right, the most difficult conversations are held right within ourselves. (Well I’m sure that’s not what he meant; he’ll be humored to know that his tease helped nonetheless.) Anyway, so what do you think? Is your conscience a difficult conversation? Does your mind agree?