I was a drunk

Because I’m usually the guy you hate on Halloween (the one who hoards candy and critiques jack-o-lantern designs, all under the pretense of wearing a costume that’s really nothing more than a “festive” hat), I wanted this year to be different. I wanted to be justified in my snobbery.

My plan was to spend the week before Halloween brainstorming and deliberating long into each night until I found a costume with the precise balance of wit, intricacy and fashion. Then I’d execute it in a way Tim Gunn would laud. This was my plan until something disappointing caught my eye: a gaggle of young children and their lackluster costumes.

I’m not sure what I expected, or what I had thought of the kiddy costumes from my suburban home, but this group was especially sobering. There were kids dressed in suits as what I presume were corporate hacks. There were UPS delivery boys, police women and what might as well have been the embodiment of the soulless capitalist -- maybe too harsh considering they were at most five.

Still, I was disillusioned. I had always thought Halloween was about devoting oneself to and pretending to be something (a zombie, a humpback whale, the embodiment of an epidemic) that one found interesting, scary, creative or adventurous. Could a man in a suit (unless he’s Slender Man or Don Draper, which I’m absolutely sure he wasn’t) really be called creative or interesting?

Then a second bout of disillusionment washed over me: of course little boys think suits are interesting. Suits are mature and off-limits and what grownups wear, and little do kids know they’re hot and make your neck itch. This was a waste of natural, unadulterated, youthful imagination.

Interestingly, just like kids sometimes dress as adults, college kids (I can at least speak for myself) dress as childish things: Superman, the embodiment of idealistic strength and impeccable moral standing; a zombie apocalypse, the embodiment of the primordial fear of a monster pandemic; ketchup, the embodiment of the will to gorge oneself.

These realizations somehow deterred me from dressing up, and I say this only partly in a fit of failed justification. If Halloween is about make-believe and pretending to be a young soul, then those educated among us will likely need more than a costume. Most will need to make mischief, to pumpkin, prank and, of course, consume an exorbitant quantity of alcohol. That helps too.

The irony that good ol’ ethanol helps adults act childishly again is a little disturbing. Literature, film, academia and all sorts of adult things, however, present this irony. One good example is the play "Finding Neverland," a story about J.M. Barrie and the creation of Peter Pan. The scene in which “the Man” finally believes Peter Pan could be a successful story happens, and could only happen, in a bar. The adult world finally recognizes the importance of imagination only while a tad tipsy.

One word for this childish compulsion is jouissance, a french word meaning delight or enjoyment. In postmodern philosophy, signifiers (words, education, interpretations of our world) condemn jouissance. Those who use language to name the world lose the ability to enjoy it. Jouissance is pure, while language and education are not.

For me, Halloween isn’t simply about dressing up; It’s about being a kid despite my inevitable maturity. Alcohol, the loss of fear of failure, the dampening of the drive to over-analyze, the freedom to say things without the good sense to fully comprehend their repercussions: these things make me feel like a kid again. A costume may be festive, but it might not do the trick.