Monsters

Children went trick-or-treating in our subdivision today. It's an annual tradition in our community to have them celebrate the very American custom of begging strangers for candies. Nothing is more American than middle class Quezon City suburbia, and we certainly did not disappoint. I can't wait for the Thanskgiving parade next month.

This practice of dressing up as monsters once a year has been described in the classic seminal work "Mean Girls" as "that one time of the year where girls get to dress slutty and not get judged for it."

Which got me wondering, "What is this fascination to dressing up as the things we fear the most?"
 
This lead me to asking the question, "what is it that we fear the most, and why?"

I believe that the monsters we fear the most are the creative abstraction of our very human and very personal fears.

I.

Vampires, for example. These damned creatures are damned to spend their lives in darkness, and to walk centuries alone, never making any strong relationships that could outlast mortal lives. Vampires are creatures who are doomed to lose everyone they love, their families, lovers, friends. They are cursed to spend all eternity with other vampires, creatures as equally corrupt as they are. Together, they force themselves to accept clan rules, to embrace loyalties based on necessities.

We fear vampires because we are scared of growing old alone. We are afraid of our own sins, of our own corruption, and that our flaws will condemn us to never make strong bonds with others. We fear that we must live in darkness because others will never accept us. We accept bonds with other equally corrupted being because we fear they are the only ones who will understand. Vampires stand for that fear in all of us of being too different, of being not good enough.

Werewolves, on the other hand, are creatures who lose control of themselves when the moon is full. How Catholic: feeling guilty for acts committed, but would not take responsibility for any of it. Instead, liability falls to the moon, a celestial presence. "It's not me that ravaged your daughter and destroyed everything in my path, it's the moon." Which sounds like an excuse as good as "the Devil made me do it" and "It was God's will that I am running for Governor of your poverty-stricken province." It's never our fault, is it? It's the pressure of having to deliver quantifiable results, it's the traffic, it's the low carb diet. There's always something to blame, there's always the moon.

Ghosts. What could be more fearsome than spirits earthbound for all eternity? Ghosts are mere shadows of their former selves. Beings that are much less of the beings they used to be. Beings that will never be "becomings". The best of their existence is now behind them, and they can never become anything more than what they are: remnants of lives formerly vibrant, formerly real.

Our fear of ghosts is rooted in our fear of being disappointments. We  fear that we have reached our prime, and we are nothing but wraiths desperately clinging on to something we still hold precious. Like a lover clinging to a pillow on an empty bed, like all the medals we polish dirt off from. We are afraid of seeing everyone in our lives move on, to leave us behind forever tied to memories they have forgotten.

Just as similarly lifeless are zombies. In recent years, zombies have grown into fashion. From zombie-themed runs to hit zombie dramas on TV. Zombies are animated corpses driven by their basic needs to consume, consume, consume.

Zombies reflect our fear of losing our identities. Of becoming mindless mobs, acting under an imperative that we have no control over. As much as we fear authoritative governments and dictators, our love for all the civil liberties we enjoy has made us afraid of zombies, creatures tthat have no individual personalities. Each zombie can stand for the other. They are the faceless mob, the unthinking collective, loyal subjects of hunger's dictates.

Yet, the odd thing is, zombie behavior reflects that of consumerist behavior. Anyone who has seen people lined up for the newest Apple product will surely agree with me. In this day and age, corporations are obsessed with SELL, SELL, SELL.

And all you can think of is BUY, BUY, BUY. Buy a condo, an iPhone, a car, a blended coffe-based beverage, a new outfit for Spring. Marketing is nothing more than brainwashing, advertising is just a hip way of calling propaganda without scaring people off. Marketing is crowdcontrol so you zombies can line up nicely for the store opening. Marketing wants you to believe you need these things in your lives, when all you really need is to DO SOMETHING GOOD, and not HAVE SOMETHING GOOD. Stop WANTING TO HAVE, and START WANTING TO DO. Do not measure your existence by the number of things you have, but the number of things you have DONE. Do not be a zombie, GET A LIFE.

II.

Perhaps, we should take a look at kids and their idea of dressing up in costume. While our costumes reflect those that we fear the most, theirs give us an idea of what they want to be the most: princesses and heroes, and robots and knights, soldiers and Iron Man, firemen and ballerinas.

III.

So, why do we dress up as the things we fear the most?

Because in becoming them, we subvert our fears. By embracing them, by becoming them, we become in control. We are in control of our fears of growing old alone, of being villified, of consuming everything without a thought. We feel most alive when we know being dead is just a matter of make-up and old clothes.