Halloween is not only about putting on a costume, but it’s about finding the imagination and costume within ourselves.

Halloween is not only about putting on a costume, but it’s about finding the imagination and costume within ourselves.

ELVIS DURAN

Halloween is the day when we get it right. Strangers come to us, beautiful, ugly, odd or scary, and we accept them all without question, compliment them, treat them kindly, and give them good things. Why don’t we live like that?

Halloween breaks the rules. We are prone to dress up in costume to the delight of not only others, but to our inner child who never wishes to fully grow up. In this magic holiday, we are given express permission to divert from the norm, arrive wherever it is that we are headed, and show ourselves as an internal expression of our imagination. 

When the barriers are broken, and we are acting disparate from how we might feel at another time of the year, there is an internal joy and satisfaction of breaking the norm, acting out and behaving differently than any other day of the year.

If you were in a supermarket in the middle of June, and three large men came walking through looking like the grim reaper, a psycho clown and a zombie, you might reflexively grab your child or loved one and make for the door, assuming something was very wrong. Yet on this day, of all days, you would not think twice.

When the children from the neighborhood knock on your door, you are happily desirous of giving them some treat for their efforts and complimenting them on their creativity, regardless of topic or subject matter. 

For those of us who spend a majority of our time operating in the creative realm, Halloween is less of a unique diversion and more of a moment of normality in which everyone around us is invited to behave same, to express how they wish to be seen and allow others to comment freely, with honest appreciation for the creativity that each of us have opted to express. 

I would argue that Halloween shares a commonality with theme parks, in that it is a secluded experience designed to awaken the inner child and enable that child to openly behave in ways that will not be acceptable the next day or in the next place. 

Whatever your plans today, take a few moments to empower your inner child to have fun. Be playful and celebrate that in others. Recognize that perhaps there are deeper lessons to Halloween than what is experienced at face value and enjoy the holiday!

Happy Halloween!

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Written by Brian Weiner
When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!