Fear vs. Fun

Well, today is Halloween.  Halloween.  What a weird holiday.

    No, I’m serious!  People walk around in costumes that may or may not be frightening, knock on strangers’ doors, and ask for candy, which basically goes against everything we were ever taught as children.

    What’s more, scary things suddenly experience a major skyrocket.  People will pay to have the living daylights scared out of them.  Whether in the form of haunted houses or scary movies, people want to be scared.

    Why on earth would you want to be scared?  Isn’t the adrenaline rush you get from being scared supposed to instill a “fight or flight” reaction?  Because that is not what happens most of the time.  Instead, you usually experience a “jump and/or scream and then giggle nervously” reaction.  You don’t try to hit or kick whatever scared you, and it’s very rare that you run away or do anything to get yourself away from the situation.

    Right?  That’s what I thought.

    Don’t get me wrong: I like Halloween.  I’ve never been to a haunted house (real or otherwise).  I like scary movies to an extent.  I like suspenseful-scary, not horror-scary.  Ghosts or aliens or monsters are fine, but when you get into serial killers and creepos, I get distinctly more squeamish.

    I just don’t understand why we like being scared in that way.  I mean, if someone is afraid of a spider, they don’t usually go out of their way to find spiders and interact with them.  If you’re afraid of something and go out of your way to experience that thing, you probably fall underneath the aforementioned category of creepos.

    But for some reason, it’s what we do.  In fact, it’s a main part of society.  Haunted houses and scary movies are extremely popular, and increasingly so.  And the thing is, it’s not just spooky things that we like scaring us.  Let’s be real here: you are more afraid of rollercoasters than they are of you.
Just some food for thought.
I hope your day is as awesome as you.