There are two sides to every coin

I would like to begin by saying that I agree with everything that Aloysha said in his last post. However, I believe that it is only half of the story. As artists employing the chiaroscuro technique know, it takes deep shadows to bring out the light. The powerful and haunting depictions of humanity present in the work of Edgar Allen Poe, among others, is achieved by their continual awareness of the skull beneath the skin. Silas's exhortation to Bod at the end of The Graveyard Book is made more poignant by the fact that the boy had been raised in a graveyard.

What I am saying, of course, is that people can only achieve the zeal for life that Aloysha is advocating if they keep their mortality in mind. This is what Tolkien meant when he said that death is the gift of the One to Men. While it can be a bitter gift, it is death, the knowledge that time is limited, makes each experience touching and meaningful and focuses people on the moment at hand.

This discussion is especially apt at this time of year, with Halloween around the corner. The origins of Halloween are in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was their New Year celebrated on November 1st. This feast, coming at the end of the harvest was their way of remembering the year past and preparing for winter which so often brought death with it. They further believed that on the eve of the New Year the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred, and so used this night to remember their dead.

The current issues with Halloween then lie not in their original origins but in the modern distortions of the day. It was not until more recent times that Wiccans and others tried to make it a day devoted to the devil. However, I believe it is the much more common practise of ignoring all meaning of the day that is more troubling. It has become a day celebrating consumerism and promiscuity. As said Cady says in Mean Girls, "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it." But I will come back to this idea at a latter point.

So my challenge to all of you, but particularly to Alyosha who has a vendetta against the day, is to enjoy Halloween but to use it as an opportunity to memento mori. That knowledge is a gift that will help you truely live.

P. S. The quote of this week is my response to Enjolras first post.