Well, Halloween is upon us. Perhaps you refer to it as All Hallows Eve, or even Samhain, but in the end, it’s just a name. Some folklore describes Halloween as the single day of the year when the world of the living and the world of the dead become so closely arranged that the dead are able to manifest themselves among the living freely. To others, it is merely a day of revelry where children (and some adults!) masquerade from place to place, collecting treats and falling prey to the occasional trick.
Whatever your view of the holiday, I’m sure that the most will be made of it for those who are able. The biggest thing to remember is to always play it safe. I know, I know, you hear it from every angle each year, but it’s the truth. Even if you live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, there is always a risk of a seemingly innocent neighbor doing something malicious to the “goodies” that he or she gives out. For any kids that may somehow come upon this article, remember this especially. If you’re going to be out after dark, wear something reflective so drivers can see you. If you receive anything that isn’t wrapped, don’t eat or use it! It can be a clue to something sinister afoot. Ask your parents to check your other treats for any signs of tampering. Even though something being wrong with your stuff isn’t necessarily common doesn’t mean that it could never happen, and you can take that to the bank.
As for me this holiday, I’ll be “celebrating” it in my way. This will likely include food, fun and folly with friends, and on a more serious side, some rituals that are fitting for the Sabbot. In the end, I’m sure it will be seen by those involved as something to remember for some time.
In other news, AeonRO just got a big update. It includes a client update from the standard Sakray client to X-Ray, allowing us much greater flexibility in custom client-side additions, as well as 18 new hairstyles for both male and female characters, bringing the total number of styles to a comfortable 41. As a prank for the holiday and our own amusement, the staff and I also did a little job class renaming, which the players -still- haven’t all noticed. And some of the names are just FUNNY. For example, the Gypsy class is now going by the moniker of “Pantsmistress”, while the Archmagus prestige class is currently known as “Magic 8 Ball.” You might think of that as being silly and not very useful, but then it was never intended to be useful…just amusing.
And now, I shall include a quote that, though new to me, has been a part of my thinking for a very long time.
We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.
- Andre Berthiaume
Fitting too is this quote for the holiday. Though on Halloween many of us will wear a mask to hide our identity from others, we often very rarely think about the masks we wear each and every day. Some of us are so used to wearing them that we even forget that we do. I am not innocent of wearing masks either, though I like to think that I remove them more often than some. To wear a mask in this context is to put on a face. It may not hide your identity like those novelties we buy at the store, but in fact it does much worse, in that it hides how you -feel-. Every person has his or her own concerns, worries and problems that run through our minds each day, but do we let everyone know it, or show that something is bothering us? Of course not! As we go out into public everyday, we put on our respective masks that allow us to show only as much emotion as we want others to see. A person may smile at you, but there’s really no way of knowing whether they’re actually happy or just being polite. In contrast, when something really terrible happens, we may put on a mask of anger, causing us to lash out at those around us, while in reality we’re hurting with sorrow or regret on the inside. The reason we wear these masks is because we’re afraid that showing how we really feel will make us appear vulnerable, stupid, or weak. We don’t want people to think we can’t handle whatever hardships we’re facing, to think that we aren’t smart enough to figure out a problem, or know that we’re having a hard time which may make it easy for them to take advantage of us.
This is mostly a means of self-preservation, but it becomes a problem when we become so dependent on our masks that we forget we’re even wearing them, or worse - how to take them off. At that point, the line between who we seem to be and who we really are becomes increasingly muddled, to the point of being entirely indiscernible. It is then that we risk having our lives thrown into turmoil when something so drastic happens that it rips the masks from our faces, taking some of our flesh with it because it had become so adhered. When that happens, we’ve almost actually lost a part of our real selves, that we have to work very hard to get back.
I suppose the moral of this would be that while wearing a mask is a very normal and common thing, never forget to take it off sometimes and truly just be yourself. If you can’t trust anyone enough to do that, then are you really even at terms with yourself, or have you forgotten who you really are?
That’s all for tonight. Ta~
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